Why do YOU use cloth diapers?

[ilovegod123]

@ttyler I mean, there are probably differences between the study and how each of us does cloth diapers, and I wish there was more discussion in it on how buying/selling impacted the equation. But it’s a very thorough comparison. Life cycle analysis is complex as there are so many bits to chase after - I do them for work (but with building designs instead of diapers) and often the obvious answer is not the right one with full LCA.

Like many people here, I did purchase new diapers though. My rationale was I wanted them to last through multiple kids, I liked how pretty they were, I wanted to be able to sell or donate them at the end, and my husband wasn’t entirely comfortable with buying used diapers.

 

[desaran]

@ilovegod123 I started for the environment, I hated the buckets full of dirty diapers that we were throwing out. Then I noticed that cloth smelled way better than disposable. And with practice, knowledge and experience it became easier. I loved not having to run out for disposables on a rainy day and not having to sweat it when my child had their third soiled diaper of the day. With the EBF poops we just put them in the washing machine and they were fine. No scraping needed. I love the feel of the natural fibres (I prefer hemp and cotton with wool covers over microfibre, bamboo (this is viscose made of bamboo instead of wood), and PUL). They are so breathable and they hold a ton. I do not need to worry about sizing up as I can just fold my flats slightly differently and let a snap out on a cover (ok, not the wool ones I have, but the hip snaps can be adjusted). The lanolin from the wool also conditions my child’s skin without any petroleum products needed.

And whenever my daughter used going to the toilet as a delaying tactic at bedtime now at 3, I can easily tell her that I can put a nappy on her if there is nothing coming out when she goes to the toilet. When it is dry in the morning I have not wasted a diaper as I can just wash it with her clothes.

Or if a friend visits with their children and they forgot a diaper, they can just borrow one of mine, no matter the size. Same goes for swimming diapers as I have plenty of PUL pockets that haven’t made it in one piece through the 2 years my daughter had them (something with a washing machine on location breaking down halfway through a load of diapers while on holiday in a foreign country). At this point I am just giving them away to friends who can use them.

Another one is containing blow outs. I only started around 3 months with my first, but I never had a blow out with cloth. The worst it got was a drop of poo out the leg hole. I plan on fully cloth diapering my second expected to make their arrival next February, and I am sure there will be minimal blow outs with the covers I have.

I have even advised parents who use disposables who were dealing with night time leaks to add a cloth cover to prevent that from happening.

Again the smell is so. Much. Better. My daughter had the worst poopy diaper ever in church daycare and they didn’t even notice. I had to put my nose in her fluffy butt to notice, but when I opened it, it filled the room. She had been in it for at least 10 minutes but they thought everyone had a clean butt. I love cloth

 

[markymatt]

@ilovegod123 I am on my second kid in cloth, though the diapers from my first didn't work on him so I had to try a few different things. But I bought my first stash used and resold it, and bought a partly new partly used stash for this baby. I think we are at a lower cost overall still. I think maybe around $5-600 for all the diapers I bought minus what I've sold. I actually just really enjoy cloth. I like how it looks, how it feels. It makes me happy to see my baby in them.

I do diaper laundry about twice a week, and usually throw clothes in. Our water usage is about the same whether we are doing cloth or not.

I was bothered by the constant reminder of how much impact the single life of a baby has on the planet, with the constant giant bags of diaper trash. Cloth is not perfect, but neither are disposables, so it's always been about finding the thing that feels better for me.

Another thing I think about (and I am by no means perfect on this) is the well-being of the people who make the things I use. I know most diapers come from China, where factory workers are often not paid a living wage. I try to buy things that are made in Canada (where I live) but they are obviously more expensive. So I do mix is what is most ethical with what is most affordable. I do worry that the prevalence of "china cheapies" is making cloth less and less environmentally responsible, as they are harder to resell due to not costing much in the first place, and not always having the best quality (I know there is a range of great quality to terrible in these). So if people are buying cheap and not using long term, a big pile of PUL and microfiber is basically still plastic and will also sit forever in landfill.

This got long and I'm rambling a bit.

 

[ilovegod123]

@markymatt Love your ramble. I’ve thought about that too. I picked brands that are Canadian (where I am) as much as possible (la petite ourse ) but their manufacturing still happens overseas. I avoided the amazon cheapies exactly for those reasons. On the other hand though, Kirkland diapers are all made in the USA, which is a plus for me.

 

[jd4christ]

@ilovegod123 I’m hearing you on a lot of these points. Now that we’ve added solid foods it has been a game changer. Milky poops were no big, but the spray situation is a thing. My changing table is in the bathroom but not arm’s distance so I have to put a stinky diaper out and come back to it. Usually fine, but I have twins so finding a second where I can leave them both unattended is rare. The spray pal is the most disgusting part to me. It keeps my bowl clean but then I have to carry it over to the bin trying not to drip poopy water, drop the diaper I’m, them set it... on the floor? Dripping poopy water itself?

But I cloth because it is cheaper to me. I have twins and they are expensive. I got some hand me downs and gifts so my initial investment was minimal.

I also don’t believe that the environmental impact is the same. My mom refuses to use cloth (it’s sort of a battle) and she nannies for us two days a week. Since she started doing that our trash has been overflowing by pickup day. We used to be able to skip weeks if we forgot to put it out. The difference is drastic.

I’m a casual cloth user. About 80% of time. We keep sposies because my mom keeps buying Costco packs and junking up our house. I do use sposies with certain outfits, to bed, and if we go out which we never do anymore. We also throw on on if we’re changing one babe and the other is screaming and there’s no time to prep a diaper.

 

[ilovegod123]

@jd4christ You’re my hero - literally anything I do as a mom I think “moms of twins are superhero’s”.

The sprayer is not my friend, mostly because our house is just not conducive to it. I’m trying to use grovia liners so I can just lift the poop off, but that has about a 50% effectiveness rate.

 

[jd4christ]

@ilovegod123 Yeah, we have some liners but they have about a 50% remember to use them rate, then a 50% actually working well rate so...

 

[ilovegod123]

@jd4christ Yes absolutely haha. I always think “ok she pooped already today...” and regret it.

 

[eyetube]

@ilovegod123 It's definitely better for my baby's skin. She spent two weeks in hospital recently and was in disposable nappies the whole time and she got terrible rash.

 

[christseeker12]

@ilovegod123 We are cloth diapering to save money.

We have 4 newborn covers, 12 Alva pockets,1 travel wetbag, 4 hemp, 12 gauze flats from my 6yrs old son’s stash (roughly around $75) that I used until he potty train (18months).

We still use those stash now for my 6 months old. We just added 12 birdseye flat, 12 small prefolds, 6 medium prefold, 2yards of Bamboo hemp fabric (yields me 10 28x28 flats and 2 snake booster), 2 preloved overnight covers, 3 preloved OS fitted (overnight), 6 OS covers. (roughly $245).

Sold my newborn covers for $22 so our current total is $298 for my 2 sons.

If I was to use disposable for 18 mos and 6 mos. I would have spent $1096 already.

Wow! Now that I did the math I can truly say I SAVED ALOT!

 

[ilovegod123]

@christseeker12 Love that! It adds up to a lot of you can keep the stash lean and use it for multiple kids

 

[dawnpawn]

@ilovegod123 These are all great questions! If I had to give you my reasons completely unrelated to your points I’d say:

Smell. I hate the smell of disposable diapers.

I like the aesthetic of cloth diapers (not just the cute patterns, but that doesn’t hurt), I don’t like to hassle with onesies, I can just pop a dress on my daughter and call it a day and she can’t open her diaper and cause an issue.

NO BLOWOUTS! My husband didn’t even know that blowouts were a thing when our friends were taking about them. I had to explain to him what one was. YMMV, of course, but we’ve never had a true one. We had a poop leak once when human error was involved.

To your points:

One flaw in that study for me is that it assumes that every family using cloth diapers is buying new. I may be biased because I belong to so many B/S/T groups, but it seems like a lot of families buy used diapers, (maybe even then use for multiple children,) then sell or give away. This also speaks to the cost issue, we’ve spent just under $200 diapering to age 1.5 so far and I don’t see spending much more. If I’m not lazy I can probably get $50 or so back for the prefolds that I overbought.

For me point three is one of the major bonuses, actually! Yup, we definitely have a stash of disposables around (although we were able to trouble shoot a night issue, so we only use them when we get behind on laundry) but as mentioned I HATE the smell of them, so even if it’s just a pee diaper I take it right out to the trash outside. It does take a little longer, but it’s worth it to keep my house smelling nice. I love not having to worry about grabbing diapers last minute or making a special trip. Even pre-pandemic it made life easier, but now it’s really great. We take them along when we camp with a wet bag no problem. Because of COVID we don’t travel much, I assume if we were gone for more even a few nights we would use disposables, but it would still just be a trip or two.

The icky fact is that you are meant to knock the poop out of disposables before you toss them, too. Human feces is not supposed to end up in the landfill. Do I? No. When I use disposables I throw it in the trash poop and all. Spraying out a cloth diaper keeps me accountable for keeping the poo out of the landfill.

I have a hard time believing cloth is better for the baby. We haven’t had any of the issues you’ve discussed, but we’ve definitely had to work through some chafing issues, so there’s that. (Edit: not that I think it’s worse, I just don’t buy that the disposables are THAT bad.)

I actually do find them generally easy when there’s not an issue (as you’ve said, it does take more thought than disposables, but I wouldn’t vilify it necessarily). I’ve had to trouble shoot one wash issue and one fit issue and during those times it was not the easiest thing on my parenting plate. But a lot of stuff is hard and messy. I don’t understand how people who don’t have a washer in their home manage, though, I’m very impressed by the hand wash families! Yikes!

If you’re not excited about it, or it feels daunting/not worth it, then don’t overthink it. Go ahead and sell those diapers! I just thought I’d toss out some friendly counterpoints.

 

[ilovegod123]

@dawnpawn Thanks for such a well thought out reply!

I’m so interested in the smell issues a few people have brought up. We went to a friends house and I was blown away by how stinky their house was due to diapers. We have an ubi for diapers and I’m currently under the impression that it contains the smell but I’m now second guessing myself. Maybe I just am desensitized to the smell?! I need to ask a friend to sniff our house...

 

[dawnpawn]

@ilovegod123 Oh! One other thing I meant to put in the original reply. I do think the environmental impact depends on where you are in the world. I live in the US in Washington state where our electricity is cheap and abundant and produced by water (dams) that we also have a decent amount of (we do get drought here, but not the ten year kind that, say, California gets. Our high efficiency washer also helps.)

If I lived somewhere where water was scarce or electricity was coal/nuclear powered that might sway me a little.

Also, even if there is a smell in your house but you’ve grown used to it and it doesn’t bother you, then is it really a smell?

 

[ilovegod123]

@dawnpawn I have family coming over today and I’m instructing them to smell the house

And totally agreed. If you’re in a place with clean hydro power and you have an electric hot water tank, the impacts of washing and drying are negligible. Where I am, we’re on natural gas for hot water and the much dirtier coal for electricity.

 

[katrina2017]

@ilovegod123 I think disposables stink and seem uncomfortable. They also suggest (on the packaging) that being able to leave your baby in a dirty diaper for long periods of time is a plus, which is sad and not sanitary.

I use flats and covers instead of all in ones or pockets. It's the most cost effective and simplest system. Flats are a lot easier to wash and can easily be line dried and the covers can be used a few times before washing. I bought maybe 24 flats and 6 covers before my baby was born and that's all he will really need until he's potty trained.

I definitely see a lot of posts here with HUGE piles of wayyyy more diapers than any family could ever need and they're all pocket or AIOs. I do think cloth diapering becomes less about cost and environmental concerns at that point and just circles back to consumerism, which may be cute but is wasteful and goes against what people say is the main reason for cloth diapering.

You could try going super minimalist the times you do decide to use cloth. Flats can be pinned on without a cover and changed as soon as they're dirty. This kind of goes with elimination communication in that it's much more obvious when the baby has peed both to the child and to the parent and they can be changed right then. That way dry is the feeling they're most used to. That's a lot more appealing to me than "12+ hours leak protection in a plastic bag of pee soaked gel!"

 

[ilovegod123]

@katrina2017 I hear ya, lots of talk about the dye, plastic; etc that goes into a disposable but if you’ve got a bunch of AIO or pockets (like I do) those have quite a lot of non-biodegradable processed plastics that go into making them.

That’s really interesting about the EC, I need to look into that. I was reading about potty training and in traditional societies it really doesn’t exist. Kids just learn quick that shitting or peeing on someone’s lap is not acceptable.

Re the length of time, totally in agreement, except for nighttime. My baby sleeps 10 pm - 7 am straight, I really appreciate that she wakes up dry thanks to that gel. Hasn’t had a diaper rash yet.

 

[katrina2017]

@ilovegod123 I also bought second hand (or was gifted) and refused to buy new (even though I am so tempted!). From my brief research about environmental impacts of production, I try to buy nearly everything I own second hand. I also line dry 99% of the time to reduce energy use in cleaning.

At the end of the day, the cost savings has been incredible. I've bought two packs of disposable diapers (and was gifted some) andy LO is almost 5 months old.y stash was either free or $60. I bought one set of thirsties hemps and some wipes, so I've spent maybe $75.

I do hope it helps with potty training, but as a FTM I don't really have a clue about that!

 

[ilovegod123]

@katrina2017 You’re so smart. I wish I had bought mine second hand. That would have taken care of the cost and environmental side of it. I was tempted by all the cute patterns and also used the logic of we’re going to have 3 kids so might as well get a new set.

 

[dll827]

@ilovegod123 I use it because I EC aswell. Have you heard of it? It feels like you could benefit from it since it basically eliminates poo diapers. The wash routine will also get easier since there will be no poo.