Adventures in cloth diapering: Part II

The pros and cons of cloth diapering

With cloth diapering options a plenty, many in much more convenient styles than were available in the past, what are the reasons I've heard for why people would not use cloth?

The cost factor

One factor that has turned some people away from cloth diapering in the past is the need to buy a lot of materials up front: shells in various sizes to fit the baby as he grows along with inserts to match.  Thus, the cost of disposables in this situation often was similar to or less than cloth diapering.  What is becoming more common now is for the shells to grow with baby, by having snaps in the front that can change the size of the diaper and thus fit a range of baby weights.  This reduces the amount of materials you need to buy.  The Thirsties wraps we got are size 1 and fit 6-18 lbs and the Bum Genius pocket diapers fit from 8-35 lbs.  Clearly, we'll need to get a new size of the Thirsties style (if we like that style enough to continue using it) once he is bigger than 18 lbs, but the Bum Genius will fit Evan probably up until he's potty trained.  Nonetheless, the styles like the Bum Genius that fit up to such large sizes don't often fit newborns well, so many brands like this make mini sizes for newborns (which would cost more to buy and only use a short while) or you can use disposables for the first few weeks like we did.  We also started him on the Thirsties style before the Bum Genius for this reason, given the Thirsties style fits down to 6 lbs.

The cost you spend on cloth diapers these days is really dependent on which style you prefer to use and how many diapers you want to have on hand.  The more diapers, the less frequent you may need to do laundry, however all cloth diapers recommend being washed every 2 days, so a 2.5 day supply of diapers is really the minimum you'd need.  The cost is still an upfront cost, meaning you'll spend a lot of money to get started, but there will then be minimal costs to keep going throughout the year(s).

For us, so far we've spent:

$13 x 5 for the Thirsties wrap shells = $65

$2 x 18 for the cloth pre-folds = $36

$18 x 8 for the Bum Genius AIO pocket styles = $144

TOTAL (so far) = $245

You can clearly see how much more affordable the shell and pre-fold option is compared to the All-in-one (AIO)/pocket styles. It's really a tradeoff of convenience for cost in that regard.  We will need to buy a few more Bum Genius or the larger size of Thirties (or even try another brand) once Evan outgrows his Size 1 Thirsties, so we will still have to spend some more money once we decide what styles we prefer.  I'm guessing we may need to spend up to another $200, for a grand total of around $450.

Depending on the brand of disposables you choose to use, you might still be able to get away with spending less on disposables if you buy cheap generic brands or use a lot of coupons.  For us, we were using Pampers Swaddlers disposables for the first four weeks with Evan and we spent about $60 just in that time alone.  Thus, just one year of disposables at that cost of $60 per month ($720 total) would be well over what we've spent (or plan to spend) on cloth diapers themselves.

A statistic in a pamphlet provided to us by the hospital (so I'm not sure how reliable it is or how they calculated their figures) suggests that disposable diapers cost 20 cents each change, whereas cloth diapering using a cloth diaper service costs 13 cents each change.  Cloth diapering when you wash them yourself they quoted as costing only 3 cents each, however I'm sure this will vary depending on which cloth diaper style you use.

The ewww factor

Another reason that disuades people from using cloth diapers is the thought of washing dirty diapers in their washing machine.  (The thought of poo in my washing machine also initially had me a little discouraged.) There are diaper services that can take away your dirties and bring you fresh clean cloth inserts, doing all the washing for you, however those services are not cheap and thus the cost factor again becomes an issue.  Whether or not you use a cloth diaper service, one thing that should be done with a cloth diaper is to get rid of the solid waste in the toilet first before washing them.  This is yet another "ewww" moment for most people, since disposable diapers are often just tossed away with the solid waste left inside, hidden from sight and mind.  What many people don't realize is that, to be sanitary, human solid waste really should be disposed of in the toilet (the appropriate sewage system for human waste) whether you're using cloth or disposable diapers!  However, the convenience of just wrapping closed a soiled disposable diaper and tossing it in the bin is too easy and is done by most everyone that I know who has used or is using disposables (including us when we used disposables the first month).  Anyway, if you rid the cloth diaper of the solid waste before washing it, there really isn't any poo to go in the washing machine and thus I was able to accept that washing the diapers ourself wouldn't be that bad.  John still likes to run a tub cleaning wash in our machine after we do a load of diapers, to be on the safe side. :)

The inconvenience factor

Besides the inconvenience and extra time required for washing your own diapers (if you don't use a diaper service) or the inconvenience of having extra steps involved in diaper changes (folding, stuffing, etc if you don't use true all-in-one styles), dealing with cloth diapers when you're away from home is another inconvenient aspect to cloth diapering.  

Whether you head out for a quick errand, on the town for the day, or on the road for a vacation, dealing with cloth diapers does become more of an inconvenience.  In fact, we're not going to bother with cloth for circumstances when we are away from home for more than a day; rather we'll opt for disposables in those situations.  However, when we go out for short daily excursions we just have to bring a wet bag with us to store soiled cloth diapers in until we can get them home and into the diaper pail for washing.  

We also do keep some disposables on hand for "emergencies".  Since laundering your own cloth diapers requires extra time (for the laundering process itself) and some planning to make sure you have clean ones available when needed, it can be difficult to make sure you don't run out.  For us, it's also hard to predict how many re-uses we'll get out of our Thirsties shells, so we sometimes have landed ourselves in a situation where we need to resort to the emergency stash of disposables.  That's one other aspect of cloth diapering that is always an option: you can still use disposables when needed!  As long as it's more the exception than the rule, you can usually augment your cloth diapering practice with disposables and still not spend more than you would have if you solely used disposables.  Thus, when the inconvenience factor is too great, we use whatever option is more convenient.

Why we chose cloth

While I've just rattled off some big reasons why you may not want to use cloth diapers, there are still many benefits that we valued enough to go the cloth route.  The benefits of cloth include less waste (literally!) goes into the landfills and the cost should be similar or less than using disposables given you get multiple uses out of the diapers up until potty training is complete.  Furthermore, it is often noted that babies potty train sooner when they wear cloth diapers.  If this turns out to be true, then there is another hidden cost savings in that you don't have to keep using diapers for as many months.  If you were using disposables you'd still be spending (and throwing away) more money during those non-potty-trained months.

The reduction in waste is one of the biggest reasons that I am a proponent of cloth diapering.  I just shudder every time I drive by a landfill that is growing higher into a mountain that may someday rival the Rockies.  Another environmental benefit of cloth diapers is that less chemicals are used in the making of the diapers, however more water and energy is used to wash and dry them.  We have a high efficiency washing and drying machine, however, so we hope that we are not using that much more water or energy in the long run.

After I went into a cloth diaper store, saw all of the options for cloth diapering, and practiced putting a pre-fold diaper on a doll, I realized it wasn't that big of a deal after all.  Don't get me wrong, when the day came that we finally had all of our cloth diapers ready to go and were going to start using them, I was still nervous.  For starters, a live squirming baby is not as easy to work with as a still doll!  Plus it was new and different from the routine we'd established in Evan's first few weeks of life, but overall the transition has been good.  It has been especially helpful to have John's support.  He is the primary diaper-changer still, and he has taken to the cloth diapers very well.  In fact, one day soon after the changeover, when I was worried it was becoming too much hassle, he told me he liked the cloth better than the disposables as he had really nailed down a method for putting them on him that he liked.  That made me feel so much better and really reinforced my determination to use cloth.  So I suppose one other factor that I should have added to the list of why not to use cloth diapers is for those who don't have a great support system like I have.  As I've said before, I'm truly thankful for John and all the support he provides me and for Evan, and I can't imagine doing this without him!