Cloth Vs. Disposable Diapers

Yep, no blow outs with cloth. Cloth diapers are terrific. if you are planning on having more children, they really are the most economical way to go. They are also better for the environment.

Also, cloth diapers promote earlier potty training. Both of my kids were fully trained (including night) by 21 months. So nice to just take them to the toilet.

Gamma, I think the problem is...you are supposed to get the poop out of the diaper!! I have NEVER (I've been using cloth for 3 years) had poop on the washing machine, or anything else. Eeew!! I bought a $20 diaper sprayer that attaches to the toilet in less then 5 minutes. I spray the poop into the toilet. There is nothing in the diaper to get stuck. Also, one is supposed to plop the poop in the toilet...if they don't have something like a sprayer. Also cloth is WAY different now then in the past. It's not longer bulky pre-folds that don't absorb.

Here is my experience with cloth diapers. I don't find them difficult. When washing I do a cold rinse, hot wash, cold rinse. Like I said, there is no poop bits that get in the washer. It does not take a long time to wash them. It's not labor intensive. Spray them out, put them in a trash can, and dump them in the machine to wash. We have also never had a blow out, in all 3 years of use. We spent $150 on our cloth diaper stash, use cloth wipes, and our water bill went up a matter of cents per month. For us, it has saved huge amounts of money. My son has only ever had one or two rashes, and they were very minor. Look up the ingredients in disposable diapers.
( http://www.livestrong.com/article/111348-chemicals-dispos... )
There is no way natural cloth couldn't be more safe then that. Now, I'm not saying cloth will work for everyone. It won't. However, they are designed really well to be very easy now. I know some full-time working mothers of many children who have no difficulties with cloth. Many daycares are even excepting them now, because they are more simple to use. (With an appropriate wet bag to store dirty diapers.)

As far as the stains, you could use an oxygen bleach. Also, the sun is great at getting stains out.

Cloth are more than likely better for a baby's bottom, every child I've ever known that wore disposables has had a reaction at some point of some type. And cloth are more economic in the long run, disposables cost a small fortune

But, when you count your time spent rinsing, washing, drying cloth diapers along with the initial investment of diapers and covers you really have to ask yourself "Is it worth it to me?" I used cloth for my two oldest and it was worth it to me.

With my youngest I used disposables all the way, i didn't have the time for all the washing and drying, then went to cloth trainers for potty training. With accident stains in those I used Arm & Hammer with Oxi Gel detergent, Tide Stain release capsules, and some bleach and never saw the stains again. (I gave them to a friend for her daughter to use for training, she thought they were new, they were so white.) Also, you have to rinse the poop out of the diapers as soon as she has a blow-out, or the stain may be too set to get out. As far as blow-outs, my kids had them in cloth, yuk :-/ Try Pampers Cruisers, I found they were best, and go up a size to hold in the mess.

I've used cloth for 3 children, exclusively with my first then a combo of cloth and disposibles with my next two.

Blow outs happen. In my expereince it doesn't matter what diaper you're using! Your baby is at the perfect age for leaky diapers, in a couple of months things will calm down no matter what type of diaper you're using.

I like cloth, I like not HAVING to buy disposibles, I like how cute the covers are and coordinating them with outfits, I like having a talking point at the park. I like disposibles, I like not HAVING to do laundry to diaper my baby, I like to throw away a used one in a public restroom instead of carry a wet cloth one in my bag, I like how they can hold all that pee all night long.

Most of my cloth diapers were free hand me downs from relatives or baby shower gifts so I have very little financial investment in them. I do a load of cloth diaper laundry every 3-4 days, my baby poops in the potty so it's just pee diapers. The washing machine is about half full. Right now with hot weather I hang the diapers on the line. So economincally, for me, I am getting off pretty cheap. I always have disposibles on hand and my baby wears one at night.

None of my kids dealt with diaper rash...I think my first had it some when she took a round of antibiotics at 6 months...my second never did...and so far my third hasn't had it. I made sure they all spent some time naked though, the best diaper for a baby's bottom is no diaper at all!

If you want to try them and are nervous, check out gdiapers, they are a waterproof cover that you can use either a cloth or disposible insert with.

very young breast fed babies.. have diaper blowouts.. their poop is very loose adn it can escape the diaper.. My super skinny duaghter had lots of diaper blowouts as a young infant. I just dont think I could get the dipaer tight enough to hold in the poop. I did try to put plastic pants on over her diaper to contain things..

once your baby starts eating solid food the poop will stay in the diaper..

Cloth diapers may save some money.. but they sure sound like a hassle.. and I never had time to keep up with the regular laundry -- no time to add clothe diapers to the mix..

You do spend more in time, energy, and you use a lot of resources to wash diapers (you add more detergents to the environment and use a lot of electricity and water) with cloth diapers)...When we were in prenatal classes, they said there are pros and cons, but it's not necessarily more economical and there are environmental impacts. You could probably do a little of both, some cloth and some disposable for emergencies.

What brand of diaper do you use? Make sure your baby diapers are not too big or too small. You may want to change your brand of diaper. Try PAMPERS, they are great. If your baby is not allergic to the disposable ones, I would use them. Save yourself the hassle of washing out the cloth ones everyday. When my kid was an infant I would use SHOUT to get the stain out and just wash it in the normal baby detergent

If you have tons of time and a washer that can stand being bleached with the hotest water you can get plus cleaning it over and over before putting anything else in it after washing cloth diapers then perhaps they are for you.

For me they were not. I could not stand the smell of pooh in the washing machine. I would go to take them out and they would still stink like pooh. The washer would invaribly have bits of pooh on the walls and on the bottom where I would have missed some little tidbit. Then everything that was washed afterwards for days would stink as soon as the lid was opened. I could not stand the stench.

I could sit by women at church and I could smell pooh on them. I found out later they used cloth diapers. How could they not know their clothes smelled like pooh....I think if you have a service to pick them up and deliver clean ones then it's okay. Otherwise I don't think anyone has enough time in their day to add all that laundry to the work load.

I always liked the idea of cloth, but honestly, I just couldn't pull it off in terms of time and effort. We used several different disposable brands before deciding that Pampers Cruisers were by far the best brand. We had blowouts with Luvs, Huggies, Target brand, Costco brand, etc etc, but Pampers Cruisers were fantastic. Also, if you're having a lot of blowouts, it might be time to move up to the next size. :)

As far as from an economic standpoint, I don't know - I'm sure cloth would work out cheaper in the end, but you also have to consider that your time is worth money as well. I think it's more about what you have the time and inclination to deal with. As a full-time working mom, there was no way cloth was going to work for me with the amount of time that I had to dedicate to laundry (that is to say, almost none!).

One of my daycare kiddos uses cloth diapers. We had "blow-out" problems for a while just with wetting through. I was changing her about every hour and a half to two hours but we were still having problems. Once they switched to the thicker insert for older babies we've have very few problems. We've only had a couple problems with diaper rash, basically when baby had a diarreha problem. The instructions for the diapers had told them not to use certain creams, so we just switch to disposable to get the rash under control.

(BTW, they bring me a supply of diapers each morning and have a washable bag that I put the used diapers in. They take the soiled diapers home in the evening and launder them.)

M

I purchased some and just couldn't stick with it. I've been thinking about trying it again only because my son will be potty training soon and poops only 1-2X/day. I realize that less plastic in the environment is good but I'm not sure how much money we were really saving by using them, our electric bill shot up because of all the extra time spent using hot water in the washer (electric hot water tank) and extra time running the dryer.