Why Cloth Diapers?
Part 1
Ever since I've said on my posts (many of them) that I will be cloth diapering our baby I have gotten ALOT of comments! And not all of them have been good btw! I've gotten the:
"EEEEWWW but the poop!"
"Don't you think about how people who are going to watch your baby will struggle with those!?"
"You aren't going to be able to do that!"
"You haven't thought this through have you?"
"But disposable is SO MUCH EASIER!"
"That's super old school! Catch up with the times!"
"Disposables are BETTER!"
"Sure at home it will be fine, but what about when you are in public or visiting people?"
"You really didn't take into account other people did you?"
WELL all you doubters! THIS post is for you! I really want to address all the questions and I think explaining the WHY's of Cloth diapering will help make my case and maybe even sway some of you doubters! This will be a 3 part post series. First the WHY's of cloth, Second all the TYPES of cloth diapers (there are a BUNCH) and the benefits of each, and Lastly what WE are going to cloth with for our baby! THIS one will be about all the WHY's: why we are choosing this approach, why we believe its better, why MANY others are going BACK to cloth, why it will benefit the baby AND us etc. SOOOO firstly:
Why Cloth diaper?
Well the main reason we are going to cloth diaper is because I said so. I didn't really give the hubby a choice lol. I said, since we got married, when we have a baby we are going to cloth diaper! He had his doubts.. at first... but I had to present my case (over a series of months... he has a short attention span lol) and in the end convinced him! So with that in mind I'll tell all of you what I told him that won him over the the cloth side!
This was my main sway point to the hubby. This time last year we finished up Dave Ramsey's financial peace university and really committed to paying off all our debts (house and car) and committing to a life of living debt free. This took us getting on a really strict budget
So babies on average over a 2 year span go through about 12 diapers a day (over a TWO year span). I know you go through more in the beginning and less before they potty train, but this is the average for the two years. So with that number in mind (2 years, and 12 diapers a day) I'll give you the $$ numbers.
(If you want to skip all the number figuring go to the GREEN LETTERS at the end of this section to just see the final numbers.)
***Disposable Diapering:
Average price per week for disposable diapering a baby: $20 (if you get the store value brand)
Times that by 2 years worth of weeks: $20*104 (2 years of weeks)= $2080.00 (WOW!! that adds up!)
PS that's also almost 8,000 diapers in two years!
So our base price for disposables is $2080.00
BUT you have to clean the baby's butt too! Average diaper change takes about 2-3 wipes:
So 3 (wipes) * 12 (per day)= 36 wipes a day But we'll say 30 for the sake of our calculations
so that makes about 200 wipes a week.
the average box of wipes has about 60 wipes for $2 so 3 packs a week costing $6 a week
$6 *104(2 years of weeks)= $624.00 JUST IN WIPES!! (and that's the bargain kind!)
So Diapering with disposables for JUST 2 YEARS will cost $2704.00!!!
And yes I know it will end up being only about $4 a day or $26 bucks a week but that's date night for me and my hubby!
***So for cloth diaper prices:
YES cloth diapering CAN be expensive, but it can also be pretty cheap too. So I'll give the spectrum of both sides, and on my final post of what WE are going to do I'll post what our cost should be.
Cheapest way to cloth diaper:
When you cloth diaper you usually want two days of cloth diapers as a MINIMUM so you can wash some while the baby still has a clean stash available. Flats and prefolds (Explained in next post) are for sure the cheapest option. These are what our moms and grandmas are the most familiar with. It's roughly $32 for a dozen prefolds (flats are even cheaper, but I'll get into that on the next post) and I would get three dozen (you can use some as burp cloths, and JUST in case of a bad poop day you'll want extras!) so for about $100 you can have the cloth. To hold the cloth in place you'll need what's called a Snappi (safety pins are no longer needed!) and you can have 3 for about $9. With flats and prefolds you need a diaper cover (you don't want leaks!) and you need about 4 of those. They cost on average $10 a piece. So:
$100 (3 doz prefolds) + $9 (Snappi) + $40 (4 covers*$10) = $149.00
That's it! $149.00 to cloth diaper your baby for 2 years!
But lets be fair and include the wipe like I did for disposables: ALOT of people who cloth diaper DO use disposable wipes so the CHEAPEST route for 2 years so far would be $149 (diapers) and $624 for wipes= $733.00 Thats a little over a dollar a day or just over $7 a week!
Thats almost $2000 LESS then disposables for 2 years! Think of what you can buy with that extra $2000.00!!!
As promised there are more expensive types of cloth diapers: wool, all in ones (AI0) all in twos (AI2), hybrids ((I'll go over all these in the next post)). Since the AVERAGE person ends up getting AI2's I'll quote those ones:
Most AI2s are "one sized diapers": diapers that should last from newborn to potty training. BUT I've found the smallest setting is kind of bulky for a newborn (again, I'll explain on the next post) So you'll need two sets of diapers: one set for newborn to 3-4 months on, and a set for after. Since newborns go more you'll need about 30 diapers for a 2 day supply, and then 24 for a two day supply after 4 months. The average AI2 costs $20, so 54 (30 newborn and 24 after 4 months) diapers would cost $1080 just in diapers. Add the cost of wipes: $1704.00. Only about $1000 cheaper then disposables.
***Cloth WIPE costs
BUT I can STILL make it cheaper!!! So a lot of people who cloth diaper have the moto if you cloth diaper, why not cloth wipe!? This thought had never occurred to me until I saw a couple pins on Pinterest. The point was made: You already are going to be washing diapers so how hard is it to throw the wipes in with them!? This got me thinking.. hmm could I really cloth wipe too? would it be beneficial and cost effective? Well here are your answers!: Remember the disposable wipe count needed for a day? (36 a day) well you'll be happy to know that not as many are needed for cloth wipes. Turns out, cloth does a MUCH better job cleaning up then disposable. On average 1-2 wipes are needed per clean up (depending on how bad the poo) so we'll say 1.5 wipes * 12 (remember the diapers per day?) So 18 a day. For the sake of bad poos, we'll just say 20 per day. BUT for this we don't need to have a week's supply, just at least 2 days, so 40 wipes.
There are a few ways to get cloth wipes, you can buy them from people who have made them or from some company. (I'm not putting those costs because I'm crafty and can make my own) You can just cut up some fabric i.e. old shirts/ receiving blankets and use those (If you get these as gifts... FREE). OR you can make your own! The average wipe is about 7inches by 7inches. Keeping that in mind, a yard of fabric would make about 25 wipes. However if I'm making the wipes, I'm going to have them reinforced (double sided) So it will take about 2 yards per 25 wipes. Knowing I'll need 40 wipes, I'll have to double the yardage, and end up with 4 yards to make 50 wipes (yay for extras!). Different fabrics are used to make wipes, depending on the person, some use flannel some use cotton, some use the t-shirt material, or terry cloth. For sake of easy sewing job I would do 2 yards of flannel (about $4 a yard) and 2 yards of cotton blend (bout $3.50 a yard). plus the cost of thread (about $2 worth).
Total cost to make 50 wipes= $17.00
***Washing cost
And I know... there is the "but you still have to do laundry! all that money added in water and electricity makes up the difference easy!"... well here are those numbers:
To calculate the cost of what a load of laundry costs I went to this site. Keep in mind I have a HE washer and a gas dryer/ water heater so there is some savings there. You'll have to do some research on your bill and possibly call your electric/ water/ gas company to get some of the prices btw! but here's what I came up with number wise:
Cost per load of WASHER laundry including detergent: about $0.14 a wash (don't hate me, my HE is awesome!)
Cost per load of Dryer Laundry: $0.18 a load.
Total cost per load: Roughly $0.32 a wash. BUT I'll be drying most of my diapers on a clothes line out side (I live in Arizona people, the SUN is FREE and sometimes depending on the the weather actually drys faster then the dryer! ** PLUS the sun is great for bleaching out stains) But I'll do both quotes of with dryer and without:
since I'll be doing a load of diapers about every other day it will be about 4 extra loads a week.
Total cost with dryer $.32 *4 (loads a week) *52 (weeks in the year) *2 (years of diapering)=$133.12
Total cost wash only: $.14*4*52*2= $58.24
And realistically I'll probably get rain some days and have to use the dryer so my total cost will between the two... Lets just say $80 for fun..
Total cost to wash diapers for 2 years: $80.00
TOTAL COST COMPARISON FOR 2 YEARS OF DIAPERING:
Disposables only: $2704.00
Cheapest cloth W/cloth wipes and wash: $246
Cheapest cloth W/ disposable wipes and wash: $813.00
Average cloth W/ disposable wipes and wash: $1784.00
Average cloth W/ cloth wipes and wash: $1177.00
So as you can see for price comparison sake, the cheapest route is less the $300 for two years and $2704 for the most expensive (Disposables) BUT the cool thing with cloth is if you have another baby you can REUSE the cloth diapers for the second so then you would have THESE Prices
Total Cost comparison for diapering 2 kids:
Disposables only: $5408.00
Cheapest cloth W/cloth wipes and wash: $326 (added the cost of 2 more years of washing)
Cheapest cloth W/ disposable wipes and wash: $1517 (cost of another 2 years of wipes and wash)
Average cloth W/ disposable wipes and wash: $2488 (cost of another 2 years of wipes and wash)
Average cloth W/ cloth wipes and wash: $1257 (added cost of 2 more years of washing)
In reality you can do all the above for cheaper with baby showers and registries. Those are all rough estimates, but if your cloth diapers are gifted there is a much bigger savings initially. You can see from the prices of cloth diapers, that parents are more willing to do small amounts of money little bits at a time (the $26 a week for disposables) and not so much the initial $200 or $1000 up front for cloth.
This one kind of hits home because this is the problem my mom said my sister and I had. She started us on disposables or when we went to the sitter we had disposables. BUT the disposables would give us a diaper rash! Many babies have diaper rashes, some parents even take it as being part of diapering a baby. Diaper companies even state that diaper rashes are COMMON and EXPECTED on their websites! There are a bunch of creams and powders out there to help with rashes right? Let me explain how rashes work: it's a REACTION to something irritating the baby's skin. simple. as. that. The complicated part is figuring out WHAT is the irritant. A lot of the times its the baby sitting in its own WET (weather that be pee or poo), and other times its a combination of the wet AND the chemicals in the diaper touching the baby's skin. And sometimes all it is is the diaper its self and what its made out of. Well this was mine and my sister's problems. We were allergic to the synthetics in the disposables and always got rashes when wearing them. So my mom cloth diapered out of necessity for our poor little booties!
Now I'm not saying cloth babies DON'T get diaper rashes, but they are less likely to. Just like you usually don't get rashes from the cloths you wear, babies don't usually get rashes either.. when they are dry. The rashes usually come with the baby sitting in a dirty diaper too long, but trust me they will let you know they are wet WAY faster then disposable babies. Plus the cloth diapers BREATH better, they let air get to your baby's bum which helps ALOT when recovering from a diaper rash.
So back to the personal side... fast forward 26 years, I've baby sat and watched babies since my early teens. Non of which had cloth... BUT at one time or another each baby has had diaper rash... and so have I! That's right I STILL get rashes from the diapers! FROM JUST CHANGING THEM! I think I mentioned I have really bad allergies in past posts? Yeah well.. I'm still allergic to synthetics... like when I have surgery: no latex gloves, and some of the medical tapes make me break out. I can only use certain types of detergents etc.. you get the point.. cloth will benefit the baby and ME.. the main care giver.
Blowouts are also a problem that ALOT of disposable (if not all) users experience. Blowouts for those who don't know are when your baby has a HUGE poop that either goes out the leg holes or up the back through the waist band. This issue has been brought up: "but when you have blow outs you just want to throw the diaper away! You can't do that with cloth diapers!" Where yes that is true, blow outs are gross... cloth diaper clean ups can be dealt with the same way IF (more on that in a minute) you get one. You put the baby AND all the poop mess in the bath tub and wash them down. Poop, especially baby poop on breast milk is water soluble so it should clean up pretty easily.
BUT (hehe pun) fun fact! If you cloth diaper correctly you should RARELY get blowout! Like I said before blowouts happen through the leg holes or up the back through the waist band... When you think about it... its because of an ill fitting diaper. If there is a GAP around the legs or around the waist then there is room for poo to escape! And when you further think about disposables... what are they made of??? a kind of papery/plasticy stretchy material right? and can this material be stretched out? (Yes.. the answer is yes) That's what you get from mass produced diapers that fit a baby's size...(just like every person who thinks they are a size 8 fits into ALL sized 8 jeans JUST right... see where I'm going with this??) And its funny with all the "absorbency" these diapers advertise, shouldn't they be able to hold in a little extra poo?
Well cloth diapers can help alleviate this! Cloth diapers are a true adjustable fit around the legs and waist and the best part is because they are made from CLOTH it doesn't stretch out! Most mommies and daddies that use cloth RARELY have blowouts! And when they do its because of the diaper fit is off or because the wash routine is not quite right (I'll go into wash routines another time) and the diapers have build up (eeewwww right?). So long story short: Cloth diapers SHOULD hold in the poop!
Leaving for longer then a day? Overnight maybe? A couple days? Well if its to a family member's house, they probably have a washer and dryer. You can take a medium or large sized wet bag to hold the soiled diapers until you are able to do a load. If you are only gone for a day you could always just bring them back home and wash them when you get home. If you end up taking a trip away from family for a couple days, find a local laundry mat, OR if you are really worried you could find disposable diapers like Honest company diapers they are ALOT more money ($14 for 40) but they are a lot better for the baby then normal disposables HERE is some info on what they use in their diapers. These would be good for a short amount of time if you are really against traveling with cloth diapers.
SOOO Here is my cliff notes list of benefits to cloth diapering:
*Cheaper- cost effective
*less chance of diaper rash
*Potty train quicker
*poop is a "big deal" no matter how you diaper
*less chance of blowouts! (YAY!)
*ANYONE can cloth diaper if they try
*Traveling with cloth isn't THAT hard
As far as the points I didn't address:
-Old school?- That will be addressed in the next diaper post
-Disposable is easier- so is getting fat, but anything worth while takes effort. Marriage isn't easy, childbirth isn't easy, raising a child isn't easy, diapering doesn't have to be "easy" either, but with time and practice it will be!
-Disposables are better- lets agree to disagree on that one, I think I made MANY point in this post defending WHY I think they are better... and not just because I THINK, I had some hard evidence (see cliff notes)
-"haven't thought this through"- Um... yeah I have If you STILL don't think I've thought this through then please re-read and then wait for my other posts on diapering with cloth :)
***If you have any questions or comments I'll be happy to address them! I may have forgotten some points or who knows, maybe there is an element I haven't thought of that you could bring up. ***
Well until next time
Bre and the Bump
"EEEEWWW but the poop!"
"Don't you think about how people who are going to watch your baby will struggle with those!?"
"You aren't going to be able to do that!"
"You haven't thought this through have you?"
"But disposable is SO MUCH EASIER!"
"That's super old school! Catch up with the times!"
"Disposables are BETTER!"
"Sure at home it will be fine, but what about when you are in public or visiting people?"
"You really didn't take into account other people did you?"
WELL all you doubters! THIS post is for you! I really want to address all the questions and I think explaining the WHY's of Cloth diapering will help make my case and maybe even sway some of you doubters! This will be a 3 part post series. First the WHY's of cloth, Second all the TYPES of cloth diapers (there are a BUNCH) and the benefits of each, and Lastly what WE are going to cloth with for our baby! THIS one will be about all the WHY's: why we are choosing this approach, why we believe its better, why MANY others are going BACK to cloth, why it will benefit the baby AND us etc. SOOOO firstly:
Why Cloth diaper?
Well the main reason we are going to cloth diaper is because I said so. I didn't really give the hubby a choice lol. I said, since we got married, when we have a baby we are going to cloth diaper! He had his doubts.. at first... but I had to present my case (over a series of months... he has a short attention span lol) and in the end convinced him! So with that in mind I'll tell all of you what I told him that won him over the the cloth side!
Why cloth diapering benefits the pocketbook:
 |
| This is a pic from google I got that kind of gives a good vision on the AMOUNT of diapers you go through... in one year |
So babies on average over a 2 year span go through about 12 diapers a day (over a TWO year span). I know you go through more in the beginning and less before they potty train, but this is the average for the two years. So with that number in mind (2 years, and 12 diapers a day) I'll give you the $$ numbers.
(If you want to skip all the number figuring go to the GREEN LETTERS at the end of this section to just see the final numbers.)
***Disposable Diapering:
Average price per week for disposable diapering a baby: $20 (if you get the store value brand)
Times that by 2 years worth of weeks: $20*104 (2 years of weeks)= $2080.00 (WOW!! that adds up!)
PS that's also almost 8,000 diapers in two years!
So our base price for disposables is $2080.00
BUT you have to clean the baby's butt too! Average diaper change takes about 2-3 wipes:
So 3 (wipes) * 12 (per day)= 36 wipes a day But we'll say 30 for the sake of our calculations
so that makes about 200 wipes a week.
the average box of wipes has about 60 wipes for $2 so 3 packs a week costing $6 a week
$6 *104(2 years of weeks)= $624.00 JUST IN WIPES!! (and that's the bargain kind!)
So Diapering with disposables for JUST 2 YEARS will cost $2704.00!!!
And yes I know it will end up being only about $4 a day or $26 bucks a week but that's date night for me and my hubby!
***So for cloth diaper prices:
YES cloth diapering CAN be expensive, but it can also be pretty cheap too. So I'll give the spectrum of both sides, and on my final post of what WE are going to do I'll post what our cost should be.
Cheapest way to cloth diaper:
When you cloth diaper you usually want two days of cloth diapers as a MINIMUM so you can wash some while the baby still has a clean stash available. Flats and prefolds (Explained in next post) are for sure the cheapest option. These are what our moms and grandmas are the most familiar with. It's roughly $32 for a dozen prefolds (flats are even cheaper, but I'll get into that on the next post) and I would get three dozen (you can use some as burp cloths, and JUST in case of a bad poop day you'll want extras!) so for about $100 you can have the cloth. To hold the cloth in place you'll need what's called a Snappi (safety pins are no longer needed!) and you can have 3 for about $9. With flats and prefolds you need a diaper cover (you don't want leaks!) and you need about 4 of those. They cost on average $10 a piece. So:
$100 (3 doz prefolds) + $9 (Snappi) + $40 (4 covers*$10) = $149.00
That's it! $149.00 to cloth diaper your baby for 2 years!
But lets be fair and include the wipe like I did for disposables: ALOT of people who cloth diaper DO use disposable wipes so the CHEAPEST route for 2 years so far would be $149 (diapers) and $624 for wipes= $733.00 Thats a little over a dollar a day or just over $7 a week!
Thats almost $2000 LESS then disposables for 2 years! Think of what you can buy with that extra $2000.00!!!
As promised there are more expensive types of cloth diapers: wool, all in ones (AI0) all in twos (AI2), hybrids ((I'll go over all these in the next post)). Since the AVERAGE person ends up getting AI2's I'll quote those ones:
Most AI2s are "one sized diapers": diapers that should last from newborn to potty training. BUT I've found the smallest setting is kind of bulky for a newborn (again, I'll explain on the next post) So you'll need two sets of diapers: one set for newborn to 3-4 months on, and a set for after. Since newborns go more you'll need about 30 diapers for a 2 day supply, and then 24 for a two day supply after 4 months. The average AI2 costs $20, so 54 (30 newborn and 24 after 4 months) diapers would cost $1080 just in diapers. Add the cost of wipes: $1704.00. Only about $1000 cheaper then disposables.
***Cloth WIPE costs
BUT I can STILL make it cheaper!!! So a lot of people who cloth diaper have the moto if you cloth diaper, why not cloth wipe!? This thought had never occurred to me until I saw a couple pins on Pinterest. The point was made: You already are going to be washing diapers so how hard is it to throw the wipes in with them!? This got me thinking.. hmm could I really cloth wipe too? would it be beneficial and cost effective? Well here are your answers!: Remember the disposable wipe count needed for a day? (36 a day) well you'll be happy to know that not as many are needed for cloth wipes. Turns out, cloth does a MUCH better job cleaning up then disposable. On average 1-2 wipes are needed per clean up (depending on how bad the poo) so we'll say 1.5 wipes * 12 (remember the diapers per day?) So 18 a day. For the sake of bad poos, we'll just say 20 per day. BUT for this we don't need to have a week's supply, just at least 2 days, so 40 wipes.
There are a few ways to get cloth wipes, you can buy them from people who have made them or from some company. (I'm not putting those costs because I'm crafty and can make my own) You can just cut up some fabric i.e. old shirts/ receiving blankets and use those (If you get these as gifts... FREE). OR you can make your own! The average wipe is about 7inches by 7inches. Keeping that in mind, a yard of fabric would make about 25 wipes. However if I'm making the wipes, I'm going to have them reinforced (double sided) So it will take about 2 yards per 25 wipes. Knowing I'll need 40 wipes, I'll have to double the yardage, and end up with 4 yards to make 50 wipes (yay for extras!). Different fabrics are used to make wipes, depending on the person, some use flannel some use cotton, some use the t-shirt material, or terry cloth. For sake of easy sewing job I would do 2 yards of flannel (about $4 a yard) and 2 yards of cotton blend (bout $3.50 a yard). plus the cost of thread (about $2 worth).
Total cost to make 50 wipes= $17.00
***Washing cost
And I know... there is the "but you still have to do laundry! all that money added in water and electricity makes up the difference easy!"... well here are those numbers:
To calculate the cost of what a load of laundry costs I went to this site. Keep in mind I have a HE washer and a gas dryer/ water heater so there is some savings there. You'll have to do some research on your bill and possibly call your electric/ water/ gas company to get some of the prices btw! but here's what I came up with number wise:
Cost per load of WASHER laundry including detergent: about $0.14 a wash (don't hate me, my HE is awesome!)
Cost per load of Dryer Laundry: $0.18 a load.
Total cost per load: Roughly $0.32 a wash. BUT I'll be drying most of my diapers on a clothes line out side (I live in Arizona people, the SUN is FREE and sometimes depending on the the weather actually drys faster then the dryer! ** PLUS the sun is great for bleaching out stains) But I'll do both quotes of with dryer and without:
since I'll be doing a load of diapers about every other day it will be about 4 extra loads a week.
Total cost with dryer $.32 *4 (loads a week) *52 (weeks in the year) *2 (years of diapering)=$133.12
Total cost wash only: $.14*4*52*2= $58.24
And realistically I'll probably get rain some days and have to use the dryer so my total cost will between the two... Lets just say $80 for fun..
Total cost to wash diapers for 2 years: $80.00
TOTAL COST COMPARISON FOR 2 YEARS OF DIAPERING:
Disposables only: $2704.00
Cheapest cloth W/cloth wipes and wash: $246
Cheapest cloth W/ disposable wipes and wash: $813.00
Average cloth W/ disposable wipes and wash: $1784.00
Average cloth W/ cloth wipes and wash: $1177.00
So as you can see for price comparison sake, the cheapest route is less the $300 for two years and $2704 for the most expensive (Disposables) BUT the cool thing with cloth is if you have another baby you can REUSE the cloth diapers for the second so then you would have THESE Prices
Total Cost comparison for diapering 2 kids:
Disposables only: $5408.00
Cheapest cloth W/cloth wipes and wash: $326 (added the cost of 2 more years of washing)
Cheapest cloth W/ disposable wipes and wash: $1517 (cost of another 2 years of wipes and wash)
Average cloth W/ disposable wipes and wash: $2488 (cost of another 2 years of wipes and wash)
Average cloth W/ cloth wipes and wash: $1257 (added cost of 2 more years of washing)
In reality you can do all the above for cheaper with baby showers and registries. Those are all rough estimates, but if your cloth diapers are gifted there is a much bigger savings initially. You can see from the prices of cloth diapers, that parents are more willing to do small amounts of money little bits at a time (the $26 a week for disposables) and not so much the initial $200 or $1000 up front for cloth.
Diaper Rash
Also I've had the argument from people that their kids don't use THAT many diapers.. BUT I know first hand that with disposables SOME parents take advantage of the "up to 12 hours of feel dry protection." These diapers can TRIPLE in size with pee and the baby will still feel dry because of the chemicals and materials used. BUT I can also argue diaper rash.This one kind of hits home because this is the problem my mom said my sister and I had. She started us on disposables or when we went to the sitter we had disposables. BUT the disposables would give us a diaper rash! Many babies have diaper rashes, some parents even take it as being part of diapering a baby. Diaper companies even state that diaper rashes are COMMON and EXPECTED on their websites! There are a bunch of creams and powders out there to help with rashes right? Let me explain how rashes work: it's a REACTION to something irritating the baby's skin. simple. as. that. The complicated part is figuring out WHAT is the irritant. A lot of the times its the baby sitting in its own WET (weather that be pee or poo), and other times its a combination of the wet AND the chemicals in the diaper touching the baby's skin. And sometimes all it is is the diaper its self and what its made out of. Well this was mine and my sister's problems. We were allergic to the synthetics in the disposables and always got rashes when wearing them. So my mom cloth diapered out of necessity for our poor little booties!
Now I'm not saying cloth babies DON'T get diaper rashes, but they are less likely to. Just like you usually don't get rashes from the cloths you wear, babies don't usually get rashes either.. when they are dry. The rashes usually come with the baby sitting in a dirty diaper too long, but trust me they will let you know they are wet WAY faster then disposable babies. Plus the cloth diapers BREATH better, they let air get to your baby's bum which helps ALOT when recovering from a diaper rash.
So back to the personal side... fast forward 26 years, I've baby sat and watched babies since my early teens. Non of which had cloth... BUT at one time or another each baby has had diaper rash... and so have I! That's right I STILL get rashes from the diapers! FROM JUST CHANGING THEM! I think I mentioned I have really bad allergies in past posts? Yeah well.. I'm still allergic to synthetics... like when I have surgery: no latex gloves, and some of the medical tapes make me break out. I can only use certain types of detergents etc.. you get the point.. cloth will benefit the baby and ME.. the main care giver.
Potty Training
I think it should ALSO be noted that the 2 year estimate needs to be addressed.. this was IF your baby potty trains by 2, any time after that... add more money. FUN FACT TIME! Babies who cloth diaper are aware of being WET faster and potty train faster! I was a cloth diaper baby and potty trained super fast! Babies who use disposables aren't as aware of the WET because of all the chemicals used to absorb the wet and help them feel dry. Don't feel wet... don't realize you went... don't learn to not wet yourself. I mean I know 4 year olds who still aren't potty trained! I was more shocked that they MAKE diapers for 4 or 5 year olds.. but I guess in the industry of making money it would benefit the diaper people to keep the kids on diapers as long as possible.. =more MONEY for the makers.Why deal with the poop?
This is probably the biggest thing that is brought up to me as a "hey you don't want to go this route." BUT again I've done my research and have an answer for you on that one too! Less then HALF a percent of people who diaper, dispose of the WASTE correctly. EVERY BOX says something to the effect of "dump the waste in the toilet before disposing of the diaper." Here are a few examples.. costco brand, seventh generation, pampers brand:
Fun fact: ALL disposable diaper boxes have this message.. ya'll just choose to not follow the LAW that human waste isn't supposed to go to land fills! So to answer your "but you have to deal with poop!" comments... well YOU are supposed to be "dealing" with it too! You dispose of you OWN poo, no different for babies too! People just get their fancy diaper genies and throw the poopy diapers diapers in there and forget about the rest. Even IF I used disposables I would still dump the poo in the toilet, no different for cloth diapers. Plus they have these cool things called diaper sprayers that connect to toilets that will pre rinse the poo AND pee before washing! (I'll talk more on that in the next post)
Blowouts are also a problem that ALOT of disposable (if not all) users experience. Blowouts for those who don't know are when your baby has a HUGE poop that either goes out the leg holes or up the back through the waist band. This issue has been brought up: "but when you have blow outs you just want to throw the diaper away! You can't do that with cloth diapers!" Where yes that is true, blow outs are gross... cloth diaper clean ups can be dealt with the same way IF (more on that in a minute) you get one. You put the baby AND all the poop mess in the bath tub and wash them down. Poop, especially baby poop on breast milk is water soluble so it should clean up pretty easily.
BUT (hehe pun) fun fact! If you cloth diaper correctly you should RARELY get blowout! Like I said before blowouts happen through the leg holes or up the back through the waist band... When you think about it... its because of an ill fitting diaper. If there is a GAP around the legs or around the waist then there is room for poo to escape! And when you further think about disposables... what are they made of??? a kind of papery/plasticy stretchy material right? and can this material be stretched out? (Yes.. the answer is yes) That's what you get from mass produced diapers that fit a baby's size...(just like every person who thinks they are a size 8 fits into ALL sized 8 jeans JUST right... see where I'm going with this??) And its funny with all the "absorbency" these diapers advertise, shouldn't they be able to hold in a little extra poo?
Well cloth diapers can help alleviate this! Cloth diapers are a true adjustable fit around the legs and waist and the best part is because they are made from CLOTH it doesn't stretch out! Most mommies and daddies that use cloth RARELY have blowouts! And when they do its because of the diaper fit is off or because the wash routine is not quite right (I'll go into wash routines another time) and the diapers have build up (eeewwww right?). So long story short: Cloth diapers SHOULD hold in the poop!
Use by others
Now to address people who say its not fair to those I'm going to have watch my baby. Well firstly if I come to your house to watch your baby, you have your own set of rules: what they can eat, what time they eat, when bed time and bath time is, bed time rituals, what the kid is aloud to watch/do etc... The point I'm making is if I watch a kid/baby I respect THAT parent's wishes and instructions of care... I would expect the SAME from whomever will be watching my baby. On the plus side my mom and dad have successfully cloth diapered two babies (me and my sister, and probably many more in their church nursery days) and have no problem with our decision to use cloth. Any others can take a crash coarse in cloth diapering or I won't have them watch my baby. Simple as that, it may seem mean but I believe parents have a right to parent their kids however they want as long as the child is not in any physical or mental/ emotional harm (this is the social worker side of me). But there are also cloth diapers that are called "grandparent and sitter friendly" and I'll point those out in my next diaper post.Why travel with cloth diapers?
Now this is something I really thought long and hard on. It's easy to cloth diaper at home, toilet is right next to the baby room, laundry is right there, I have the unlimited stash of diapers in the same room. But, what happens when you go on vacation or up north to visit family, or just have a day out shopping and driving? Babies don't go through less diapers just because you are out of the house. But if you have a diaper bag, you can cloth diaper away from home. Cloth diapers fold down pretty small and fit easily in the diaper bag. Everywhere has a toilet, so you can dispose of the waste anywhere. Also the soiled diapers waiting to be washed get put in wet bags (more on this in the next post) so a small wet bag is all that is needed for a day trip. Put the wet diapers in the bag after changing the baby and put the wet bag in the diaper bag. (they are water proof and leak proof)Leaving for longer then a day? Overnight maybe? A couple days? Well if its to a family member's house, they probably have a washer and dryer. You can take a medium or large sized wet bag to hold the soiled diapers until you are able to do a load. If you are only gone for a day you could always just bring them back home and wash them when you get home. If you end up taking a trip away from family for a couple days, find a local laundry mat, OR if you are really worried you could find disposable diapers like Honest company diapers they are ALOT more money ($14 for 40) but they are a lot better for the baby then normal disposables HERE is some info on what they use in their diapers. These would be good for a short amount of time if you are really against traveling with cloth diapers.
SOOO Here is my cliff notes list of benefits to cloth diapering:
*Cheaper- cost effective
*less chance of diaper rash
*Potty train quicker
*poop is a "big deal" no matter how you diaper
*less chance of blowouts! (YAY!)
*ANYONE can cloth diaper if they try
*Traveling with cloth isn't THAT hard
As far as the points I didn't address:
-Old school?- That will be addressed in the next diaper post
-Disposable is easier- so is getting fat, but anything worth while takes effort. Marriage isn't easy, childbirth isn't easy, raising a child isn't easy, diapering doesn't have to be "easy" either, but with time and practice it will be!
-Disposables are better- lets agree to disagree on that one, I think I made MANY point in this post defending WHY I think they are better... and not just because I THINK, I had some hard evidence (see cliff notes)
-"haven't thought this through"- Um... yeah I have If you STILL don't think I've thought this through then please re-read and then wait for my other posts on diapering with cloth :)
***If you have any questions or comments I'll be happy to address them! I may have forgotten some points or who knows, maybe there is an element I haven't thought of that you could bring up. ***
Well until next time
Bre and the Bump
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