Diapering Your Baby
Why Go Cloth?
There are many truly excellent reasons to cloth diaper your youngster. At the end of the day, however, only you can decide whether to give cloth a try.
Great Reason #1: The Health of Your Child
Many cloth diapers are 100% unbleached cotton. They are soft and cushy against your baby's skin. Disposable diapers contain some nasty chemicals such as dioxin (a carcinogenic by-product of the bleaching process), sodium polyacrylate (a super absorbent gel similar to a substance in tampons found to cause toxic shock syndrome), and Tributyl-tin (a toxic substance known to cause hormonal problems in humans). There have been no long-term studies to determine the effect of all these chemicals against your baby's skin nearly constantly for 3-4 years.
Disposable diapers are made out of plastic that is made to feel like cloth. But it isn't cloth. It's plastic and it's waterproof and airproof. In 1955, before disposable diapers were even invented, it was estimated that only 7% of babies suffered from diaper rash. In 1991, after disposables had taken over the market, that number jumped to an alarming 78%.
Great Reason #2: The Environment
Everyone knows “going green” is all the rage right now. But if you sit down and do the research, you will find behaving in an environmentally responsible way is in your child's, your grandchild's, and your great grandchild's best interest. If you decide to cloth diaper your baby, you will prevent one ton of untreated waste PER YEAR from entering our landfills. Fun factoid: every disposable diaper ever used in this country is still in a landfill somewhere and will be for at least another 150 years. Another fun factoid: 2 ½ years worth of disposable diapers for one child will use up 20 trees and 420 gallons of petroleum. Yet another fun factoid: cloth diapers can be washed and reused as many as 200 times before being retired for use as cleaning rags.
Great Reason #3: It's Cheaper!
Let's assume for our purposes that disposable diapers cost 20 cents each (that's an average –some cost more, some cost less). Now let's assume the average baby uses 10 diapers a day. That's $14 a week. Due to disposables and products such as Pull-Ups and other disposable training pants options, children are potty training later and later. The average age is now over 3 years old! At $14 a week, disposables would end up costing you $2,548. The average cloth diapered baby potty trains at about 2 years old. So, when considering a cloth diapering service versus disposable, be sure to factor in the money you'll save in the long term. If you would like to know why cloth babies potty train earlier, please take a look at Great Reason #4.
Great Reason #4: Potty Train Earlier
Disposable diapers use an absorbent gel that soaks up the urine in diapers and holds it away from baby's skin. You may think this is a good thing, but it's really not for a variety of reasons. When it comes time to potty train, your child has no idea WHY when she wears disposables. Your baby can't feel when she's wet so why would she have any incentive at all to learn to use the toilet? With cloth diapers your child is able to understand the cause and effect relationship, which helps teach your baby faster. Cloth babies potty train an average of one year earlier than disposable babies.