Cloth diapers are awesome. Really. You should try them if you own your own washing machine, and maybe even if you don't, depending on how expensive the laundromat is. I see disposable diapers like paper plates. There's a time for paper plates--in times of extraordinary busy-ness, sickness, or travel. I have no problem using paper plates every so often, but using paper plates everyday is wasteful. They're also not as nice as real plates. Likewise, disposable diapers make a lot of trash--like 7.58 billion pounds a year. And, in my own experience the few times Dinobaby has gotten diaper rashes, he got them during periods when he was wearing disposables exclusively. Also, I think he likes the cloth diapers better. I say that because no woman has ever worn pads when she didn't have to because she preferred how they felt. I assume the difference between a disposable and cloth is similar.
Even if you couldn't ever use cloth full-time, maybe just on the weekends or a use a couple of cloth diapers instead of disposables every day. It adds up. Small changes can really make a difference. And they are so much easier than you think they are.
Here's the run-down of answers to the questions I hear most often:
1) Aren't you scared you'll prick your baby?
You don't have to use pins. I used a thing called a Snappi to secure diapers when blowouts were still likely, but now I don't even do that anymore.
2)What do you do with the poops?
I exclusively breastfed for the first 6ish months, so all dirty diapers regardless of what variety just got thrown in the washing machine--yay for the polarity of water molecules! Since I waited so long to start solids, once I had to worry about what to do with poops they were quite easily ploppable into the toilet. Even when dinobaby is using disposables, I still flush poop. I don't throw poop in the trash. One, that's ridiculously smelly. Two, that's not a wise long-term choice for our landfills (and technically illegal almost everywhere). So for me the difference between disposable and cloth is negligible.
Since I've started trying to get dinobaby to a pottty when I know he's having a BM, I can tell you that cleaning diapers is twice as easy and less gross than cleaning potties--which all parents have to deal with anyway.
3)How often do you have to do laundry?
I do diaper laundry every 3-4 days.
4)How do you wash them?
I do a cold rinse to rid the diapers of urine and whatever residue is left. Then I do an extra hot, extra long wash with soap. I usually line dry, and when it's nice outside I line dry in full-sun. So, at least pseudo-frequently my diapers get UV autoclaved. Other than the heat from the wash and sun-bleaching, I don't worry about germs. I figure most parents wash a couple of diapers worth of poop just from having a newborn wearing clothing. Generations of babies have survived being cloth diapered, most with nappies washed by hand (so glad I live in the 21st century), so I'm not that worried about it. *shrugs*
5)Don't you ever use disposables?
Yes, I use disposables. Dinobaby still doesn't sleep through the night. I don't want to change him after his 2 and/or 5am feeding because both he and I want to return to sleeping. Unfortunately, no cloth diaper can hold that much pee. So Dinobaby sleeps in a disposable for now. Hopefully, he starts to sleep through the night soon for many reasons---way down on that list is that that would mean we could use cloth at night. I also use disposables when other people are watching my baby, or I'm traveling. Like when we drove across eight states to our new home, I definitely did not haul along my cloth diapers.
6)The cloth diapers I've seen are so expensive. Do they really save you money?
Holy crap you're right. Some cloth diapers are stupidly expensive. I've seen figures thrown around about savings, but I don't particularly like any of them because they all make really bad assumptions--like who spends 24 cents per disposable diaper?!? Who buys a $28 dollar bum cover? So I've been collecting my own data (like I've tallied every cloth diaper I've ever changed...I'm a nerd) and I'll get back to this question later more definitively. In the meantime, suffice it to say that I have spent $226.46 on cloth diapers, and so far they've saved us almost $90--but you could easily save much more over the course of 10 months than we have. For one thing, we had coin-operated laundry for four months. I have also traveled quite a bit in Dinobaby's short life. I also very much regret spending so much in the initial outlay because I ended up like the cheapest diapers best, but I'll get into that in Part 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment