Recent Posts

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Yes, we are still using cloth diapers


To everyone who doubted if we would use or continue to use cloth diapers, yes, we still are using cloth diapers. Soren here is modeling the latest cotton diaper from Kissaluvs. While we think that this is a great all in one diaper, our favorite by far is the Fuzzi Bunz Pocket Diaper. Both of these are what we use for our nighttime diapering. For daytime, we bought 2-dozen non-bleached cotton pre-fold diapers. These are also called the Chinese 8 fold diaper, and they are the most economical diapering option.
If anyone reading this is thinking about diaper options, I highly suggest taking a look at cloth diapering. It's turning out to be much easier than we originally thought. Andrea and Soren just started taking ECFE classes together and with a class size of 6 babies, 4 are in cloth diapers.
Admittingly, there are many factors to consider, including lifestyle choices, flexibility, cost, how often to wash diapers, and who is going to wash the diapers. Initially we were going to use disposables at night until we did more research and found out that there are many, many options for nighttime cloth diapering.
Here are some the many reasons why you should consider using cloth diapers.
  • Save money. There is a huge cost savings of using cloth over disposables diapers. Put this money into your child's education instead of throwing it into a landfill!
  • What would you rather wear, cloth or some petroleum by-product on your rear end?
  • Disposable diapers contain traces of Dioxin, an extremely toxic by-product of the paper-bleaching process. It is a carcinogenic chemical, listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals. It is banned in most countries, but not the U.S.
  • Disposable diapers contain Tributyl-tin (TBT) - a toxic pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals.
  • No one knows how long it takes for a disposable diaper to decompose, but it is estimated to be about 250-500 years, long after your children, grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren will be gone.
  • The manufacture and use of disposable diapers amounts to 2.3 times more water wasted than cloth.

We love our cloth diapers.

2 comments:

Fygar said...

If by "money in education" you mean "money for scotch", we may be going cloth next time.

Anonymous said...

Wow! You're both amazing. With our little one on the way, we are trying to make some important decisions like diapering as well. Are you still using the diapering service? We are a little worried about how labor intensive and practical it is to do this yourself. I've read that you have to first do a 2-hour cold soak and then you need some special kind of tree oil and baking soda. Then all of the diapers need to be line dried. I'm wondering if we could do this when we both will be working full-time and having our child in day care. Any advise would be welcome. We love all of the pictures of Soren and you both.

Danielle