Use Cloth Diapers

Most of the time, I will tell mommis to do whatever works for you, to make your own decisions, that whatever you feel most comfortable with is the right thing to do in terms of parenting decisions.  But not today; not on this one topic.

USE CLOTH DIAPERS!

I was just like many mommis: appalled by the mere suggestion of using cloth diapers!  I mean, EW: they're ugly, they're stinky, they're leaky, they're old fashioned, they're a lot of work...gross.  But I humoured a coworker (rolling my eyes behind her back), and told her I'd take a look at one she brought in to work.

IT WAS ADORABLE!

It was small, and clean, and green!  Like, the colour green, in addition to the whole "enviro-green" thing.  It was a BumGenius 3.0 adjustable size cloth diaper.  She'd used it throughout one child's diapering years, and was in the middle of another's - and it was clean!  The inside was white, there were no stains, it did not smell.  Another skeptical coworker and I played catch with it when its owner was out of the room, it was that cute!

Gone are the days of dirty-looking cotton sheets you have to practically do origami with and then pin onto your baby and wait for them to leak onto your lap.  New cloth diapers come in a variety of forms, but I fell in love with the BumGenius and continue to recommend them today, so can only speak about this particular brand.  I have the 3.0s, which have velcro tabs that fasten them onto the baby.  Now 4.0s are available, and the velcro is replaced with snaps.  I have to say: my only complaint about my 3.0s is the velcro, which, after 2 years of use, is wearing out, looks a bit dingy from collecting hair and stuff along the edges, and doesn't always stick so well.  However, BumGenius supplies its retailers with replacement velcro kits - for free!  Snugglebugz mailed me 24 velcro refresher kits within 2 days of my inquiry!  Problem solved.  The snap closure system on the 4.0s would eliminate that problem altogether, but I had a particularly squirmy baby, often having to strap a diaper on him on the go - so I feel that snaps would have been more challenging to line up and fasten with my particular child.

But I digress.  Why use cloth diapers?  Well, the most obvious reason is because of the environmental benefits.  First consider the amount of energy, water, wood, oil, etcetera that goes into manufacturing, packaging, and shipping disposable diapers. Plus, disposable diapers can take 100-500 years to decompose, which means that an unfathomable number of disposable diapers sit in a landfills, leaking human waste into our water table. It is illegal to throw human waste into the garbage – disposable users are required to throw any poop into the toilet before trashing the diaper, but do you know anyone who actually does that?  Add into the landfills the packaging from each pack of disposable diapers, then consider the dangerous chemicals leaking into the ground water from said landfills and the manufacturing process: dioxin, sodium polyacrylate (the absorbant gel), and TBT or Trybutylin, which is ranked by the World Health Organization as one of the most toxic substances used in consumer products in the world today.

Let me be clear that I am no environmentalist.  Not that that's a bad thing; I'd be proud to say I am, but I have also vowed to be nothing but honest in this blog.  And I just don't want any mommi to think you have to be a Birkenstock-wearing tree-hugger to consider cloth diapers.  I have fake boobs, remember - just keep that in mind.  But there are other reasons to use cloth diapers!

How about cost?  As a general rule, it is almost always cheaper to reuse than to buy new every time.  This is no different with cloth diapers.  Diaperjungle.com suggests that most parents go through 6 to 8 thousand diapers per child, from birth to about age three.  If we take an average of what those diapers cost, that equates to between 2000 and 3000 dollars per baby.  Once those children are potty trained, those diapers are gone.  They can't be re-used.  So a significant chunk of our hard earned money has gone to buying what is essentially garbage.  In comparison, enough cloth diapers to last for three years will usually cost between 300 to 800 dollars.  At a minimum that is about a 1200 dollar savings!  But wait: Consider, too, that those cloth diapers may last for one or more successive children, and your savings grows.  Some people will point out that cloth diapers will cost a mommi more in water, hydro, and detergent for washing them, and this is true, but these costs are minimal and negligent in comparison.

From my own experience, 24 BumGenius 3.0s, a pail of Claudia's Choice cloth-diaper-safe detergent (which lasted me almost 2 years), a diaper pail, charcoal filter, a wet bag for travel, and a 2-pack of Nellie's Dryer Balls cost me about $750.  That's a lot up front, but in the long run, you can see the savings.  AND, if you register for your cloth diapers before your baby shower, you can get a lot given to you for free ;)

The most significant reason to use cloth diapers, however, is because of the benefits to your baby.  I'm going to let the researchers at Diaperjungle do that talking for me again here - with some of my own modifications ;)  What should be of serious concern to all mommis are the toxic chemicals present in disposable diapers.  Dioxin, which in various forms has been shown to cause cancer, birth defects, liver damage, skin diseases, and genetic damage, is a by-product of the paper-bleaching process used in manufacturing disposable diapers.  Trace quantities may even exist in the diapers themselves.  Dioxin is listed by the EPA as the most toxic of cancer-related chemicals.  Additionally, disposable diapers contain Tributyl-tin (TBT) - a toxic pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals.  Disposable diapers also contain sodium polyacrylate.  If you have ever seen the gel-like, super absorbant crystals in a disposable, then you have seen this first hand.  I just recently had that experience when my son came home to me after a day at his dad's, and the disposable diaper he had him in was so soaked, it actually exploded at the seam, displaying the scary-looking pee-soaked crystals :S  Sodium polyacrylate is the same substance that was removed from tampons because of its link to toxic shock syndrome.  No studies have been done on the long-term effects of this chemical being in contact with a baby's reproductive organs 24 hours a day for upwards of two years.  Studies have also been done to show that the chemical emissions from disposable diapers can cause respiratory problems in children.  This is all scary, scary stuff!  ...Cloth diapers, on the other hand, are free of the many chemicals contained in disposable diapers.

My son went an entire year of life without a single diaper rash or bum irritation, and I attribute that success to the use of cloth diapers.  In all fairness, he later developed a recurrent diaper rash problem, but that was due to the incurrence of uric acid burns from being left to sit in a pee-filled DISPOSABLE diaper too long (if Blogger offered an angry-face emoticon, I would use it here - remember: I do not use disposable diapers...I will say no more).  Hey, parents?  Just because many disposable diapers boast that they can absorb urine for up to 12 hours does NOT mean that you should leave your child in a wet diaper (of any sort) for that long!!!  Deep breaths, deep breaths...  Anyhow, I strongly believe that, if he had been wearing cloth diapers, and changed regularly when not in my care, he would have continued his great-bum-health streak indefinitely.
So, seriously: why AREN'T you using cloth diapers?  Really.  I invite anyone to share a rebuttal, and I will try to counter it :)  If you've already been using disposable diapers, it's not too late to switch!  I am proud to say that my efforts have converted 2 disposable users to the cloth side, and have convinced 3 new mommis to take the plunge and start the cloth way.  I hope this post helps increase my numbers :)  Please let me know!

Just before I sign off, I should note: I do use one disposable diaper per night.  I find that my cloth diapers are more than up to the task of absorbing a few hours' worth of pee, but not a whole night's worth.  The BumGeniuses do come with "doublers", which are extra inserts you can put inside to increase absorbency (and the size of your kid's booty) for such occasions, but I don't bother.  When my son was a teeny guy, the doublers, in combination with the already-admittedly-bulkier cloth diapers put him on such an incline when on his back, it was comical :)  That said, one cloth-using-mommi-friend (Hi, Christine!) says her daughter goes through the night in a cloth diaper without an issue, so maybe your child will have as much success ;)