Eh, just let the little ones play in the nude; you’ll quickly get a keen eye for the baby’s gotta go face. That is what it would be like if we followed the habits of prior centuries in areas of generally warmer weather. No dirty diapers to take care of, but I’m not convinced the trade-off is something I’d spring for.
A dirty diaper can a make a mess of a baby’s chill mood, a good outfit, and the smelly ambience in a crowd. Mothers from any time could tell you that. How we’ve taken care of them, however, has changed a lot.
In certain warm climates there was not much diaper care, other areas afforded hardly much more. Native American and other tribal groups kept their babies packed with milkweed to absorb waste, Eskimos gathered mosses seasonally. The baby stayed in a pack or wrapping of varying animal skins and had the absorbent plant materials packed around the necessary areas, however they only changed the dressing once every several days! Talk about diaper rash. Even in Europe only the highest class babies were changed once a day.
In the American frontier, mothers cared for their children with cloth squares and had learned some to change the children more frequently, however did not wash the diapers between uses. The cloth usually hung by the fire to dry until next use.
Many of us, or our parents, were raised on cloth diapers. Of course, they took more frequent care and washing than what was going on one hundred years ago, but it still means that you have to do something with the mess. If you’re on the go and changing with cloth, now you have to carry around the dirty one until you get back home to take care of it and get it in the laundry with the other diapers. Some people still prefer it this way. I remember my mom talking about changing cloth diapers saying it was some kind of therapeutic for her to hang them up on the clothesline in the sun to dry.
Today’s disposable diapers have a much higher cost per use, however the time and mess saved makes disposable diapers one of the best inventions for mothers in centuries. There is no cleaning up messes around the house, no re-washing cloth dirty diapers. The important part is keeping dirty pail emptied regularly, and a good supply of diapers on hand almost everywhere you and baby go.
