cloth diapers?

[saramd]

we cloth diaper adn I love it. as for it being icky no not any worst then paper diapers.
we use a mix of fitted's with wool and pockets. the pockets are more daddy friendly.
we do use paper over night because I havn't found a system that works for us.

if you want ot go cheaper then do prefolds and covers. you might want to try a few different styles and see what works.
Diaperswappers is good to find preloved. also you can find them on craigslist sometimes.
I wish you the best of luck

 

[luna99]

well, now I've gone over to diaper swappers.com and great.. I've got yet another website to spend a lot of time reading on! LOL. I can totally see how CD's could become a 'hobby' as a lot of you say... I'm kinda a crafty person myself and love all the different patterns and colors!

J3nn78, your kids are adoreable! thank you for sharing the pictures.. I'm assuming those are the CD's that you made yourself?

you know, I honestly never knew that even when you use disposable diapers you had to put the poo in the toilet! I did a lot of baby-sitting as a teen and never did ... but I guess that's because the mommies never told me to.

 

[bellebud]

I used fuzzy bunz for my kids (who are now 7yo and 8yo). I also used pampers a bit for the youngest - but mostly the cloth. I bought them stretchy shorts/sweats a few sizes too big, which fit well over the cloth. They then used those shorts and sweats when they were older (so saved money there too!) I loved our cloth diapers!

 

[TwinsinCA]

you know, I honestly never knew that even when you use disposable diapers you had to put the poo in the toilet! I did a lot of baby-sitting as a teen and never did ... but I guess that's because the mommies never told me to.

I worked for years in daycare with infants, then as a nanny, and now have twins. I have changed more diapers than I can count. I have NEVER put poo in the toilet with disposables. Never. Ever.

I know cloth is different from when *I* was a baby -- but what has changed so much in the last 10 - 15 years? We always had one or two parents who used cloth at the daycares I worked at. They were such an enormous hassle -- and I wasn't the one cleaning them. Dealing with these urine soaked pieces of cloth (never mind #2!) was disgusting to me and I certainly went through more gloves changing babies with cloth diapers. And then there were the leaks. I'm happy to hear that those here have had minimal issues with leaking cloth diapers. That was not my experience. When I had my own kids I used Pampers. After my experiences with cloth I would not have even considered anything else.

 

[jodifla]

anyone use them? and if so, would you mind sharing your experiences, good and bad with them?

I'm not a mom yet but next year am planning on starting a family and I'm really interested in using cloth diapers... for the environment and for money savings... so I just wanted to get some first had experiences from real mom and dads! thanks!

Two things...cloth diapers can be hard to use for working moms as most daycares don't allow them.

Also, it's mixed bag on the environment....they don't go into landfills, but you use a lot of water washing them. And water is a scarce commodity in some communities.

The upside is, your child will likely be out of diapers much sooner than a disosable diaper wearer!

 

[luna99]

The upside is, your child will likely be out of diapers much sooner than a disosable diaper wearer!

why is this?

I'm so glad to hear both sides of the coin for cloth and disposables! this is a great discussion.

 

[jodifla]

why is this?

I'm so glad to hear both sides of the coin for cloth and disposables! this is a great discussion.

cloth diapers feel wet to children, so they are normally faster to switch to the potty. Disposables tend to be more comfortable when they are wet, so there is less incentive to change.

 

[J3nn78]

I really get annoyed at the its a toss up argument with landfills vs water.

I cloth diapered 2 kids at once. I did 3 extra loads of laundry a week when I was going with 2. Now that one is in diapers and one PTd I have 1 extra load each week. I also have a HE washer that uses very little water.

Not really valid. Water is a constant resource. Diapers stay in the landfills pretty much forever.

I know most do NOT dispose of solid waste when using disposables, but it is what you are supposed to do.

 

[TwinsinCA]

I know most do NOT dispose of solid waste when using disposables, but it is what you are supposed to do.

According to who? I have never heard this.

 

[perkinsrose]

One perspective from http://www.mothering.com/articles/new_baby/diapers/joy-of-cloth.html


"Some of the facts: 18 billion disposable diapers are thrown in landfills each year, taking as many as 500 years to decompose. Disposable diapers make up the third largest source of solid waste in landfills, after newspapers and food and beverage containers--a significant fact, considering they are a single product, used by a limited portion of the population.1 It takes upwards of 82,000 tons of plastic and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp, or a quarter-million trees, to manufacture the disposable diapers that cover the bottoms of 90 percent of the babies born in the US.2

Some will argue that in areas where water is scarce, disposables are the better environmental choice. However, carrying this argument to the extreme, we should be wearing disposable clothes, and using paper plates and plastic utensils. Washing cloth diapers at home uses 50 to 70 gallons of water every three days--about the same as a toilet-trained child or adult flushing the toilet five to six times a day. A diaper service puts its diapers through an average of 13 water changes, but because of the economies of scale, uses less water and energy per diaper than one laundry load at home. " (more on site link)'

 

[luna99]

According to who? I have never heard this.

ok, I got this directly off the pamper's website:
http://www.pampers.com/en_US/products/page/pdt_tips/tipsType/safety.do

and again, I did not know this information myself until this thread.

"Waste removal

As the Pampers bag recommends, you'll want to dump bowel movements in the toilet. Then just roll the diaper into its backsheet, using the tape or fasteners to keep it closed, and dispose of it in the trash."

 

[TwinsinCA]

ok, I got this directly off the pamper's website:
http://www.pampers.com/en_US/products/page/pdt_tips/tipsType/safety.do

and again, I did not know this information myself until this thread.

"Waste removal

As the Pampers bag recommends, you'll want to dump bowel movements in the toilet. Then just roll the diaper into its backsheet, using the tape or fasteners to keep it closed, and dispose of it in the trash."

I closed up my daughters' diapers immediately with whatever contents they had. I was not about to leave one open where it could get knocked over by a wiggly baby or for her sister to find while I finished putting on the new diaper. I can understand it might lessen the odor of the diaper pail so perhaps that is the idea behind this. But I always bagged those up separately and put them in the outside garbage immediately. Only the wet ones went in the diaper pail.

Thanks for the link though. I guess I never read the pampers package that closely.

 

[luna99]

Thanks for the link though. I guess I never read the pampers package that closely.

you and everyone else it seems! (me included!)

 

[bumbershoot]

luna beat me to it! It's possibly one of my favorite links in the universe. Pampers likes to move it around, too, each and every time I go to look for it it's in a different place.

cloth diapers feel wet to children, so they are normally faster to switch to the potty. Disposables tend to be more comfortable when they are wet, so there is less incentive to change.

Yep. Plastic diapers have to add chemicals to make the kids feel cold or wet when they wet. So the gel beads suck up the moisture, then release a chemical that makes their genitals feel wet/cold. So they knew they've started to pee and can run to the bathroom.

I think I'll stick with "kid wets, kid feels wet".

According to who? I have never heard this.

I have a friend in city planning, who is the type who went on a first date (with a city engineer) to the waste treatment facility around here. I feel I know a lot about landfills and water treatment b/c of her.

We put poop into toilets b/c that's where it can be treated. Goes to the sewage treatment place, the solids are taken out and treated, the water is treated, it's all good.

When we put poop into landfills, nothing gets cleaned. Eventually the poop will make its way out and soak into the ground, where it goes, untreated, into groundwater.


*********

With cloth, you can accessorize for big sporting events:

I'm not the sports fan, but still I blame the Seahawks loss in the '06 Superbowl on the fact that DS went down for a nap before the game started and I didn't put that dipe on him until after he woke up around halftime.