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| Thirsties brand velour with a Thirsties brand cover |
I can't really point you at any specific site that will give you all the info I wanted when I was researching cloth diapers but here are some things to think about. There is SO much to know about cloth diapering but there is also a great quantity of resources and you can just google it when you feel confused! All in all, I'm REALLY happy that we decided to cloth diaper. David was actually the one who ended up pushing me to do it after I got him interested. We took a cheap educational class on cloth diapers from a local retailer and it was awesome! There are at least 8 different ways to cloth diaper and lots of new vocabulary terms. Also, this blog post helped a lot in making my decision http://www.
Values: regarding the environment I thought a lot about landfill waste but what cinched it for me was finding out that disposable diapers say in the instructions to flush solid waste down the toilet. Putting used disposables in the landfill is one of the only ways that people bypass sewage treatment so babies' poops go untreated and seep into the ground--icky. With cloth diapers, whether you rinse them or just wash them in the washer, that water gets treated and recycled at the water treatment facility. Same goes if you use a cloth diaper service. Their wash water would get treated also.
Whether or not cloth or disposables use less energy is negligible so I opted to not use that as a factor in deciding what to do.
Health and Safety: The chemicals they use in disp are kind of terrifying and I'm surprised that the government allows people to put them on their children. There is some talk of disp chemicals causing fertilty problems in males but I don't have any details. Additionally, we still use 1 disp a night on Eva since she is less bothered by being wet when she's in a disp. A few times, I have noticed that the gel spheres in the disp have come out of the lining and are directly on her skin and I have to wipe them off. NOT a fan of this.
Time: Cloth requires about an extra load of laundry every 1-3 days depending on how many diapers you have. Figure 12 diapers/day at first then 8 later on. So you'd need 24 diapers doing laundry every other day. My high efficiency machine takes 2 hours to wash a load due to the extra settings. A regular machine would probably just be 40 minutes or whatever.
Size of your baby: the diapers I had were ridiculously huge on Eva until she was 5 weeks old or about 10 pounds. In general, you have to get used to the bigger look of cloth since disp are so trim these days.
Emotional destruction after birth/tolerance for experimentation: I was destroyed after the birth both physically and emotionally. Think of a crazy topless unshowered person who shuffles around mumbling and crying for 3 weeks. Yeah--the side of birth no one ever talks about. I tried to cloth diaper Eva when she was 2 weeks old and we both wound up in tears. We used only disposables until she was 5 weeks old. I recommend it. After 5 weeks we had figured out breastfeeding and I was wearing clothes again. I also had the emotional bandwidth to learn a new skill.
Budget: We were spending $10 every 4 days on diapers when she was little. She used a shocking amount of diapers. Cloth diapers can be very cheap if you use the prefold old fashioned kind--like $10 for 12 of them and $5-10 for the water proof covers they need. I only buy All in One or All in Two diapers. They can cost up to $25 each so your initial outlay of moolah is a lot more than disp.
Here is an All in One http://www.
Laundry Options: In general, the new style cloth diapers take forever to dry in a drier so if you have the ability to have a clothesline that's key and saves some energy too. High efficiency machines are a pain since they use so little water, you can end up having ammonia issues which can get serious if you're not paying attention. That's why my machine takes so long as i have to add extra cycles and rinses to get the ammonia out. Kind of a downfall of high efficiency! People with trad machines rarely have issues. You might also need a special kind of detergent. Country Save detergent with Calgon if you have hard water and Rockin' Green detergent are favorites in my circles but you could probably use just about anything including Tide if that's how you roll. Actually, I think I read that Tide works the very best out of everything. I'm allergic to Tide so that wasn't an option for us.
Also notable-exclusively breastfed babies don't need their diapers to be rinsed or pretreated before you throw them in the wash. I can't believe how easily it washes out of her diapers. Once they start eating foods, you have to dump the poo into the toilet or spray the diapers off before washing. That's covered in the first link above.
Potty Training and Diaper Rash: Diaper rash amongst cloth diapered babies is very rare. In fact, diaper rash was kind of unheard of before disposables hit the scene. Because babies can feel that they are wet, they prefer to have their cloth diaper changed more often which prevents the rash. Being able to feel that they are wet also contributes to earlier potty training since it's a gross sensation that they want to learn how to avoid! I think I read that cloth diapered babies potty train 3-6 months sooner than disposable babies--WIN!
Longevity: You can save your cloth diapers and use them on multiple babies. I've known people whose diapers have lasted for 3 children so they only have to make the investment once. To fully embrace this, buy gender neutral colors and prints. I failed at this and have lots of girly diapers but couldn't resist!
Looks: Cloth diapers are adorable!
The bottom line: read up on it, try to find a local retailer or eco friendly baby store and touch and feel the diaper options they have. Make the best decision for you and your family. Maybe buy 1 or 2 and try them out. If you hate them, you can always sell them on craigslist :)
Do you cloth diaper? What resources did you use to make your choice? What sites do you use now if you have a question about cloth diapering?
