As we get closer to "D" day people have been asking me if we are ready. This usually involves a detailed review of our baby items we have, and still need. When I mention that we still need at least six to ten more cloth diapers I get the crazy stink eye look. This of course is always followed with a "That's disgusting!" comment.
Okay lets clear up some misconceptions on this alright. Initially, when I learned that CDing was becoming more popular I was a bit shocked. I had visions of nasty white nappies that were held together by plastic animal safety pins. However, then I saw the modern cloth diapers and was intrigued.
This is a cloth diaper...more specifically a Bumgenius. We are using Bumgenius One Size Fits All which retails for 17.95 each and can be washed and reused. However, a bulk package of pampers swaddlers can be purchased for about $46.99 and I am estimating you will need 240 disposable diapers a month (8 diapers a day...being frugal) so lets just estimate $60 bucks a month for diapers...mkay. Essentially when you do the math you end up spending about $720 a year on diapers, where as I am spending about $430.80 on 24 cloth diapers which I can also use with any additional future children we have. If you include the detergent and washing costs it probably will cost us about $500 bucks for a year of CDing. So all in all CDing is economically wise.
It is also an environmental friendly option. You do not have solid wastes being thrown into landfills which can contaminate the environment and water sources. Also, do you know how long it takes for a diaper to decompose??? It is estimated that it takes 500 years...which means my own stinky doo is still sitting in a landfill. Sick! Yes, you do use water and electricity to use cloth diapers, but these are renewable resources. Any poo washer water goes through our sewer system and can be filtered. All in all...cloth diapering helps the environment.
Cloth diapers are actually healthier for babies. Our adult parts need to be able to breathe and so does baby parts. The cotton of a cloth diaper allows this, and thus decreases the cases of diaper rashes. You also do not have all the chemicals against a baby's skin which a disposable diaper does provide.
The cloth diaper cleanup isn't that bad to be honest. Young babies do not have solid poopies for the most part so there is very little scraping of doo doo into the toilet. Essentially you just throw the diapers in the wash and voila! Now some people have expressed how nasty it is to wash poo in a washer...okay lets look at this little factoid. All babies spit up and poo on themselves right? They also do a good majority of this on their blankets, clothes, sheets, etc correct??? Do you throw out their linens and clothes when they do this? Yes...Britney Spears does do this...however we are not all whorish superstars with dollar bills laying around to wipe our hineys with. Most people ::shudder:: wash them in their washers!!! EGAD!!!! The absurdity of this is boundless! So okay folks lets be honest...whether you CD or not you still have icky poo and goo in your washer.
Finally, I would like to point out that cloth diapers generally have less "blow outs" than with disposable diapers. While they are not fool proof by any means, they do in fact contain messes better than their throw away cousins. Cloth diapers are also fashionably cuter, but honestly this is the least important of all factors.
So yes...we are using cloth diapers. We are being wise in the fact that CDing is for at home. Should we go out of town then by all means bring on the sposies!! As Colby laments that oh how smelly fresh our car would be with fermenting poo cloth diapers should we do CDing on trips! Yes, this is a bit contradictory. However, I am not a devout all consuming eco friendly mama. I am just being realistic. I also have to add that I love that even Colby sees how much sense it makes to utilize cloth diapers. Usually, he argues my ideas and thoughts. However, even he has seen how much this makes sense.
Whether you utilize cloth diapering, or not does not matter much to me. This is our personal choice, and we have information to support the choice. However, people need to get over the "Oh gross" and "You're a econut" generalizations.
