Mama’s considering cloth, or switching to cloth, often ask this question as they weight the pros and cons for their family. The main reasons people choose to use cloth are as follows:
*Save money. Save an average of $2000 for your first child. Only pay laundry costs for kids after that!
*Save the environment. One child in disposables adds 1 ton of waste to a landfill.
*Keep harmful chemicals away from baby’s bottom. I have read that certain chemicals now banned for feminine hygiene products are still used in diapers.
*Use the same diapers for multiple kids. Either at the same time (I recommend one size diaper in this case) or sequentially for each child you have.
*Fun styles and patterns. So much more fun and variety than the little pictures printed on disposals!
The average baby is in diapers between two to three years and uses approximately 8,500 diapers (based on 8 diapers a day for 3 years). On average, each diaper will cost you about .35 (based on .19 for infants and .41 for toddlers). So for every child that uses disposable diapers, parents will usually spend between $2,000 – $3,000. Unfortunately, when the baby is potty trained you can never use them again.
I started with disposals when my daughter was born and continued to use them at night for my first few months of cloth diapering. So I like to bring up a couple additional points supporting the use of cloth diapers:
*Fewer to no “blow outs”. This saves you time getting stains out or money on ruined clothing. Cloth contains these messes a lot better than disposals where blow outs just seem to slide right across them.
*Cheaper generic diapers leak and you end up using more of them. I stuck to Pampers and Huggies when my daughter was born but them experimented with some generic brands and realized I was using twice as many diapers because they didn’t absorb as much or as well.
There are a LOT of websites and resources that outline other arguments as to why cloth is a wise choice. The most recent website I read that I felt did a good job clearly outlining pros to cloth is at http://www.thechangingtimes.com/
The best way to clean cloth diapers is to pre-rinse them off in the toilet using a Hand Bathroom Bidet Sprayer. So convenient and if you are trying to help the environment (and your pocket book) you can give it a double whammy by virtually eliminating toilet paper use at the same time as you benefit from using it on the diapers, by using it on yourself. I think Dr. Oz on Oprah said it best: “if you had pee or poop on your hand, you wouldn’t wipe it off with paper, would you? You’d wash it off” Available at http://www.bathroomsprayers.com they come in an inexpensive kit and can be installed without a plumber. And after using one of these you won’t know how you lasted all those years with wadded up handfuls of toilet paper. Now we’re talking green and helping the environment without any pain. One review: http://jonathanandandrea.blogspot.com/2009/04/spray-it-or-scrub-it.html
This is all so true. Just today I was telling a friend that I was so glad I use cloth for those moments (like I had this afternoon) when she poops in a fresh diaper. How sad it would be to throw away a diaper I just put on!