Using cloth diapers in addition to disposable diapers comes with a lot of benefits. Here’s a quick rundown on how and why to use cloth diapers.
When I tell people that we use cloth diapers for our baby, I usually get one of two reactions:
“Good for you! So environmentally-friendly, and I bet you’re saving money by not buying disposable diapers.”
Or:
“Really…? Cloth diapers seem gross.”
Both statements are accurate. Cloth (or reusable) diapers are more eco-friendly than their disposable siblings: cloth diapers can be washed and reused until the fabric starts breaking down, while disposable diapers add 3.4 millions tons of non-biodegradable waste to landfills each year. The price is right for cloth diapers, too: The average expenses related to cloth diapering over two and a half years–the diapers themselves, laundry detergent and water in which to wash them, the electricity needed to power your washing machine for those extra loads of laundry–is $1,200, compared to $2,300 for buying disposable diapers over the same 2.5 years!
Admittedly, cloth diapers mean you are dealing with poop a little longer each diaper change. A disposable diaper and its smell go into a trash bag, never to be dealt with (at least, by you) again. In addition, reusable diapers require more time doing laundry and planning to ensure your baby has a supply of clean diapers.
Our family has found a happy medium between crunchiness and convenience by using cloth diapers in addition to disposables.
Before you think, “Yeah, saving money and the earth is nice but I don’t have time to be a granola mom,” consider some of the benefits of using both:
We’re still saving money on diapers.
Every time we use a cloth diaper, we make our disposable diaper stash stretch longer. My infant usually wears two reusable diapers per weekday–one in the evening and one to bed–because her daycare requires disposables. (More on that below.) She wears cloth diapers about half the time on weekends, depending on how fast I feel like doing laundry. Two cloth diapers per weekday + (let’s say) 8 per weekend = about 72 disposable diapers per month that we don’t have to buy. That’s almost a standard box!
Cloth diapers cause fewer diaper rashes.
Disposable diapers are designed to hold more while keeping babies feeling drier, so babies typically wait longer to sound the alarm while wearing disposables. This leads to diaper rash: Those tender red marks and sores on your baby’s butt are caused by their delicate skin being too wet for too long. Cloth diapers can hold just as much but feel wet when actually wet so your baby will ask to be changed more often, and diaper rash will rarely show up down under. If our baby develops a rash from her disposable diapers, we switch gears and put her in cloth diapers as often as possible. The rash clears up in a day or two. Anything that helps keeps your baby comfortable and not crying is a win!
Cleaning cloth diapers is not terrible.
If baby just goes No. 1, the cloth diaper goes straight into a diaper pail or the washer. You’re golden! (Sorry–couldn’t resist throwing in a bad pun!) If baby goes No. 2, we rinse off the diaper using a sprayer before tossing it in the washer. You can buy a sprayer hookup and plastic shield for your toilet to make cleaning off the gunk super convenient and confined to a container that is meant to handle poop.
“But what about the smell?!” you may be thinking. Don’t worry about that, because:
Baby poop is just as smelly if it is deposited into a disposable diaper versus a cloth diaper.
My baby doesn’t discriminate between cloth and disposable diapers; she is an equal offender! So cleaning her up during diaper changes has the same “ew” factor no matter what’s covering her bum. You’ll recoil at the smell whether you’re taking out the diaper trash bag or carrying a reusable diaper to the washer. Why not make the best of this situation by using a diaper that saves you money?
Aren’t cloth diapers hard to use?
Only if you buy a design that’s hard to use. Modern reusable diapers come ready to wear and use snaps. We’re not talking about creating origami around your baby’s bottom and wrestling with safety pins like your great-grandmothers did! There are several reusable diaper products on the market. While most follow a similar design, there are slight differences between brands. Talk with other cloth-diapering moms to get a sense of which diapers they like best before purchasing a trial diaper.
Isn’t it a lot of work to clean cloth diapers?
Nope! Cleaning cloth diapers is easy. Throw them in your washing machine with your preferred detergent, just like any other clothing you would wash. Some mamas pre-soak their cloth diapers in a solution of detergent and water or baking soda and water. We just throw them straight into the wash. It’s really a matter of preference! We wash them with cold water most of the time; every four to five washes we switch to hot water to ensure we’re really eliminating all the germs and bacteria. Then we let them air dry. Cloth diapers can go in the dryer every once in a while (we have accidentally thrown them in among a monster weekend load) but to preserve the outer waterproof fabric, let them air dry.
Usually, we run a load of diapers by themselves or with other super-dirty items we don’t wear: kitchen rags, the high chair seat cover, towels used to dry our dogs or the car. My husband thinks it would be gross to wash dirty diapers in the same load as our clothes, but when you think about all the unpleasant substances that make their way onto clothing and into our washing machines–mud on our socks, snot on our sleeves, beer on the back of your shirt thanks to that sloppy drunk guy at the bar on date night–a little baby pee or poo residual isn’t that scary. But again, how you care for your family is up to you!
This still seems like a lot of work. What if I want to use cloth diapers just some of the time?
Cloth diapering, like many highly contentious issues, is not an all-or-nothing deal! Here are a few situations where we choose disposables over cloth:
- At daycare/school: We send our baby to daycare with disposable diapers because that’s what her school requires. Most schools don’t have the equipment and processes in place to manage cloth diapering for multiple babies in a sanitary way. It’s just easier to keep a room of babies dry using disposable diapers. And honestly, who wants to pick up their child and a bag of used, smelly cloth diapers at the end of a long workday?
- While traveling: We use disposable diapers while traveling because, convenience. Plus, a washing machine is not always available at our destination.
- At home: Being a semi-crunchy mama comes with limits. If there are no clean cloth diapers in the house when my kid needs a diaper change, we reach for a disposable while we wait for a load of cloth ones to finish. Caring for an infant is demanding enough. We simply don’t stress out if all her cloth diapers are dirty at a given moment.
If you’re on the fence about using cloth diapers for your infant, invest in a reusable diaper or two and give it a try! Test it out on a day or night when there’s not much else going on in your household so that you can learn the process with minimal external stress. Once you incorporate them into your baby’s routine, you’ll likely discover that using cloth diapers in addition to disposables is convenient without becoming a burden. They’re easy to clean, resulting in fewer diaper rashes, and save money in the long run. Using cloth and disposable diapers is part-time work with full-time benefits!
