Joe has finally returned to his regular nightly naps after our trip home. When we got home he was only sleeping until about 5AM … but slowly, over the week, extended that through to a full night.
Now, Melissa and I are in decision mode … should we move to cloth diapers? There are some decent options out there: www.littleblessingsboutique.com www.greenmountaindiapers.com, www.funkybumz.co.nz, and www.clothdiaper.com
Pros
- Cost savings, same diapers grow with the child
- Reducing landfills, the environmental savings mean a lot
- Frequent diaper changing helps reduce the chances of diaper rash
Cons
- Larger price upfront
- Convenience factor of just tossing the “mess”, the biggest con easily
- Often results in more frequent diaper changing
This would take quite an effort from Melissa and I to ensure that the diapers get rinsed immediately and get laundered regularly. Disposables would still be used for extended excursions and trips. Yet, the thought of dropping around of $200 is … hesitating … yet, at the same time the environmental impact of disposables is quite concerning. I am tossing garbage almost every two days where as it was previously more like once every week.
What I would like to know, from you mothers out there, have you tried cloth diapers? What were/are you experiences like? Do you have any recommendations on brands?
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Hey Cam, I’m glad that he’s back on schedule. I’m still waiting for Christopher to sleep through the night. He still wake up between 3 am and 4 am, then again at 7 am (John is the one that usually gets up with him this time). There were two nights in the past week that he slept all night but Bethany woke up. Maybe one day I’ll get to sleep through the night again.
Now about cloth diapers. We don’t use and I don’t know anyone that has used them but I was wondering if it would really be cheaper to use them once you add buy the diaper, clothes pins, the covers, washing them and replacing the one that get worn out?
I’ve never checked into it, but it would be interesting to see what the cost difference is. Just remember that when they get older you don’t have to change them so often.
Cloth can be much cheaper, just a higher cost of entry. We figure you need about 24 diapers on hand to keep things convenient. There are several options. You have pants with a cloth insert, plain cloth, pre-folded, form fitted, etc. Each have their own costs and advantages. The cheapest is likely the plain cloth as it requires you to do all the work … but it like $12 / 6 at Walmart.
The most expensive are the all-in-one, one size form fitted shorts. They tend to work the same as a regular diaper, but the size grows with the baby. Nice, but run into the hundreds of dollars.
We figure, you likely would “break even” around the 8 month mark on average. Which makes it a little rough on a tight budget. The next biggest push is the fact that you have all this unused plastic waste with disposables … convenient, but what landfill nightmare. Wonder if biodegradable diapers or ones made from recycled waste are possible?
Luckily, Melissa came across this insert type diapers that have use standard cloth diapers as inserts. So for about $100 we were able to get into cloth. We didn’t need as many of the covers and could go with the cheap Walmart special for cloth.
I will let you know how it goes.