Cloth Diapers vs Disposable: How to best keep your baby clean, dry and happy
August 19, 2009 by BabyCare
Filed under Baby Products, Featured
There is a quite fierce debate between parents – both long-term ones and new ones – over which type of diaper is better for babies. The two main types of diaper are disposable ones and cloth ones, and both types inevitably have their plus sides and their minus sides. In truth, neither kind is better per se than the other. But depending on your personal outlook on such things, you are likely to lean one way or the other, and make your decision based on that instinct. It then comes down to whether you feel comfortable with your choice after a month or two of putting it into practice.
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Disposable diapers have in their favor that they are disposable (obviously). On changing the diaper, you will simply have to put it in the trash and say no more about it. However, as any parent will tell you, children are very productive sources of waste matter, so keeping them in clean diapers can add up to a lot of expense. Cloth diapers are invariably cheaper – although clearly you need to have quite a few if you don’t want to be washing them almost constantly. They also mess up the environment a lot less.
Disposable Diapers or Cloth?
It is up to you to decide which kind of diaper is the best for your purposes and for your purse. Either way, there is work involved and there is expense to take into account. The health of your baby’s skin plays a major part in considerations as well, but at the final analysis you and your baby will be fine as long as you keep on top of things – and if you go with cloth diapers, it is worth still having some disposables around in case of emergencies or when you are on the go.
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With our children we mostly went for the disposable diapers. Essentially, though, had we known that we were to have five children, it would have been way cheaper to go with cloth. Today’s cloth diapers are also very accommodating. Here is a video I found on YouTube showing you how easy cloth diapers can be:
The diapers mentioned in the video can be bought comfortably on amazon and delivered to your door: BumGenius, cloth diapers
You may also purchase disposable diapers from amazon as well which will naturally be delivered to your doorstep: Disposable Diapers at Amazon
I used mostly disposable with both kids but found the Kushies cloth ones great for daytime at home. Why not always? I found that with my belly sleepers, they leaked out the top/front/belly area. With the boy, I expected it, with the girl not so much. Turns out the girl soaked through the bedsheets more often that the boy!
The disposables in our metropolitan city get recycled with the regular compost that they pick up at the curb. That was a rather easy decision for us, to not have to worry too much about the amount of waste we produced. The not so easy decision? To spend money on expensive, good quality disposable diapers (we tried the no name brands and again, they tended to leak).
My tip is to never be afraid to leave the diaper off the child when you’re out in your own backyard, or in the house on bare floors.
Great article!
Yuck, Javamom… recycled diapers? How good is that for the environment? *Some* diapers are bio-degradable, but if they recycle all diapers, then they are tossing some toxic stuff in with the compost…
Great tip to let ‘em go bare bummed.
Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment! I quite enjoy your blog and the fresh honesty which comes with every annecdote.
reading: Cloth Diapers vs Disposable: How to best keep your baby clean, dry and happy http://bit.ly/17Ne0E –wish I had this earlier!
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