WHAT?! WHY?!
Well... there are a lot of reasons!
1. Cost! If we had kept with disposables, we would have spent about $2800 dollars on diapers and $800 on wipes. That's a total of $3600 just to keep our baby from pooping and peeing all over our carpet. Instead, we have spent about $1000 on a really good set of diapers and cloth wipes that will last from now until she potty trains. If we have a second baby we will save a total of $6200 ($2600 saved now + $3600 saved for the next baby)! I think we totally deserve a vacation. lol. And, yes, I know, we increase the amount of laundry that we do per week by 3 loads. But seriously, that feels like chump change compared to $2600!
2. Better for the planet! So... guess what I learned recently? The average baby uses about 8000 diapers from birth to potty training. So, if the baby is potty trained at 2.5 years that's an average of 3200 diapers per year, per child. There is an average of 4 million babies born every year in America, which means there's an average of 12 million children using diapers per year. Minus the amount of babies that don't survive (that's really sad) and the small portion of people that cloth diaper. And... I figured out that there are an average of 30 billion diapers going into landfills...EACH YEAR! Yeah, that's seriously insane.
3. They keep Autumn's bum so much dryer! And... poop sticks mostly to the diaper instead of her, which is awesome! She really seems to love them.
4. I use only ONE cloth wipe instead of 3-5 disposable wipes. They are so much more efficient.
5. There aren't any chemicals in cloth diapers. Disposable diapers have lots of chemicals in them. I don't want that touching her!
6. They're super cute!! Check out our stash (minus 11 dirty diapers).
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| Which one is your favorite?! |
Cloth diapers aren't what they used to be. The first thing Dan said to me before I bought any was, "I want them to be just as easy to use as disposables. Otherwise, I'm out." So, I went to my friend Karissa's store, asked her for some advice and she pointed me in the direction of All-In-Ones and Pocket Diapers. The All-In-Ones that I bought are all connected. All I do is put it on and take it off just like a disposable, but instead of throwing it away, I put it in a wet bag until I get around to washing them. It's so ridiculously easy. When I told my dad I was cloth diapering he said, "We did that with Marshall and it just wasn't worth all the trouble." But when I told him about how many diapers get thrown away and how they don't requite SAFETY PINS anymore, he was really excited about it, too! Well... as excited as my dad gets about things. ;)
Anyway, my Father-In-Law asked if I was going to be a cloth diapering advocate and when I said yes, he replied, "That's what we need, one more person in the world telling us how to live." And to that I reply, "Heck yes we do! Especially when it's saving a whole lot of waste and protecting our babies' booties!!!
Until tomorrow... (Dangit, I suck at Fotography Fridays),
Amy
I am so happy you went this route. We got a lot of "flack" from friends and family at first, but when they see how easy it is and how great it is for baby and Earth they usually come around. There are lots of great forums on FB and online to help when you have questions about caring for your diapers. Have fun!
ReplyDeleteThere's all kinds of new info out there... Including info that points to disposable diapers increasing the risk of infertility because of the heat they trap in! It's scary! I wish I had told my husband to suck it (and my mom who kept arriving with cases upon cases of disposables) and just purchased good CDs from the beginning instead of buying used ones that are honestly shot and lead to terrible, frustrating leaks!
ReplyDeleteIt's so nice to hear a success story. I'm really excited about trying it when we have kids, for both the environmental reasons, but more so for the cost! I'm dreading telling our parents though, I know my mom will try to poo poo (pun intended!) on my parade!
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