Why To Use Baby Cloth Diapers

Three Reasons You Can't Ignore...

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In preparation for the birth of our baby, my wife made one thing very clear: we were going to use baby cloth diapers. I knew my wife well enough to know this wasn't going to be negotiable. I also knew that cloth diapering would mean a lot more work for me.

What I didn't know though was that there were good reasons for my wife's decision to go with cloth diapers. After eight months of using prefold cloth diapers with Tessa, I'm going on the record to say my wife was absolutely right.

Essentially, there are three main reasons for using baby cloth diapers.

Why To Use Baby Cloth Diapers

Reason #1: Disposable diapers are bad for the environment
Reason #2: Cloth diapers are better for your baby
Reason #3: Cloth diapers are cheaper than using disposables
Some more reasons...
Cloth diaper deals

Reason #1: Disposable diapers are bad for the environment

I know what you're already saying: everything is bad for the environment. Well until I looked it up, I didn't realize how incredibly bad disposable diapers really are. A simple Google search (using the keywords: disposable diapers environmental effects) can lead you to finding the real poop about the environmental effects of disposable diapers.

And in the end, it's really all about the poop, although you can also talk about the one billion trees used worldwide in the manufacture of disposable diapers. However, it is estimated that roughly 5 million tons of untreated waste from disposable diapers are added to landfills each year. Landfills aren't designed to handle human waste. It costs $50 million a year just to keep up landfills which end up harboring all sorts of viruses, bacteria and pollution from this raw sewage. This human waste leaks out and slowly leaches into our groundwater and is a serious contaminant for soils as well.

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Reason #2: Cloth diapers are better for your baby

This one's really simple and it has to do with diaper rash. Baby cloth diapers minimize diaper rash because you are changing diapers a lot more when you use cloth. While disposable diapers use chemicals to absorb the wetness (more on this in a minute), with cloth diapers, babies feel the wetness right away and don't like it. They cry and cry and you change their diaper - a lot! Tessa went through 12 to 15 cloth diapers a day easy. It was a lot of work for me, but Tessa only had a slight rash two or three times.

The plastic in the disposable diaper doesn't breathe either so all the heat and moisture generated as a result provides the perfect environment for bacteria to grow and cause a rash. There is actually an ongoing debate among parents here at Easy Baby Life regarding mysterious circled diaper rashes when using Pampers. Not one of the babies with problems seems to be using cloth diapers. You can follow the discussions here.

So back to those chemicals I mentioned earlier. They're not good for the baby either. According to Greenpeace, there are traces of dioxin and TBT (tributyl-tin), two highly toxic chemicals in disposable diapers. The EPA lists Dioxin as the most toxic of all cancer-linked contagions. Oddly enough (or not depending on your point of view), this doesn't seem to deter companies from continuing to make diapers with these chemicals in it.

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Reason #3: Cloth diapers are cheaper than using disposables

Let's cut to the chase and get at what's really going to make a dad (and mom?) consider using baby cloth diapers: cloth diapers will save you lots of money. For some parents, it might not matter and they'll say it's worth the convenience.

Let's play a quick numbers game and see what you think afterwards:

Say you only have one child using disposable diapers over the course of one year. Let's say that in the first 3 months you go through 10 diapers a day (900 diapers). As baby gets older, you use 8 diapers a day for the next 6 months (1440 diapers), and over the last 3 months of the year, you use 6 per day (540 diapers). This totals to 2880 diapers in one year. The average cost of one diaper is roughly $0.25. This comes to a total cost of $720 or $60/month.

In preparations for using baby cloth diapers with Tessa, we registered for prefold cloth diapers and were also loaned fancier fitted cloth diapers by friends. At one point a month ago, we had to invest in some diaper covers for about $25 and some Snappis (see below) for about $10. Total cost for us to use cloth diapers for Tessa's first year: $35 or about $3/month.

Want to figure out costs on your own? You can use my very unscientific formula (# of diapers used per day multiplied by the cost of an individual diaper) or try this calculator provided by DiaperPinc.om to calculate your own household's savings.

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Some more reasons...

Parents who use baby cloth diapers swear their child potty trained quicker. We'll see how Tessa does but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

No pins required. If you're like me, I was terrified at the thought of trying to pin a diaper closed with a squirmy little baby inside it. Those days are gone though. Fitted cloth diaper brands use snaps or Velcro. We use a Snappi Cloth Diaper Fasteners (here at Amazon) for prefold cloth diapers. You can also use a diaper cover, like this one at Amazon, over the diaper and that will keep things good for you as well.

Overall, baby cloth diapers are kind of fun. Yeah, I know it's strange but I must admit I like seeing the looks I get from people when I change Tessa in public. Not only am I a guy changing a diaper in public, but I'm also a guy changing a cloth diaper in public. Not bad for a first time stay-at-home dad!