Considering Cloth Diapering?
A few weeks ago we decided we would move forward with the idea to cloth diaper our Baby. We went back and forth on the idea a bit mostly because we weren’t sure if we would be able to take up the efforts that come with it. But I spent a lot of time YouTube’ing videos and looking up other cloth diapering mom experiences which was very helpful. Most of them emphasized it is not that much different from disposable diapers, especially in the first 4-5 months when the baby is exclusively breast feeding and you’re already doing oodles of laundry anyway.
We were also very lucky to get hand me down cloth diapers from one of our cousins. She also walked us through the typical routine of handling cloth diapers along with the various cloth diapering options (there are a lot and it’s hard to just read about).
Here are some of the key reasons we decided to try cloth diapering:
- Less chemicals on Baby’s sensitive parts. A newborns skin is so sensitive and diapers are made to be super absorbent to make the lives of parents easier (less diaper changes, less messes etc), however this is only possible with lots and lots of chemicals. Just like preservatives work for food, these chemicals work the same way for the diapers. Many cloth diapering parents have noticed less diaper rashes on their babies.
- Be Green. Diapers sit in landfills along with everything else we can not really recycle. This is one small effort in helping the environment for the next generation. Plus our parents and ancestors didn’t have diapers, so it is possible!
- Economical. Cloth diapers have an upfront cost to invest in however, in the long run you save a lot by cloth diapering. The current estimate for disposable diapers is about $2000 per year/per kid. Where as cloth diapering can be as little as $200-$300 total and they can be reused for other kids as well. I really liked the way these two sites broke down the costs:
Cloth Diapers made of soft materials keeps your baby comfortable and protects your baby while being wet.