Sally’s Kitchen & Stuff

When I first decided to cloth diaper, everybody thought I was nuts. Well, everyone in the real world, anyway. The online people seem to dig it. It’s the IT thing to do. It’s good for environment. All that.

Well, all that is different when you’re actually faced with washing a bucket full of diapers.

And guess what? It’s not that bad. Actually, I like it now (we started off on disposables) much better than when we threw them all away. Here are some things I often heard, and my answers to them.

Everyone I know uses disposable diapers! If we’ve been using them for so long, how bad can they be for the environment? What
are the most thrown away item? Newspapers. Second? Drink containers.
Third? Disposable diapers. How bad are they? The answer is very, very
bad.

The average child is diapered for 2.5 years. That’s about 6000 diapers.
To make 6000 diapers. That amounts to 750lbs of wood, 50lbs of
chlorine, and 125lbs of petroleum feedstocks. Using the chlorine to bleach the diapers produces dioxin. (What is dioxin?)

And when it’s all thrown in the garbage, you end up with 6000
disposable diapers in the landfill that takes up to 500 years to
decompose. If you use a diaper disposal system like a diaper genie, you’re adding 6000 little plastic baggies to that equation.

Don’t they get stinky? Not nearly as much as disposables. When we had disposables, and end up always with at least a few dirty diapers in the house. What’s more, they have  perfumes in them that actually made them smell worse. Now that I rinse them out every time (more on that later), the place doesn’t smell like poo AT ALL.

Besides, what kind of argument is that? All diapers contain poo so they are all a bit stinky. The difference is how much stinkier cloth ones are. The answer? Not at all. They smell less.

Isn’t it a lot more work? Nope. I don’t have to go out and buy diapers when we run out, we just do one extra load when we do our weekly laundry. It’s no big deal. I rinse them out every time I use one (you don’t HAVE to, but I don’t like the thought of poo sitting around for a week in the house) but that doesn’t take any longer than me wrapping a sposie up and taking them to the trash outside.

Once you get used to it, putting on a prefold takes no longer than fluffing a disposable out. And if you’re really feeling iffy about all the liner/diaper/cover that you have to fuss with, you can always get yourself some pocket diapers.

Disposables hold in more pee so the baby stays dry longer. Technically, this is true. But it doesn’t absorb as quickly, and it doesn’t grab onto solid waste. Do you breastfeed your baby? Do you notice that sometimes s/he experiences a "blow-out" where everything just kinda goes right out the back? Well, cotton grabs onto the waste, and it stays in the diaper. Disposables do not. My baby hasn’t had a blowout since he’s been in a cloth diaper.

Disposables are also more prone to leaks. When I put him in a disposable for the night thinking that he’ll sleep longer because he’ll stay dry longer, 1 time out of, say, 4, he would leak in his sleep. Then he’d be wet, and cold, and screaming in the middle of the night.

Sure, disposables are bad for the environment, but what about the water and detergent used in washing your cotton diapers? Isn’t that bad for the environment? That’s the silliest, and most often heard, argument from the disposable diaper makers and users. If we follow that logic, it’d be better for us adults to use disposable clothing because then we wouldn’t have to waste water washing them! Or we should use plastic knives/forks and paper plates all the time to save water in washing them out!

I’ve heard that using vinyl pants and cotton diapers give babies diaper rash. Not true. Diaper rash occurs when there is chafing (often caused by wetness) between your diaper and the baby. What do you think is more likely to chafe the baby? Wet cotton flannel, or paper and plastic?

Disposable users also tend to (wrongly) believe that you won’t change the baby when he starts complaining about the wetness. In reality, you shouldn’t leave the baby in a diaper - any diaper - for more than 3 hours during the day. During the night, baby is less active and so is his/her bowels and bladder. Since people leave babies in diapers for longer periods of time, there are more reports of diaper rash. Diaper rash was a very rare thing in 1950 when everyone used cloth diapers.

Today’s diaper covers are made of layers of polyester laminate and weaves that keeps them dry on the outside but can still breathe.

Aren’t they expensive? I mean, for all the money spent on water and electricity in washing them? Cloth diapering is the MOST affordable option for diapering your baby. There is a one time investment, and depending on your options - making them, buying them, getting them second hand - it can be quite affordable even with the initial amount of the diapers themselves. For example, if you buy prefolds, they’re only $3 a diaper. $108 would net you the 36 recommended amount. Covers, expensive ones, are around $10 each but you only need 3-4. That’s $148. Even with accessories and such, it’ll be around $200 altogether for the cheapest option, and that will last you the entire 2.5 years!

It costs $17 in water to launder your baby’s diapers for the entire 2.5 years period. Electricity? Depends on the appliance. Averaging not much more than the water. I live in an apartment so we’re using a laundromat. That’s $2 a load, 2 loads a week. $4 a week. A package of 36 diapers costs $12 at the grocery store. That’ll last 6 days.

Even if you go the pockets diaper route, that’s still only around $700-1000 spread over 2.5 years. Versus $2000 for disposables.

Having a baby? Or already have a baby and using disposables? Are you ready to make the leap? I’ve handpicked a list of products that would make this easier, or you could just go down to your local cloth diaper store.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 12th, 2007 at 3:46 pm and is filed under babies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.