Cloth Vs. Disposable

I used cloth with my first and it lasted a week. I was constantly changing a diaper and his clothes! Too much laundry! Do you want that in your washer? My mom washed ours in the toilet first! YUCK! I found it way easier to use disposable, especially when they are infants and peeing as soon as you put a new diaper on! However, I do have a friend with a 2 1/2 year old who is in cloth and she has managed to do it. I also have driven by a few homes with cloth diapers hanging out to dry. I say that if you have the time go for it but I couldn't and din't have the funds to afford a daycare that was willing to work with me!

Congratulations!!! I've used both. I had fewer diaper rashes with cloth then with disposable. Yes, disposables are convenient, less hassle. But I have one daughter that was allergic to something in the disposable so I couldn't even use them on her when on vacations. We'd put one on her and within 2 hrs she'd be so broke out it that is was already beginning to bleed and it would take a week or longer to clear up, from ONE diaper. Cloth we didn't have that problem. So, it may be up to the baby in the long run. This daughter also potty trained quicker then any of my other kids that mainly used disposable. With cloth, there are the disposable (flushable) liners that help with clean up of the "poopie" diapers so don't need to rinse in the toilet first. After baby, cloth diapers make great rags for all kinds of things :)
Hope this helps. God's Blessings

Just had to add a couple websites for great cloth diapering tools. Best cloth diapers by far are the Pocket Change diapers at www.mtdiaperstore.com. We've tried all kinds of brands!! We use bleach free, biodegradable disposables for my son when traveling and part-time day care otherwise we use cloth and I love them! Aside from the enviro. factor, they're far more absorbent and you can stuff or unstuff to your hearts content. I found hemp to be more absorbent than cotton so when I double stuff (at night) I put the hemp closest to my son's body and the cotton as the outer layer. I also found that velcro fasteners will start to wear out so snap is best though anything 'snap' drives my husband crazy. lol Also using cloth wipes when cloth diapering helps a lot as you just tuck everything together just as when using disposables. The website to find this is www.cottonbabies.com along with a the wipe warmer which can be used for cloth and disposable wipes. Also Allens Naturally Detergent gets diapers clean no problem! For laundering, I do a cold rinse then put in the detergent and do a hot wash followed by another cold rinse. I usually hang dry but now and then I'm in a hurry and need to just throw them in the dryer. Also a little more mess and smell is to be expected with cloth diapering so if that's something you simply can't handle then you won't want to go the cloth diapering route. I myself love it! Oh and check out the Magic Stick for diaper rash at the Diaper Company (mtdiaperstore.com). I just put it on everytime I change a diaper and we're at 7 mos. with never a rash yet! Hope this helps some.

Hello, I have two daughers 27 months and 5 months. With our oldest daughter we always used disposable diapers. But wih the birth our second daughter, we found out that she was allergic to the Pampers diapers that they carried in the hospital so we had to explore some other options. For the few days that we were in the hospital, we used cloth diapers and if you ask me they were a disaster (even with the help of the nurses) After we brought her home, we soon found some natural diapers at Greatest Grains that were chlorine fre and she was fine with these, but while in the check out line with aour case of these diapers a man told us about "g Diapers" They are kind of the best of both worlds - clot and disposable. The outer cover is cloth and the inner - snap-in liner is plasic (and reusable) the absorbant part is disposale but very earth friendly. You can either flush it down your toilet or throw it in the trash can ( the diaper will fully dissinigrate in 60ish days while it takes a regular diaper years!!!) ANyway, I just wanted to let you know about another option as if you don't have enough on your mind with the arrival of your new little one. Oh, and just ti let you know, we do keep some disposables on hand for trips, etc. If you have any questions please let me know!! Also, if you are interested you can visit the (g Diapers website) You will have to google it because I can't remember the website. They have also startedto carry some at Greatest Grains in Davenport.
Good Luck, I now that it is a tough decision when you only want the best for your baby!
T.

Sounds like you've heard a lot, but as I was discussing this with a family member when I was pregnant, I wasn't quite sure how cloth diapers would work when I'm out and about...that was my biggest hang up on the whole cloth diapers...also, I'm not the best at doing laundry like I should, so that was another one. Well, their suggestion was to do both...cloth when you were going to home, but disposables when you went out. Still more environmentally friendly, but slightly less expensive than doing only disposable. I went disposable all the way---SO much easier in my opinion...but just thought that I would pass this tidbit along.

I did a little research on this before i had my first, and both types are just as bad for the enviroment. Disposables end up in land fills but cloth use energy because of all the extra loads of laundry plus people normally use bleach and other harsh chemicals.

personally i use disposable

I didn't read any of the other responses, so I'm not sure if anyone else suggested this (sorry if they did). Anyway, go to www.gdiaper.com. It's kind of the best of both worlds. They are enviromentally friendly & the insert is flushable. So it's kind of like a disposable, & cloth at the same time, but better for the enviroment & easier to maintain (i think). Basically you have to buy the outside "little g" pants, they are like a little diaper, except made of cloth, and then you also purchase these pads that you insert into the diaper, and then you can flush them when you change the baby (very convenient), they are also biodegradable if you don't choose to flush. Anyway, I think it's the best of both worlds... enviromentally friendly & convenient (arguablly more so than disposable since you flush them) If nothing else, you should definitely look into it, they explain things way better on the webiste.

We use both cloth and disposable diapers. With our cloth, we have the pre-folded kinds and a wrapper cover that velcros. We insert the cloth into the wrapper and do not have to use pins. Just as easy as a disposable diaper.
We found that with a newborn, cloth can be very labor intensive. Young babies poop all the time!!! And it isn't solid; it can be very runny. Bur we found that both our cloth and wrapper leaked about the same rate as the disposables, especially Luvs. Pampers were the best by far. Once the baby started on solids, it was much "easier" to use cloth all the time, even out and about. You can buy bags to put the dirty cloth diapers in or you can use old grocery plastic bags. Just remember to take it out of your diaper bag when you get home! :o)
To clean: simply wash it in the washing machine. I hardly ever do anything extra. If there is a particularly great amount on the diaper, I shake it into the toilet and flush it away. Then I put the diaper in the wash. For less than solid amounts, let it soak dirty side down in toliet to loosen it up before washing.
We found disposables were better at night. Babies do not have to have their diapers changed during the night unless it is really bad, and cloth diapers get too wet.
We feel very satisfied with our choice of using both cloth and disposable. We buy the cheap disposable at Aldi and they work great; we use cloth whenever we can. We feel we are doing our share to cut back on the waste of disposable diapers and still have satisfying convenience.

Disposable diapers are a little easier... i use them when we are out and about and sometimes when i'm super lazy. I do feel better about using the cloth ones though and i think they are actually more absorbent, i use fuzzy buns. the av. family spends something like 2800 in the first year on disposable diapers...not to mention the huge enviornmental cost. anyway the cloth ones were a huge initial investment but totally worth it. =)

I am 15 years older than my brothers and sisters and my mother worked 3 jobs so I changed 1000's of cloth diapers and remember how dirty and stinky the house always was and when I would go to high school people would comment on I smelled like "babies". I remember the awful smell and the pin picks the most and hated 'cleaning' them in the toilet first before putting them in the laundry basket. I now have 2 little ones of my own and I used disposable and I would never go back to cloth. Just potty train them asap. There are several blogs and websites out there about potty training earlier. Americans keep there kids in diapers the longest of any country.

H.,

I used to work in an infant room and had experience with both cloth and disposable. I found disposable much easier to use, however the number one reason I am going with disposable is the babies that wore cloth seemed to always have terrible diaper rashes. The cloth diapers don't have the new technology that pulls the wetness away from the babies skin. Also, the babies with cloth often had leaks. I hope this helps.