I've complied the top 5 reasons I chose to go Cloth VS Disposable diapers...
5: Style
Chosen lastly on this list, but I mean, realistically, you know as much as I do that you love to dress up your baby...well, at least I do. And disposable diapers just aren't that cute. There is an amazing array of beautiful colors and prints for both genders of baby! You can literally match any outfit, or even just let them go pants/skirt-less because who doesn't want to show them off?
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| Showing off his "Jules" print, by Bum Genius |
How many times do you take out the garbage in your house? It's almost unavoidable, especially as a family, you are going to create some kind of trash. Now think about how many diaper changes you do in a 24hour period? With cloth, we have cut down our trips to the dumpster way down, and aren't adding that much more to landfills (and it takes a long time for disposable diapers to decompose, actually estimated at 250-500 years!). Less of a carbon footprint=saving the earth, once change at a time.
3: Sensitivity
Some babies are more susceptible to skin irritation from wetness (increasing risk of rashes) or can even be allergic to some of the materials found in disposable diapers. Horrifyingly for Mom, you sometimes never run into this kind of thing until you use the WRONG diaper. When my son was born, our Delivery room was only stocked with Huggies. Luckily, he wasn't allergic to them, but a lot of kids are (as well as a variety of other brands of disposables.). But we were able to avoid this risk altogether once we began cloth, because we never bought disposables again! But this is common for a lot of families, and it's awesome to be able to go back to old school diapering and avoid the chemicals and materials used that may irritate the skin or cause an allergic reaction.
2: Convenience
Now this may just seem matter of opinion, but I find cloth more convenient than buying disposable diapers. I honestly don't even know HOW to buy them-God's honest truth. Most brands come in One Size, which ranges from 8-35lbs. That diaper will literally last through every stage of growth until potty training. How many times do you realize that not only did Baby grow overnight and now can't fit into those Pampers you just bought another box of, but you still have a few boxes in that size left? And those late night runs to the drug store because you ran out unexpectedly? Never happens.
"But don't you have to wash them? That takes time..."
Yes, but not really that much more time-depending on how many you have to work with, it's an extra load of laundry every few days. It's an extra hour on that day of washing, extra of drying (unless you hang dry outside!), and whatever time it takes you to prep them for use. I use half pockets, half All In Ones, and a load of 15 diapers prob takes me about 15 minutes to prep. I'll take doing an extra load of laundry and prepping when baby is asleep over dragging my butt to Walmart to spend money on something I'm literally going to throw away after use, (if my son doesn't outgrow overnight) any day. Which finally brings us to the main reason...
1: Economy
So in the grand scheme of diapering, you will need to put something on your baby's butt from birth to potty training, which is about age 2.5-3years old. That can be as much as $3,000 by the time you are done! For something you literally can't reuse! That's a lot of money to be throwing away! Our biggest convincing argument was the fact that when I started cloth, by taking just a fraction of the overall cost of keeping something on my baby's butt and investing it in a small stash of reusable cloth diapers, I am able to save THOUSANDS (you save even more in upfront costs by buying used). If taken care of correctly, sometimes you can even reuse them through multiple children! Like we mentioned before, laundry isn't but an extra load every few days. We found absolutely NO increase in our water or electric bills, and don't have to buy any special detergents that we already don't use on our clothes (detergents and boosters that are actually good for cloth will be another post)!
Yes, it might seem expensive to spend average of $200-300 for a stash of about 20-25 diapers up front (brands depending) but it's literally a fraction of your overall costs for poop-catchers. So why not invest it in something that
A:looks good,
B: saves the environment,
C:won't cause painful allergic reactions,
D: is a little more convenient than buying one more thing at the store and spending money again?
Bonus reason: Those who had never had kids will need to use google for this, but poop-splosions? Yeah, it's gross...
Disposable diapers tend to hold NOTHING when those explosive poops happen, and we have never-repeat, never-had one with cloth.
I could go on, but these were enough to convince me to cross over to the cloth side. I'll have more posts explaining different style of diapers, more info on different brands and methods of cleaning, and even some product reviews of my favorite (and least favorite) Diapers.
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| Just part of my stash |
Are YOU a cloth mama? Drop me a comment, because I know I'm not the only one!
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