Disposable Diapers or Cloth Diapers?
Advantages of Disposable and Cloth Diapers
Advantages of disposable diapers:
1. Soiled diapers go straight from the child's bottom to the trash. No mess!
2. This product is easy to find. Every store has them.
Disadvantages of disposable diapers:
1. The cost of diapers is continuous. Although children are potty trained at different ages, we will use an average of three years each child will be wearing diapers. Children go through several of these each day. The price of diapers can be as much as $80.00 a month.
2. Environmental cost. Each diapers takes several hundred years to biodegrade.
3. Half of the children in disposables will develop rashes. These rashes may be due to the chemicals found in the diapers.
Advantages of cloth diapers:
1. The one-time cost is a disadvantage. However, after buying a number of cloth diapers, rubber pants, and diaper pins, there is no cost incurred.
2. The option to use a diaper service for cleaning the diapers or washing them yourself is entirely up to you.
3. They are environmentally friendly. These are washed, dried, and re-used.
4. The detergent and chemicals that your child is being exposed to is all up to you.
Disadvantages:
1. The initial cost of diapers, rubber pants, and diaper pins can be steep; but it is a one time cost. After that, your cost will be minimal.
2. They will take more of your time. Allow for two extra loads of laundry per week.
3. There is a mess involved. Each soiled diaper needs to be rinsed out in the toilet before it is washed.
The choice to use disposable diapers or cloth diapers is influenced by societal pressure. Although now, before you automatically give in to peer pressure, look at cloth diapers with an informed and open mind.
Published by Leslie Boe
I'm constantly reading and enjoy writing on a variety of topics. View profile
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7 Comments
Post a CommentThis article is only partially correct. I cloth diaper and don't own a single diaper pin, nor have I ever swished a diaper in the toilet. Do some research!
"Each soiled diaper needs to be rinsed out in the toilet before it is washed." Just to add to that, you don't HAVE to rinse diapers. The only diapers that need to be rinsed are ones that have been pooped in. Peed diapers do not need to be rinsed in the toilet (unless you really want to...). If the baby is exclusively breast fed, you can just wash the diaper in the laundry machine (a cold wash before your hot wash to remove the debris and so no stains are set in the cloth). Breastfed poop is water soluble so there's no need for a rinse. Once the baby is on solids or formula then you can rinse the poop off in the toilet or (and this is what we do) is use a paper liner in the diaper, which catches the poop. Then you can take the liner and flush that only. The diaper then goes in our dry pail to be washed. No rinsing of the diaper necessary. Easy peasy.
Part 2- A single diaper can be used thousands of times and those that are made of cotton are compostable when they are no longer diaper worthy. A single set of cloth diapers can be used on multiple children, which saves even more money, and even after use on 2 to 3 kids, are often still in good enough shape to be sold for up to 50% of your original investment.
Cloth does require more water and detergent than one would normally use, but its minimal. Looking back at my bills before washing diapers and comparing them, it was less than a $5 increase a month. i do 2 extra loads a week and in all honesty, its the only laundry i dont mind doing.
Cloth diapers are no longer prefolds, pins and rubber pants. there are now many types, lots of which are just as easy to put on as disposables and they are SO much cuter than any disposable i've ever seen!
as for the environmental concerns, every disposable diaper needs to be manufactured and that manufacturing requires chemicals and transport to the store. just imagine the amount of gas you waste on every trip to the store to buy diapers and every package you buy came in a different shipment, so there's even more gas, probably cross country to get it to your store. then add in the fact that while its on your child for a only few hours it will remain on this earth for longer than your child will, and his children and his children and his children. your great great grandchildren will probably still be dealing with the mess.
cloth diapers only need to be manufactured once, and many of them are made by moms in their own home, so the environmental impact is already less. A single d
Cloth diapers save me time! Please see my blog for a break-out report http://realmoms.synthasite.com/blog/a-convenient-truth-cloth-diaper-save-me-time They are easier, save money, save the environment and are better for your babies health. Think beyond rashes - dioxin is listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals and yet we expose babies in disposable diapers to this chemical 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for up to 4 years! Please, consider the safer alternative.
Hee hee.. not a concern of mine anymore! Thankfully.. although I miss the baby stages.. I don't miss the diapers! LOL!
Great job on this, wow I went through so many diapers with 3 babies, thank god they are all trained now for 3