@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.
) 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.
