Simply Thrifty

21 opinions for Cloth or Disposable?

• ruth
  Feb 9, 2006 at 3:35 am

  when i was still pregnant, we were leaning towards cloth for the same reasons you cited. my wise MIL advised us to use disposables for the first few weeks, have a feel of the situation, and if we still want to go cloth, we still can anyway.

  am i glad we listened!

  later i figured, if you calculate the costs of the water, detergent, electricity, manpower, and sanity (provide your own cost estimate for this), cloth diapers don’t really sound so frugal and environmentally friendly anyway…

  well, ok, i didn’t actually make calculations, but at least that thought stopped me from feeling guilty! haha!

  and ey, congratulations on the bun! :)

• Adelle
  Feb 9, 2006 at 5:46 am

  Well there are two ways of looking at this. Hot water costs a lot too and if you have a gas water tank, you might be surprised how much your bill will go up. On the other hand, folding diapers does give you a good excuse to sit down. I had to use disposables on my kids - two in diapers at the same time and one of them developed a horrid rash - I tried every laundry soap on the market, tried rinses, tried vinegar, baking soda (in the rinse, not on the baby) and nothing worked. Disposables took care of the problem. I couldn’t let her go with those huge blisters, whether the environment was at stake or not! It was awful.

  There is a compromise. A diaper service. That is probably what I would do were I doing that again but thankfully, this is your problem and not mine!! LOL LOL

• Jason
  Feb 9, 2006 at 8:02 am

  I agree with your sister and admire your need to be conscious of the environment.

  Although I hadn’t heard of it before my two kids were grown, there’s actually another option. My apologies, but I can’t remember the author or book, but someone had done work on looking at how other cultures in the east don’t use cloth diapers or disposable. Somehow they train their kids to control body functions almost immediately.

  I’d step up my other recycling efforts to compensate for the added disposable if worse came to worse.

• Bald Man
  Feb 9, 2006 at 8:02 am

  Well, as the father of three (ages 8 mo. to 5 yrs.) I’ll throw my two cents in. We used disposable on all three because of the convenience factor. The idea of rinsing and laundering 8-10 poopy diaper A DAY wasn’t something we were willing to undertake.

  Have you checked out diaper services that will launder cloth diapers for you? We never looking into them with any depth, but I think the cost is comparable to using disposable. If you’ve got baby showers (or birthdays or any other gift giving occasion) coming up, perhaps you can get folks to pay for the service instead of buying disposable diapers… or newborn outfits that he/she will never get get around to wearing.

• Dale Hanks
  Feb 9, 2006 at 10:43 am

  I agree about the diaper service, larger volume reduces the environment impact of doing the laundering yourself. I have a 6 and 4 year old and while we used disposables it bothered me the whole time. And they are expensive, very expensive.

• Kayll
  Feb 9, 2006 at 11:39 am

  Hi Kevin,
  Here’s an article you might find interesting along the lines of what Jason was talking about in his comment.

  http://www.wjbo.com/pages/family.html?feed=104679&article=346162

  And here’s another article written by a mother who uses cloth diapers.

  http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/diapers/joy-of-cloth.html

• Kevin Humphrey
  Feb 9, 2006 at 1:37 pm

  Wow! What an awesome response. Thanks so much, everyone.

  I’d love to use a diaper service, but unfortunately, we live in a very rural area and there’s no one providing such a service here.

  Special thanks to Jason for the suggestion and then to Kayll for the link to more information on the concept of going diaper-free. I was actually reading Siddhartha in bed last night and I started wondering how other cultures, especially poor ones, handled diapering. I’m definitely going to take a good look at that avenue.

  Thanks again, everybody. You folks rock! :)

• Heather
  Feb 10, 2006 at 7:01 am

  I’ll just throw in my thoughts on this topic, since I’ve recently revisited the whole nappy thing with my new boy born one year ago.

  I have older kids, 17 & 15, and only used disposables for them when I went out, and cloth nappies at home. The cost was much higher then and I really couldn’t afford to purchase such a large number of nappies, as we call them here in Australia.

  Now that I’ve got another baby and am 40 years old, I have to admit the prospect of washing nappies again did not thrill me. Still, I decided to do what I’d done before, but did notice the price of nappies had come down significantly in those 13 or so years since I’d needed to buy them.

  I started out well, but whenever I used disposables I noticed how much drier my baby stayed. When I used the cloth ones he was wetter and smellier. I figured the cost and do feel concerned about the environment, but I also consider what’s best for my child.

  He also needed to have an operation on his penis and the doctor told me to stay with the disposables until the wound healed. I haven’t gone back to cloth since then.

  Great topic, by the number of comments. I do know of a company doing some kind of eco friendly disposable, too, but cannot think of their name right now. ;-)

• Kevin Humphrey
  Feb 11, 2006 at 6:38 pm

  Thanks, Heather.

  There is one company in the US that recently introduced an eco-friendly disposable called the gDiaper (http://www.gdiapers.com/home), though they’re not yet available to me in Canada yet.

• Jenn
  Feb 17, 2006 at 8:59 am

  Another thing to consider is that if your child goes into a daycare situation many places won’t do cloth diapers, only disposables.

  I used the cheapest brand of disposables i could-a brand called Drypers and liked them. Since we moved I can’t find them and use the cheapo brand at wal mart.

  I did however make my own baby wipes (much cheaper) for use at home, and not only breast fed but made my own baby food (not only much cheaper but much healthier, and my kids 4 & 2 eat just about anything-not picky at all now).

  The baby food was not a pain at all-you just steam some veggies, whir them in the blender, and freeze them in icecube trays. Then defrost the right amount of cubes and feed to the kiddo. Easy peasy.

• Gail
  Feb 17, 2006 at 10:15 am

  I used disposables on my babies at night and when we went out, cloth diapers when we were home during the day (I was a sahm and laundered them myself).

  Cheap disposables were just as good quality as the big name brand ones.

  It’s amazing how much we think about baby stuff while we’re in it, and then how quickly it’s no longer an issue. :)

• Kevin Humphrey
  Feb 19, 2006 at 6:02 pm

  Gail - My wife and I are leaning towards a hybrid approach as well presently with disposables at night and cloth during the day.

  We’re also looking at how Europeans toilet-train much earlier so we can get off the diaper train as quickly as possible. Apparently, North Americans leave their kids in them longer than any other group.

  Jenn - I love your baby food method. That’ll defintely become part of our routine. Thanks again for your great ideas. :)

• Gail
  Feb 19, 2006 at 7:49 pm

  Kevin,
  As you research toilet training, please keep one thing in mind-the decision to use the potty is ultimately up to the child. If you push the issue before they’re ready, it will be much harder going. Remember, sucessful toilet training is the child’s success, not the parent’s.

  Europeans are under different pressures to toilet train early. And they spend a lot of time cleaning up accidents. North Americans are not wrong to leave the issue alone until their children are ready. And when your baby is 15, you’ll look back fondly to diapering days and wonder where did the time go?

  I learned a lot about raising children (and toilet training) from Dr. T. Barry Brazleton. I recommend reading his books. He has a very pro-child, gentle approach. Good luck!

  Gail

• Gail
  Feb 19, 2006 at 7:53 pm

  Sorry, I misspelled his name above.
  Dr. T. Barry Brazelton is a world reknowned pediatrician.

• sherry
  Feb 22, 2006 at 12:22 pm

  I couldn’t bear the thought of contributing to land fill sites already overflowing with disposables. Also I’m not crazy about the ‘gel’ contained in disposables being against my son’s skin. Cloth was and is all I have ever used. Okay so I have a service that picks up and delivers, but I still feel I’m doing my bit for the environment. My son has also never suffered from nappy rash nor have they caused problems with leaking. When we’re out of the house and he needs to be changed I simply toss the used nappy into a nappy sac and deal with it when I get home. Seriously reconsider and try and locate a diaper service in your area.

• sherry
  Feb 22, 2006 at 12:26 pm

  Fogot to add that I’m living in the UK but am from Canada. I will be visiting the homeland in 2 weeks for a month and have managed to locate a diaper service. Where in CAnada are you? http://www.comfycotton.ca Good luck.

• Kevin Humphrey
  Feb 23, 2006 at 3:39 pm

  Sherry - I’d love to use a diaper service, but unfortunately I’m out in the boonies (Haliburton county, Ontario - 3 hours NE of Toronto) and there isn’t anyone offering such a service up here. Wish there was! Thanks. :)

• Mary
  Feb 23, 2006 at 9:14 pm

  Hi Kevin,,

  I’m a cloth user and it is all I have ever used but I use what is known as modern cloth in that they are shaped like a disposable but are made from fabrics such as hemp cotton and bamboo. I drypail which means no need to soak in sanitisers etc instead soiled nappies just go straight into a dry bucket with lid and when the bucket is full I just empty the nappies into the washing machine with a very small amount of powder. I have a front loader which is very water and energy efficient.

  I’m in Australia so I’m not that famililar with canadian sites but a good starting point to find out more about modern nappies is http://www.ozclothnappies.org plus I’m pretty sure the following two companies are canadian and I have used both their products.

  http://www.bummis.com

  http://www.motherease.com

  All the best with the new bub.

  Mary

• Kevin Humphrey
  Feb 24, 2006 at 2:41 pm

  Mary - Yes, I’ve seen those and they’re definitely being seriously considered for our situation. Thanks for the pointers to those websites. Much appreciated!

• Hilary
  Mar 3, 2006 at 7:51 am

  Hi there - I use cloth nappies and can’t see the problem of difficulty with them - as the baby gets older he/she poos less and so you change maybe every 3-5 hours which is no big deal - there are so many different cloth nappies available now - I throw my cloth nappies in the washing machine with other 60 c washing. Landfill is a massive problem in Europe (I am living in ITaly but am from the UK) - cloth diapers are easy and cheaper esp if you use them for more than one child or send them around between friends as they have babies. They ARE more environmentally friendly, don`t kid yourself that there is no difference between them in ecological terms…. unless of course you tumble dry and iron all your nappies… However, I must confess that with both my newborns i started with disposables, just until things settled down.

• Amy
  Feb 16, 2007 at 10:56 am

  Hi,

  Not a parent, but interested in the topic. Last month I read The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices, and learned that cloth vs. disposable diapers is a pretty even race, from an environmentalist standpoint.

  Personally, I like the idea of cloth diapers, but after reading that book I’m not going to sweat the use of disposables.

  Oh, and eBay seems like a good source of cloth diapers, FYI.

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