Have your reasons for cloth diapering changed?

Do you continue to use cloth diapers for the same reason you started?

Families cloth diaper their babies for all sorts of reasons.  In the past cloth diapers were the only option, then disposables became the preferred method, and now cloth diapers are making a comeback due to improved design, modern conveniences and the importance now placed on being green.

Depending on your influences, friends, family and online connections cloth diapering may not have even been on your radar.  Some look into it because they saw a cute cloth diapered baby on a website or magazine page, perhaps a celebrity used cloth or you've decided you want to save money.  Other's consider cloth because they care about the environmental impact and health risks involved in using disposable diapers.

So, we're curious...Do you continue to cloth diaper now for the same reasons as when you first started?  Did you start cloth diapering to save money but now you continue because you've become more eco-conscious?  Are you addicted to cloth diapers because of the cute factor and the online communities you may have become a part of?

What are your thoughts?

Will the oil spill cause more cloth diaper converts?

Just posted to the Knickernappies Blog, thought I'd share it here too!

As the days continue to fly by and the oil continues to gush from the BP oil well, it seems that the decisions we need to make are becoming all too clear.  We're dependent on oil in so many ways we cannot even fathom.  Can we make a difference by making different choices?

Over the last ten years or so there's been a rise in the "green movement," a rise in the amount of interest in living more eco-friendly lifestyles, making greener choices and attempting to create less waste as we go through life.  Not everyone has jumped on board, many saw it as a trend and couldn't see the big picture, how the choices we make day to day can affect our children and our children's children for years to come.

Where do cloth diapers fit in?  To many cloth diapering may seem like just a small step towards going green, after all it does still require the use of additional energy and water.  Some claim that cloth diapers and disposables each cancel out the benefits and disadvantages of each other and that one is not a clear choice over the other.  But in reality, especially today's reality, using cloth diapers can make a huge difference.

According to a recent Huffington Post article, Eco Etiquette,   

"Nearly 3.5 billion gallons of oil are used to produce the 18 billion throwaway diapers that Americans toss each year. To put that in perspective, that's more than the amount of crude we import annually from Kuwait."

What's even more shocking?  With these statistics disposable companies are stepping it up in order to try and keep families from considering cloth diapers.  Now they've come out with designer prints for babies to poop in.  The concept seems so absurd it's almost hard to imagine anyone buying them but they will I am sure.  They may as well just go over to the garbage can and throw their money in it because that's essentially what they'll be doing.

It is certainly depressing, the situation we've gotten ourselves into with this devastating oil spill, but we've made our bed and now we've got to lay in it.  There doesn't seem to be any end in site to this catastrophy and if you're anything like me then you feel absolutely helpless.

So what are your thoughts?  Do you think that this crisis will be a wake-up call to more families reminding them that there's no change too small, that even things like reusable baby diapers can make a great difference in the grand scheme of things?  Has your family considered making any additional lifestyle changes because of the oil spill?  We'd love for you to share your thoughts.

Julia Clark, Earth Angels Diaper Co.

My take on the Cloth vs. Disposable war!

(I had the pleasure of writing this post for the Knickernappies Blog and thought I'd like to share my thoughts here with you all as well.)

There is no end in sight to the battle between cloth diapers and disposables. The use of eco-friendly diapering alternatives is on the rise and the mega-manufacturers of sposies have taken notice. We can not expect them to sit back and watch as our industry grows in popularity, converting one mom at a time from disposables to cloth or hybrids.

The lines have been drawn in the sand and advocates for both sides have been standing their ground, playing defense for their team.

What's the problem? The problem is that it's hard to tell Fact from Fiction, especially when some of the largest companies back their own studies and provide the public with what they want you to believe are un-biased scientific facts.

This post will address some of the most common Facts and try to provide you with enough information and legitimate sources to allow you to make up your own mind about what truly is Fact or Fiction.

Let us first address the topic of resources and energy used in the production and consumption of cloth diapers vs. disposables. Have you read The Great Diaper Debate? It's a great article and makes valid points both for and against cloth diapers and disposables.

It cites studies who have evaluated the energy usage for the use of cloth diapers and claims to have found there to be no real difference environmentally between the two competing daipering methods.

"found no difference between the overall environmental impact of disposable diapers, home-laundered cloth, and commercially laundered cloth diapers."

But they do go on to say that conflicting studies have found the results to be much more complicated.

What's my take? Well to me the difference is obvious. Studies, most likely backed by those large mega-manufacturers, always like to point out the energy used in washing and drying cloth diapers, the resources used by the trucks who work for cloth diaper services as they transport the cloth diapers to and from customers, etc.

But what about that plank sticking out of their own eye? I guess they didn't notice it because they were so busy looking for the speck in ours. The energy used to make the disposables, the resources used to transport millions and millions of diapers to stores across the country and around the globe? I rarely see any mention of it. Comparisons are always made to the diapers that end up in landfills vs. the energy and resources needed to care for cloth diapers. What about where the disposables come from? They don't just magically appear.

Let's take a look at some other facts, really obvious ones, facts that don't need expensive studies to back them up.

FACT: Cloth Diapers are made by humans and not machines, are not made in huge factories that create pollution, and are not made with components that are also made in turn by more machine operated, environment-polluting factories.

FACT: Cloth Diapers are primarily sold by small family owned and operated businesses and mom-entrepreneurs. Disposables are sold in mass quantities by BIG BOX retailers.

FACT: The health risks to your baby are greater when using disposables than when using cloth diapers made of natural fibers.

FACT: According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, one disposable diaper is approximated to take up to 450 years to decompose in a landfill. The RDA estimates that a baby could use approximately 6,00 diapers in their first two years of life.

These facts are not complicated and do not require super in depth answers, they are pretty cut and dry and in my opinion make the clear winner obvious.

Lastly, let me leave you with this sweet video. It will give you a glimpse at all the loving care that goes into the production of disposables.

If you can not view the video here you can follow this link to watch it on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkdAOhnrGyw

Written by Julia Clark

Diapers made with loving care....by a robot! Not!

Just had to share that I came across this video on How Disposable Diapers are made. All that kept going through my mind was the thought that at least all cloth diapers are still made by hand. Some may be made in a larger sew shop but at least people are still employed to do the job and in most cases our modern cloth diapers are still being sewn by fellow moms.

This video just gives you that inside peek at all the plastic and polymer that go into the disposable diapers and a glimpse at how much energy is really consumed in their production.

The Cloth Diaper Geek Explains it all!

Have you got a question? Don't forget you can either post your question as a comment or submit your question using our Reader Contribution Form.

Question: How often do you need to change cloth diapers? With disposables, you could go hours between changes...just curious what the "standard" answer is.

The Geek's Answer: Great Question! This question actually has multiple answers. You can expect to get different lengths of wear out of different methods/styles of cloth diapers and everyone's babies are different, some are heavy wetters and some are not.

In general I would say that cotton prefolds need to be changed more frequently than microfiber/hemp containing diapers. Not necessarily because they are inferior but because without a stay dry liner the moisture is up against the baby's skin making more frequent changing necessary. Changing every 1-2 hours, sometimes less, sometimes more.

Pocket Diapers such as BumGenius, KnickerNappies, GAD, etc. can be customized to suit your needs. One micro or hemp insert might be sufficient for a few hours during the day, doubling them up extends your wear, and really stuffing them good can get your baby through the night without needing a change.

My best advice is trial and error. You can read about some of my experiments with nighttime diapering in an old post HERE. There are a lot of factors that go into finding the right system for you. Experimenting with different inserts, different covers, pockets vs. all-in-ones, fitteds, fleece, hemp...The possibilities are endless and there is no reason why everyone can't find a combination that works for them.

Dumping Disposable Diapers, a fabulous Mothering article!

If you've never wandered over to Mothering.com then you're really missing out. Not only is it full of tons of great info from from topics like home birth, breastfeeding, vaccines and cooking to cloth diapering! The Mothering crew really has a love for cloth and they've got some great articles that are really worth reading.

One such article is Dumping Disposable Diapers, by Lindsay Evans. Lindasy shares with readers her thought process on making the switch, how the idea came about and why it works for her.

"as my stock of disposables dwindled and Amelia and I settled in to our new life together, the thought of continuously buying—and supporting the makers of—disposable diapers made me sick."

She covers the different styles of cloth diapers, their cost, how to care for them, and more in this great article. She even discusses traveling with cloth diapers and the environmental debate, cloth vs. disposables.

This is a perfect article if your a newbie, or considering making the switch to cloth. Head on over to Mothering and check it out! Come back and let me know what you think.

My Case for Cloth

I'm addicted to cloth diapering for my little one (2.5 years) and am prepared to do it with #2 when she arrives. I am not someone who I thought would have cloth diapered six months ago. I'm a pretty typical stay at home mom. I am not particularly eco-conscious and I don't spend a lot of time worrying about chemicals lurking inside diapers or plastic, though maybe I should. I have pretty mainstream wants. I've found that many cloth diapering mamas seem to be right where I am. For the most part, cloth diapering mamas seem to be a pretty diverse group and don't fit my previous stereotypes. I have found that the ones I've encountered (entirely via the Internet) are friendly, accepting and willing to teach.

The Cost
There is a wealth of information online about cloth diapers, particularly through blogs. When you google "cloth diapers vs. disposables", the vast majority of results lead you to cloth diapering websites. Thus, they are heavily slanted for cloth. On the other side are articles that use information that comes from studies funded by disposable diaper makers. Who to trust? Now that I am completely indoctrinated into the idea of cloth, I agree with many of their points. I did have a lot of frustration that I couldn't find very much balanced information when I was first started researching. I used disposables happily and successfully for two years. Since I've been pregnant with my new baby I started going to pregnancy chat boards and found a lot of chatter about cloth diapers and became intrigued. Money was my main reason for looking into cloth. The attractiveness and softness of cloth diapers is what caught my attention. I've also developed an irritation for buying things over and over again if I'm just going to throw them away. I'm humored that being cheap parallels being eco-friendly.

One thing that stuck me when doing diaper research were the numbers and cost comparisons between using cloth diapers and disposables. I may be in the minority, but I'm a little dubious about the cost comparisons provided by a lot of the pro-cloth sites. Sadly, it is already hard to remember how many diapers I changed at any given stage of my daughter's life, but I am certain that I don't change her the estimated 6-8 times a day that many websites suggest I change her at this age. I don't think I've changed her that much in a REALLY long time. She usually uses about four disposables on any given day. More if her stomach is upset, less if she never poops. She rarely had a rash problem, so I feel like the changes she had were adequate. To be fair, my daughter does not seem to be a "super soaker." Maybe the estimates are based on children who pee more than my kid.

When I was buying disposables full time, I bought the Target brand for $13/ish a box and went through a big box in somewhere under a month. Before I switched to the Target brand, I went to great lengths to use coupons to save on diapers. For awhile, I consistently spent close to 13 cents per diaper change while using Pampers or Huggies. Many of the calculators put the cost per diaper closer to 20 cents. While I've spent more money than I want to think about on disposable diapers, I don't believe I've spent 2 grand or more.

In contrast, I know EXACTLY what I have spent on cloth diapers. I have spent $464 to build a pretty respectable cloth diaper stash. The retail value is closer to $950. I've bought new, used, seconds, and even won a few. I have 23 one size diapers (pockets and all in ones, one all in two), 13 prefolds, 13 Kissaluvs 0s, a handful of covers and six small or newborn pocket diapers. I'd like to have more one size diapers so that they won't wear out with frequent washing. Since I've spent more than I'd like to admit, my goal is to win them!

I plan to sell off the majority of my newborn stash to re-coup some of my costs. In the future, I plan to buy mostly new diapers so that I can care for them from the start and don't end up paying too much for diapers of questionable condition.

The Verdict
The energy output for cloth diapers is the first thing people usually mention when I tell them I've made the switch. They ask about the laundry. I launder every other day. My daughter still only uses 4-5 diapers a day, so I can easily go longer. However, I actually get satisfaction out of doing cloth diaper laundry. I don't think it is very hard. I do a cold rinse, hot wash, extra rinse, then I'm done. I line dry the PUL and use the dryer for everything else.

The energy output was there when I was using disposables, it was just in a different place. I visited websites that tracked diaper sales, I clipped coupons and made special trips just to get the best price on diapers. I dealt with check out clerks that mangled my coupon savings and dealt with the line of annoyed customers behind me who rolled their eyes because my coupon use was making the line go slowly. I spent extra money at the store because I bought more than the diapers I went in for.

If you are on the fence about cloth diapering, be prepared, there is a loss of convenience. This seems to be glossed over a lot on the "pro-cloth" sites. You can't just roll up the poopy diaper, toss and forget. You have to do something with the poop. However, the trade off is that your child has a cute, comfortable diaper on. The poop is also only once or twice a day. If you hold a cloth diaper next to a disposable, it is easy to see what is more comfortable. My daughter is very verbal and clearly prefers her "soft" diapers over her "paper" diapers.

What really convinced me...
We took a trip to see grandma out of town and took disposables. Within 18 hours, my daughter had a terrible rash on her back. Remember, this is the child who has worn disposables her ENTIRE life. After a month in cloth, disposables irritate her. I broke my baby. We had to make an emergency run and get a package of G-diapers. This makes me wonder whether disposables have bothered her skin her entire life and she was just used to it. That makes me sad. Now we use disposables in a pinch for an afternoon, but I'm a full time convert.

Contributed by
Ruth
www.mykidcenteredlife.blogspot.com