Monday, March 29, 2010
A question
David and I have been having a conversation about cloth diapers. I know that some of my readers use them. I am on the fence for baby #4. What do you all think? It seems that it has gotten much easier in the last decade or so to use cloth diapers. David has visions of diaper pins and cloth diapers soaking in the toilet. Oh the joys of growing up with siblings in the cloth days of old! Is it worth it? Do you think it is that much better for the environment that it's worth doing? I don't think I would use cloth 100% of the time. Especially when traveling or on long trips out. I know that I could do research on this, but I am fairly certain that everything I would read would be pretty biased. This is why I rely on you, dear readers. Tell me what you think! And if you have used cloth, what brands do you think work best?
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26 comments:
If you are going the cloth route, investigate to see if there are still diaper services around - I LOVED having a diaper service.
That said, cloth diapers are not bad - I actually preferred them. And if you use the disposable liners, they are a cinch. The first couple weeks, go with disposables - those first messy diapers are pretty stainworthy!
But don't ask Harry F - he's pretty biased!
I have a friend that used cloth diapers with her son. She used them when he was a little older, but was very happy with them. I believe she used the BumGenius brand. I'll send her your way for more info.
Personally, I would have used cloth had I known how easy it could be, but alas, I didn't realize until it was too late. And (un?)fortunately for me, there are no more babies to experiment this with. ;)
i know i don't have kiddos but i'm planning on using cloth diapers when we do. well, except like you said - long trips/outings and such. it's my one contribution to the environment. i just can't cope with the idea of filling the landfills with a bunch of poopy diapers. good luck on your research!
I like cloth diapers for the most part, and am happy that I use them for Diana and Laura.
I wrote a (long!) post about my opinions on my blog in 2008. Here's the link:
http://sweetandsimplethingsblog.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/the-truth-about-cloth-diapering-according-to-corri/
In my opinion, cloth diapering a newborn is really easy, and it gets a little harder as they get older and bigger.
Since we moved away from Davis and its hard water, though, I haven't had any problems with the diapers getting smelly.
I think that the environmental issue is HUGE. Yes, cloth diapers use water to be laundered, but those disposable diapers just never go away.
One caution... there are a lot of really cute and fun diapers out there, and it is easy to spend a lot of money trying out all of the different brands.
My favorite standby diapers have always been these:
http://www.bumgenius.com/one-size.php
However, this is a brand new diaper that has just come out on the market. I'll be buying one soon, but so far it looks like my dream diaper...I've been waiting for someone to invent this for quite awhile now:
http://www.bummis.com/us/en/easy-fit.php
Of course, those are pricey options. You can go a lot cheaper with less fancy diapers.
Well, I could talk about cloth diapers all day. :) Let me know if you have any questions!
I've used cloth diapers and found them to be mostly easy. In fact, I'd rather do a load of laundry than buy them at the store all the time. Maybe I'm weird, but it just seems easier to me. I did always use disposables for outings (I'm lazy and want as small a diaper bag as possible, plus don't love carrying dirty diapers around), and for overnight.
There are tons of options out there as far as diaper types. I haven't branched out too much yet. I have some fitted diapers that I like, and a lot of prefolds and covers, which are a very cheap way to get started and see if its something that works for you. However, they aren't as fun to use as some of the fancier ones. I'd recommend starting small and then building your supply with what you like!
BTW-I've always used a dry pail, and never ever used a diaper pin or swished a diaper in the toilet.
I have several friends who use cloth diapers and all love it. (none are Mormon except one; funny) I guess they wouldn't do it if they didn't love it. My first thought if you are using the environmental argument is the soaking chemicals, although if you use a dry pail that is not an issue.
I have a friend in particular who has 1-year-old twins and used cloth the whole year. It was a non-issue for her. She did use disposables when she (seldom) went out (seldom for the first several months anyway...nursing twins takes a lot of time). Another friend cloth diapers both her toddler and her baby.
Because I will have a bigger bathroom by the time I have another baby someday--I'll be keeping the changing table and everything in the bathroom, that is--I want to try cloth. I toss Ida's poop in the toilet anyway...a newborn's might be harder to rinse I guess but maybe that doesn't matter.
A lot of the covers (BumGenius etc.) seem pretty spendy to me but I guess there are cheaper ones--I would love to know about cheaper covers.
If the money adds up, I say go for it. As others have said, disposable diapers just don't go away. Add that to the layer of plastic if you wrap up a messy diaper before trashing it. I wonder how much space all the diapers I have used for 2 babies fills up in landfills. A lot.
BTW there aren't any cheap diaper services out here that I know of...in fact I haven't heard of any services at all...but I know there at least are services in So-Cal. I've seen Dydee Diaper Service trucks there, flashback! I would think Portland would be another ideal spot for a company like that.
there you go (how many comments can I leave within 5 minutes today?)
Tidee Didee
I loved cloth. I thought my babies were much more comfortable in them and they are very easy (ditto what Kristina said about the dry pail, etc.). I used the mother-ease brand, but there are so many options out there. And I never, ever used diaper pins. We used this fantastic little jig called a Snappi. For newborn babies I used prefolds (the rectangles) with a Snappi and it was a cinch, and baby was never ever pinched or poked. I did eventually find that disposables were better at night because the wetness would wake them up and they'd fuss. But that wetness is great during the day--you just don't ever let them sit in it, you always know when they're wet and so do they (great for potty training later on). If you're interested in trying, I say go for it. You can start small and just buy a few diapers and see how it goes. Good luck.
are you crazy? as far as the environment goes - give me a break - how much water are you using to CLEAN those nasty diapers? and chemicals? and of course I have to assume your kids are going to be way more likely to get diaper rash on a clothe diaper. my sister used cloth with her first and quickly switched with her next if that tells you anything.
I'm going the cloth diaper route, and chose GroBaby diapers. I haven't used them yet, as Amelia is just transitioning from Preemie to Newborn disposables, but I've heard wonderful things about them. Each set is pricey initially, but you don't have to buy as many sets as with other cloth systems. They have liners that you can snap in and out and then you can re-use the outer shell for those less messy changes. They also sell disposable liners. I'm still planning on having some disposables on hand though, too.
As far as diaper services go, I think it cancels out the environmental aspect of cloth diapering. All of the driving for the service and the amount of bleach and water that they have to use is too much. It would cancel out any benefit.
I am loving these comments!
Hi Phoebe, I just happen to be on my lunch break, and checked out your blog, and just couldn't resist adding my comments on cloth diapers. I always used cloth diapers, (you'd call it the old days)and I loved using them. I can't seem to remember the name brand, maybe they're not around anymore...the name might come to me later...they were very popular back then, and the diapers I used were not prefolded. I used a diaper pail, but never "soaked" the diapers in anything. As long as the lid was kept down tight, there was never a problem with odor, plus if I remember correctly, it was usual to wash a load of diapers every couple of days. If the diaper had poo in it, I rinsed it in the toilet, sometimes only having to drop off whatever was there :) If you keep your toilet clean, it's just no big deal, plus you become very accustomed to doing it, and rarely grimace after awhile. For washing, I always did a couple of pre-rinses in the machine using cold water; if you just begin a wash cycle without pre-rinsing you will be washing in urine water. After the cold water pre-rinses, I washed the diapers in hot water, adding Ivory Snow soap (don't know if they still make it, it was gentler on skin than most detergents) and I added bleach which kills bacteria, probably a cup per load. If you don't do this, usually the next time the diaper is used, it can become very "ammonia-like" when wet again and burn the baby's skin. My kids rarely had diaper rash. On nice days, I even hung the diapers out on the clothes line, they were always very white, no stains at all. They came in off the line smelling so fresh, and I always liked the entire process, even folding them and seeing them clean, white and stacked ready to use. I didn't ever use a diaper service.
I used pins, never had a problem poking or a pin accidentally opening. I think I remember Gerber making the best plastic pants at that time, better elastic at the legs preventing leaks. I washed these in the machine also, probably on a gentle cycle, and never put them in the dryer. Well, that's my 2 cents, Leslie
Okay, this is so funny to me. Les Tol, your kids never had Jaundice, were never fussy, had no allergic reactions to any food, slept through the night the first night home, were all toilet trained by 2 and you were able to give birth to them easily without any sort of medication… or without breaking a sweat. So, take in stride what Les says Phoebs because something tells me your experience may not be so rosy.
Fun to hear from you though Les! You are a mother among mothers and inspire Phoebs and I, who both love you still.
Sarah-I think maybe Les is onto something. If her kids were such great babies it could have been a RESULT of the cloth diapers!
Food for thought.
Long time lurker...old CV1 member and daughter to Dianne Billstrom. I LOVE them. I have been using them with baby #3 and I wish I would have done it with all of them. All of mine are used. I bought them off of Craigslist and this handy place called diaperswappers.com. I am using the fuzzybuns and bumgenious, but I actually really like the cotton prefolds with a cover. The cotten stinks less. Here are my recommendations:
1. Invest in a diaper sprayer you attach to your toilet. It is $40, but awesome and really helps in the post partum department.
2. You only need about 12 to 20. I have been using the same group of about 16 diapers (all used) for about 6 months and they are as white as the first day I got them.
3. I don't have a pail, but a big pillowcase like thing that hooks onto my changing table. When it is full, I do a load.
4. I use Allen's soap, but I have heard Tide Free and Clear is ok too. The biggest thing is to not use detergent with whiteners or other additives. They keep the diapers from being absorbant.
5. I use cloth wipes and it makes it even easier. Just put dirty diaper and wipe in the bag to wash and you are done. I ripped up old towels for my cloth wipes.
6. You can use old 100% wool sweaters from DI that you can sew into covers. One Mom I know swears they are the best.
7. There is nothing like 10 PM and a tight budget and realizing you are out of diapers and knowing all you need to do is a load of wash.
8. Use disposables for trips and overnight. I have tried cloth overnight, but the baby could barely sit up. way too bulky.
9. Don't try it until the baby is about 3 months or so. THey poop so much at the begining, it might drive you crazy. You do have to change about every 2-3 hours. You have to get out of the disposable habit of "just one more hour while I do this errand." You will have leaks this way.
10. Go buy some of those babylegs leg warmers. They are super cute and will really make you glad you are using cloth.
Have fun!
Obviously the world of "cloth" diapers is different these days. Even smacks of being a marketing gimmick.
But there is indeed a joy in folding diapers that have blown soft in the sun and the wind - and baby absorbs vitamin D too!!
And I love diaper pins and Gerber "bubba pants" as we called them in the Terrill household. We kept the pins stuck in bars of soap - so they always slid easily. I never stuck a child in 18 years of diapering babies. The favorite diaper pin memory though is of Dad sliding them through his beard to make them slide through the diaper with ease.
Maybe it's all about "connecting" anyway!!
And I'm sure the diaper service was not so great for the environment - but it sure was great for me and my sanity!
Alright, there IS the whole cloth movement out there (haha no pun intended)...and while I do think it does a world of good to get away from products made from petroleum, cloth diapering doesn't make you a better parent. I agree with your mama that there is a marketing ploy somewhere in all the madness... It might however lead to earlier potty training which is nice! Maya was 20 months and essentially potty trained herself . But who knows if that had anything to do with cloth dipes. We use these: http://wurtembergs.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
and use disposables when we go out and sometimes overnight. But it's great to think about how much $$ we've saved. I also make my own wipes. This is also great. I like them better than the regular kind. I just took old receiving blankets and cut them into rectangles, put them into an old wipe container, added distilled water with some tea tree and lavender oil mixed in (anti-fungal/anti-butt rash)...they work great! Anyway, blah blah blah. Get the "diapers" we use. Costco auto detailing cloths rule. And the best detergent for diapers is Bio-Kleen. I also hang mine on the line from time to time to let the sun work it's magic...
Holy cow! Hi Phoebs and Sar too! Now I simply must add another 2 cents.....
True; no jaundice, no allergic reactions to food (although as adults all 3 have seasonal allergies)and yes 3 births without medication, (but there was some sweating going on and let's just say the smile was missing from my face)...the fact that I had no medication was only because for some reason each child only took 2 or less hours to arrive....
Sheer luck!!
False; of course my kids were fussy at times, but I do have to say not very much, and we didn't use a single binky ....they did NOT sleep through the night until they had been living life awhile (early teens?)...sleeping through the night was hit and miss, big time...and they were not potty trained until after 2 years of age, because I didn't even start until a couple of weeks after their 2nd birthdays....and our son only mastered one part of the potty training, and stayed in training on the other part for at least another year! :) Hey, and I used cloth wipes too, laundered them right in there with the diapers.....the environment will have some trouble with either choice, but I really think it might be less with the cloth diapers... maybe there has been a study completed on this and the results can shed more light on it. Seems you have plenty of blog followers that are voting cloth, I think it's great! I'm so delighted that both you Phoebs, and Sar, are soon to be mothering 4 children!! We'll have to hear reports on what kind of diapering is going on, and just how well the choice is working :)
It doesn't look like there's any need for me to pipe in and make a vote for cloth, at least part time. What you are talking about doing is what I did with Peter - mostly cloth, but disposable when we were out. With Ned, it was a little different since we were in transition for a large part of his infancy and I didn't get in a good cloth routine with him. Anyway, I really liked using them and mostly felt that we were saving loads of money when we did. I just used prefolds with a bummis cover and a fleece liner (I just cut rectangles from a couple of fleece remnants I bought at Joann) on top of it. We also had a set of Fuzzi Bunz with Ned that we used off and on and I really liked them too. If you decide to go for it, I hope you find something that works for you and that you like!
I have used them. Didn't love them...didn't hate them. Ultimately, I gave in and just went with disposable. Don't hate me greenpeacers.
Used mostly cloth for the oldest two. I didn't mind using them,(loved hanging them on the line, oldest toilet trained earliest) but it actually became harder.
As disposables became the thing to use, the diaper covers I used were discontinued. There weren't diaper services where I was and when I looked into some of the new diaper covers they were hard to find (no internet!)and the costs were more than we could manage.(because cloth does take more money up front, as you get all your supplies)
I don't think I thought about it much with the later kids.
I think the costs might be reasonable now that being green is in.(It wasn't for most of my diaper changing years!)
I say do whatever makes you happy and sane.
hi Phoebe!
I switched to cloth when Eli was 4 months and did that clear to potty training. I then CD'd the little ones part time and then put the whole lot on craigslist and recouped most of my cost. it was fantastic!
umm, anyway, don't know if you know, but I own a couple maternity/baby stores now and talk cloth diapers a bit every single day, so if you ever want to chat about that's out there, I can probably help you :)
PS - I second the motion to check out BumGenius : )
This is biased Harry F. here. We use disposables from Cost-a-lot-co. I used to be concerned about filling up the land fills, but not anymore. With our latest baby we started piling up the used diapers behind the garage next to the wood pile. Every two months (or when the pile gets too big) we have all the primary kids over and have "snowball fights" with the used diapers. What a hoot! I've never seen kids have so much fun, especially if its been raining and the gel packs are completely full and ready to burst. Usually we do it over at the park across the street on a Friday (city workers come and clean the park on Saturday). I've found it to be a great tool to help my kids "bond" with the other kids, at the same time it has been a great oportunity to teach the kids about reusing. Anyway, just an idea I thought I would pass it on.
Hey Phoebes.
As someone who is expecting the next baby any day (literally), I've been researching the same thing and have been talking to several close friends here in PDX who do the cloth diapering. Based on all my research and consideration, we've decided.....(drumroll)...to go with disposables that are 100% compostable--they're called Nature Baby Care (diapers.com), with the exception of the first month or two, when we will use Pampers Swaddlers. If you decide to go cloth, these many informative comments have given you lots of info. but since we're going against the grain, I'll share our reasoning.
1.) The jury is still out on the environmental impact of cloth, whether you use a service or wash them at home (I have friends who do both), because of the chemical and water impact of the washing either way.
2.) Not only is the initial outlay for the diapers you use inserts with pricey, but in the name of 'something's got to give', I have decided that even an extra 3 loads of laundry, plus placement of the inserts, carting the things up and down my basement stairs, etc....is just more work that I don't need. Call me lazy (I honestly don't think I am; just have more than enough on my plate). It's just one less thing to do and a couple more hours a week to spend with my family.
3.) The Nature Baby Care diapers are really, really great albeit spendy. But since everything has a price, we've decided to spend the $ on those for the sake of the environment and convenience. We used them for the last year Audrey was in diapers and they are very absorbent and comfortable.
4.) Some cloth advocates argue for doing cloth for just the first month or two, if nothing else, because of how many diapers changes you have daily (10-12?) but our decision to do the 'evil empire disposables' for the first 1-2 months is precisely because there are sooooo many changes (pricey!), plus this is the very time when everyone is extra tired and still adjusting to the new life, and swaddlers are just so extremely soft and lovely and since we are committed to paying the extra $ for the Nature Baby care for the rest of the diapering years, our conscience is not the slightest bit heavy about it. In fact, I've already loaded up on Swaddlers for that initial month or so and bought the size 2's in Nature Baby Care (you should see my basement--it's a veritable diaper depot!)
Anyways, just my two cents, since you asked, and since no one else was going this direction.
I gotta keep with the disposables just for fairness sake. I don't want anyone accusing me of babying my baby more than the older kids. What's good for one is good for four.
I'll find another environmentally friendly thing to do.
Maybe.
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