Carl and I have not put Benjamin in cloth diapers his whole (4 month long) life. He started out on disposables (’sposies) and when we chose to make the switch, we used up all the sposies given to us before we switched. Still we are not exclusively cloth-diapering, as I’m not brave enough yet to put him in a cloth diaper at night (he is a heavy wetter) or when we are out for long periods of time. We still don’t have a huge, impressive stash, but we are getting there.

So… why cloth? Check this out, found at www.sunshinediapers.com:

The fact that exclusive disposable diaper use has become the norm is a tribute to effective marketing. Somehow a great majority of American parents have accepted an expensive, less comfortable, less attractive, and environmentally disastrous way of diapering our children. Okay, so fiddling with pins and rubber pants did make disposable diapers look terribly attractive.

But cloth has come a long way.

Cloth diapers will save you at least $1,000 per child.
On average, you will spend $2000 per child on disposable diapers. Compare that to a cloth diapering average of $400 for your first child’s diapering years. A second and third child will cost much less, since the diapers can be reused.

Modern cloth diapers are easy.
New designs have elasticized legs and velcro tabs, so they are easy to use.

Cloth is cool and comfortable.
Would you rather wear cotton, or paper and plastic? Unlike disposable diapers, cloth diapers stay cool. A recent study reports higher temperatures inside disposables than cloth. Rashes are rare with cloth, which allows free air flow to baby’s skin.

Potty training is easier in cloth.
On average, cloth diapered children potty train six months earlier than children wearing disposable diapers.

Cloth diapers are chemical free.
Dyes and perfumes used in disposables can cause allergic reactions. But the chemical that is the most cause for concern is sodium polyacrylate. This is the super-absorbent gel in disposable diapers that leaves little “gel balls” on the skin of your baby’s bottom. No studies have been done to determine the effect this chemical has on young skin. This was banned from use in tampons, and can be dangerous to pets and children if the diaper is torn.

And of course, cloth diapers are a much lighter burden on the environment.
You simply can’t bleach paper and pulp, dump the byproducts into waterways, line that pulp and paper with plastic, fill it with synthetic dyes, perfumes, and super-absorbent chemicals, soil it with human waste, and bury it without having a far-reaching effect on the environment. The famous landfill problem is a real one, but it’s not the entire environmental story.

The ruin of a river in my native Florida hits close to home for me. Communities along the Fenholloway River south of Tallahassee in the Florida Panhandle have been battling Proctor & Gamble for years over the high levels of the carcinogen dioxin (at levels 1,900 times higher than considered safe) and other toxins dumped into the river by a plant making Pampers, Luvs, Attends, and Always pads. A 1947 declaration made the river an “industrial river”, allowing P&G to dump anything in the river as long as it does not affect navigation. And dump they do. The once-clear river now runs dark brown, and residents have been warned against eating any fish from the river or drinking from wells. A now-famous case of female fish developing male attributes due to the toxins in the water originated at this site. Sea grasses have disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico where the Fenholloway River empties into it. P&G distributed drinking water but refused to clean up the river. The environmental effects of disposables don’t begin only after you buy them. Much of the damage is done before you ever throw that diaper away.

Those studies that you read in parenting magazines are flawed.
Occasionally we’ll hear that the environmental effects of cloth and disposables even out. But thus far most studies, particularly the ones that get press and are used by parenting magazines (think of their advertisers) are flawed. They used statistics that simply don’t reflect the reality of how cloth is really used at home: they factored in all bleached fabric, multiple hot washes, and chlorine bleach (!). They did NOT factor in, however, the effects of dioxins and other waste created by the production of disposables nor the water used during the manufacture of the pulp of disposables (see the Fenholloway story above). Oh, and the two most quoted studies were funded by Proctor & Gamble (carried out by the Arthur Little Company) and a paper company. P&G was banned from using the results in advertising in the UK as they were deemed untrue, but we continue to see the studies quoted in popular magazines and press packets. When you see those studies, or hear friends say that the two methods even out environmentally, know that their information came from the diaper companies themselves. So far there has not been a non-commercial organization to conduct its own study, but it is one of the goals of The Real Diaper Association. It makes no more sense that disposables are as kind to the environment as cloth than to say that paper plates make more sense than reusable ones or that disposable bath towels would be an environmental improvement over cotton ones. If disposable diapers had not yet been invented, would cloth diapers be seen as an environmental disaster, and would the solution embraced by environmentally conscious parents be paper and plastic ones instead?! The parenting magazines appease their primary advertisers and ease the guilt of parents, but they distort the truth (or accept the diapers company’s version of the truth) to do so. Support the Real Diaper Association and support better research!

Using cloth diapers just makes you feel good.
This is the intangible benefit of cloth. I love the process of diapering. I like the look of clean cotton on my baby. I like the feel every time I diaper him. I feel good passing the diaper aisle in the grocery store, and am glad to never have to run to the store, look for diaper bargains, or take out a lot of trash.

So there you have it. If you are a cloth diapering mama, why not post why you use cloth as well?

- Kristen