My Cloth Diapering Journey

When I first started investigating cloth diapers back in August of 2009, I was completely sucked into an underground world of cloth diapering moms.  I was staying up until midnight just to find time to look into every available option, weigh the pros and cons of all the different types, and become familiar with the terminology.  So I want to blog about it so that if other moms decide to consider cloth diapering, I can hopefully save them some time.  In my day-to-day life, I find myself frequently answering questions about cloth diapers, so now I can simply direct everyone to my blog instead of writing yet another massively long e-mail about cloth diapers.

Isabelle at 8 months, pretty in a pink Snap-EZ cloth diaper. 

Throwing Money Away  
Isabelle is our first baby, and everyone was so sweet and generous in the excitement of her arrival that even though none of our 4 baby showers was a diaper shower, we received a ton of diapers as gifts.  We did the math, and it was somewhere in the 480s!  That doesn't even include the diapers and wipes that both of our moms bought us from time to time after she was born!  So once the gravy train of free diapers ran out, we started buying diapers ourselves, and of course we picked up the soft little Pampers Swaddlers.  A few diaper packages later, we realized they cost a fortune, and we downgraded until we were eventually buying the store brand at around $7-8 per package, which usually lasted about 6 days.  Do the math, plus tax, and it adds up in a hurry!  I would complain to my husband about the cost, and he'd jokingly say "well you can always do cloth," which always made me roll my eyes.  I'm a pretty frugal mom, but while there are lots of things I was willing to do to save money, I didn't want to go there.  One day when he made that comment, I told him I just might have to look into it.  It can't be that hard, right?  Moms have done it for generations.

But Does Anyone Really Do Cloth Anymore?
Around that same time, my dear friend from college, Leslie Campbell, mentioned in passing that she used a newer type of cloth diaper, so I asked her about it.  She immediately directed me to one of her blog entries, A Whole New Cloth Diaperin' World.  Had she never told me about her experience with cloth diapers, I never would have done it, simply because I didn't know anyone else who was doing it.  It sounds great, in theory, to read about the cool new cloth diapers, but hearing about it from a real mom, I knew for sure that it was totally do-able.

I then began the process of investigating cloth.  I needed to determine a few things.

1. Will cloth diapers really save my family money?
2. What type will I use? 
3. What brand will I use? 
4. What kind of inserts will I use?
5. How will I handle cleaning, sorting, storing, etc.?

These are some of the questions I'll tackle throughout the week.  We'll start with the first one today.

Will Cloth Diapers Really Save My Family Money?
This seems like a no-brainer, but once you realize that the "new" version of cloth diapers (no pins, no rubber pants) can cost around $20 a piece (!!!), then this becomes a very important question to ask.  My husband and I are logical, analytical people, except for my occasional lapses into total girlyness when I get emotional instead of logical.  We wanted to see the numbers in black and white.  I came across a cloth diaper calculator on Diaper Pin, and this was a wonderful resource.  I don't remember the exact numbers that we entered at the time, but our calculations showed that the initial investment on cloth would cost us around $200, and we would break even in about 4 months.  Anything after that would be saving us money.  There are lots of variables that simply can't be accounted for, so it's not going to be 100% accurate.  I actually found diapers cheaper than I'd estimated, and I also found that I can make do with 9 diapers that I wash every day.  We also have all energy star appliances, including a front load washer, which uses less water and less energy to heat up the water.  And since Isabelle is our first child, we definitely plan on using these same cloth diapers for future babies.  It could save us thousands of dollars, easily.  I can't run the numbers for your family, so it's something you'll have to look at and decide for yourself.  But once it became clear to me that it would save us lots of money, nearly $40 a month in fact, I then had to decide if it was worth it. 

Why Cloth?

1. It saves money. 
2. It is safer for the environment.  Theoretically.  I came across information that shows it could go either way.  Manufacturing cotton and the other aspects of a cloth diaper is definitely harmful to the environment, but it does keep disposable diapers out of landfills.  So it's a tradeoff, and I'm not even going to get into that debate.  I think it's probably better to use cloth, but if environmentalists debate that issue all the time, it's certainly not an issue I can resolve.
3. Less chemicals next to baby's skin and more comfortable diapers.  I don't know exactly what they put in disposable diapers, but they're definitely full of lots of chemicals.  Just how harmful those chemicals are is up for debate, but some link disposable diapers to the rise in infertility cases and other issues.  I'm not going there.  I don't think you're poisoning your kid by putting them in 'sposies.  This is a questionable issue for me, but many moms feel really strongly about it.  But, as I've pointed out to my husband, would you want to wear paper underwear?  Probably not.  

For me, numbers 2 & 3 on this list were not compelling enough for me to make the switch to cloth.  Number 1 was a huge factor, but I honestly wasn't sure if I could handle the added laundry and the ew factor.  Finally, I just decided to take the plunge and do it.  I figured if Leslie could do it, then I could do it.  Now I just had to decide:  Pre-folds, pre-fitteds, pockets, or all-in-ones?  Huh?  What?   Decisions, decisions...

Feel free to ask any cloth-diapering questions!