Fifteen Months of Cloth Diapering

When I first approached my husband about the idea of using cloth diapers, he was more than a little skeptical.  I don’t know, he said.  Doesn’t that mean we’ll have to touch poop? I couldn’t help but laugh.  We were having a baby, we were going into the business of poop!

Eventually my darling husband acquiesced to what I’m sure he deemed a rather odd request.  He wasn’t the only skeptic.  Oh, Jenny, my grandma huffed, those things are disgusting.  I wish we had disposables when I had babies. If my frugal, eco-friendly grandma wasn’t bought on, I knew I had a tough road ahead of me.

Fortunately, cloth diapers have come a long way since my grandma first started changing diapers 51 years ago.  A little research and I found that today’s cloth diapers are cute, colorful and easy to use and care for.

I decided on the BumGenius 3.0s.  I have to admit, I didn’t have much of a reason besides for them being the first cloth diapers I found and seeming pretty awesome.  And while I’m sure the other brands have their merits, I really haven’t looked back.

I do use disposables some of the time.  I put my son to sleep in a disposable at night and during trips away from home that last longer than two hours.  I’ve met moms who are much better at fully incorporating cloth diapers into their lives, but this solution worked best for us.

Why do I do it?  There’s the environmental reason, of course.  Any time I can reduce my contribution to a landfill, I try to do it.  More than that is the cost factor.  Being the crazy person I am, I once did the price comparison of using all disposables vs a combination of cloth and disposable.

Even taking into account the initial cost of high quality cloth diapers, the cost of water and electricity to launder them, the price of special gentle soap to wash them, using cloth diapers comes out on top.  Even considering the cost of supplementing with disposable diapers, by the time my son is 2, I’ll have saved myself $520.  That’s money that can go into his college savings instead of literally going into the garbage.

The dollar savings goes up significantly if we use the same diapers for our next little one.  Our diapers are still going strong, so I think they’ll be in good shape to hand down.

I readily encourage anyone to think about giving cloth diapers a shot.  They’re good for the earth, good for the bank account and nice and cozy for baby’s bottom, too.