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Cloth Diapering vs Disposable?

I am expecting my first child and try to be eco-friendly, so I am very interested in cloth diapering. I am wondering about the financial aspects of it. I keep reading it is cheaper than using disposables, but can't find an estimated, total amount. My questions are for parents who've used either method of diapering: How much do you think you spent week to week? How much do you think you spent total (say, newborn to age 3 or potty training)? If you used disposables, would you use them with your next child or switch? If you used cloth, would you use them with your next child or switch? Thank you.

Public Comments

  1. i used disposables and i had tried the cloth an to be honest disposables are soooooo much easier and cleaner. they keep ur baby cleaner and plus u dont have more laundry to do. disposables are more expensive but worth it i think( i mean everyone has there own opion) good luck and congrads
  2. i use disposables with my son, it may sound lazy but i prefer to use them because they are so quick and easy to use, i usually spend about £9 a month on them per month
  3. Cloth is WAY cheaper. Once you have the actual diapers (which you can get second hand).. then your only ongoing costs are diaper liners (flushable) from Walmart.. rubber pants (the better ones tend to crack less and last longer)... and the water bill costs. Diaper pins are cheap and good as the velcro does fade. This will be my second child. I am going disposable..but am doing some cloth for the money aspect of it for days where he has direahe or we are home all day For potty training though.. I just use pull ups
  4. organic disposables cant go wrong!! i spend (i think) $50 a month i would use these diapers all the time!! www.tushies.com
  5. I used disposable diapers for my first, and am now using them for my second. I spend around $10-15 a week for the diapers. I wouldn't want to deal with the mess of cloth ones. Disposables hold everything in better, which means less of MY clothing that I have to wash every day. Also, you'll be washing a LOT more baby clothes if you go cloth, so that's more time you're spending cleaning and less time you're spending sleeping or playing with your baby. I know people used to do it before the disposables were invented, but I for one am thrilled to be able to just wipe off my baby's butt and throw away the mess instead of having to rinse it out in the sink or whatever it is they used to do.
  6. My information is old, but I think I can provide you with some tools to figure out what you need to know. Disposables: Price a box of disposables. Figure that you will change your baby anywhere from 6 to 10 times daily. Multiple that times 7 and you will have a weekly cost for that. Cloth: Price a bag of cloth diapers. Don't know the multiples anymore. Mine were given to me (great shower gift). You'll need about 30 to start. You will need some diaper liners. (rubber pants is what we called them in the day). The cost is times ONE. You'll need some more after a year. This is if you wash your own diapers. If you use a diaper service, then ask the diaper service about their rates. They will give you a weekly rate, or per diaper rate. The good and bad of a diaper service. Good: You just put the diaper in the provided container and don't worry. Bad: Costs money No diaper service Good: Doesn't cost. Bad: It's labor intensive, and you have to deal with the diaper contents. Generally for me, diaper contents were only problematic when baby got older. Urine diapers must be rinsed immediately in a sink that does not come in contact with food (bath tub or laundry sink), otherwise your house will have a smell of urine constantly. The containers provided by diaper services are not always "smell-free." So you may end up rinsing anyhow. I like the combo method. Disposables for back-ups and trips out of the house, and cloth at home. Reduces costs and there's the convenience and sanitary conditions of the public.
  7. I am a mother of two. Being eco-friendly and wanted to give my baby the best, I tried cloth diapering. It was better for baby (they said) and my firstborn was on it for about a month. It was a lot of work, and cleaning out the poo was the most difficult and icky part. Plus you also have to do laundry more often, like everyday. Disposable diapers are more sanitary, easier to dispose, and now offer features that imitate cloth diapers. I did not even try the cloth diapers with my second child. Well maybe just on her first week. And immediately switched. I think you will spend about the same with cloth or disposables. You will just contribute to less garbage if you opt to go with cloth. As for the cost, estimate your consumption at around 6-8 diapers per day for a little baby. And as soon as their habits are more or less formed, it will be around 4-6 a day.
  8. Well my daughter is only 9 months and we use disposable diapers. We go thru about 8 diapers a day which equals 56 a wk. I usually buy pampers or huggies so I spend about $20 a wk on diapers but if I used a generic brand I could probably get away with spending about $10 a wk. If I have another child I again plan on using disposable. Also we have a store here where I live that offers organic diapers which are more eco-friendly however they cost twice as much. Hope this helps.
  9. disposable are better in the sense its cleaner they poop and you trow it away but if your trying to save a little money the cloth diapers are your best bet but there's different prices in different stores but there's many brands and many prices make it a day go to target,walmart,Costco, Kmart i found good prices at walmart and Costco
  10. i never even thought once about using cloth with my two children on average i would spend about $15 to $20 per week per child on nappies i buy them in bulk when they are on special too easy to use
  11. I have an 8 month old baby and we use cloth diapers through a diaper service (www.tinytots.com) and disposable diapers at night and when travelling. By using the service, we don't need to rinse any poopy diapers or anything. It's just as easy and throwing away a disposable..take the diaper off, put it in the diaper pail (we have one that closes the diapers off so there is no smell) and set the diapers out on Thursday nights and like magic, a new bag of fresh diapers appears. You do have to spend money upfront on diaper covers. We've tried all different kinds and like both the fleece covers and plastic covers. We also use Snappi clips which are really easy, no pins and keep the diapers closed securely. I actually find the cloth diapers to be less messy and leaky--especially for poo--than the disposables. We pay about $70 per month for 60 diapers per week. (26 cents per diaper) Disposables cost about $15 per 40 diapers around here. (vs. 38 cents) We probably save $20 per month using the service. I really like using the combination because we are only throwing away 1 disposable per day. The disposables create SO MUCH garbage!! The cloth diapers are softer, work well, and are environmentally better, but they keep the baby wetter if not changed, that's why we use disposables at night. Try the diaper service! It is great!!
  12. I used them for my baby for her first six months of life. I recommend you put it in your baby registry for a possible gift that a few friends, co-workers or family members can get you for a period of time. It saves you money for a few months and is eco-friendly and your loved ones get you a gift you'll actually use. I thought it was a great idea when we received it. Just make sure you get a diaper service that picks up your dirty diapers. I think the cost is weekly ranging from 10 per week for 11 bucks to 150 per week for 25 bucks. That includes pick up of dirty diapers, weekly delivery of new ones and a separate container with a deodorizer. A good deal to me.
  13. I LOVE CLOTH DIAPERS!!! www.comfybummy.com Our initial investment was $500 for 30 diapers that fit bbaby 5-30lbs- they're organic cotton grow-with me diapers, and 8 diaper covers. We spend $10 a month on bio-kleen detergent, recommended for the diapers, gets rid of poop fast. I would recommend cloth to everyone, our house doesn't smell like a daycare. Every morning I take the dirty diapers- poo and all and toss them in the washer for 30 min to soak, run the longest wash cycle and hang them to dry. Our son is 4mo old and right away he knew when his diaper was wet, we've had 1 diaper rash. The savings are amazing... we use about 12 diapers a day. A bag of disposables (40) costs $9. Also, we never run out of diapers. Everyone wins
  14. i use desposible for my kids and i will use them with the one i am pregnant with. i find it so much easier and cleaner. I have a 3.5 year old step son in pull-ups and a 8 month old daughter and just found out i am pregnant again. we buy the biz box of huggies and it lasts about 1.5-2 months bag of pull-ups lasts 2 weeks. so all together is is maybe $80 a month.
  15. I LOVE MY CLOTH!!!!!! LOL I have 2 kiddos in cloth, a 2 year old and a 5 month old. I have only been CDing for about 3 months, and don't plan on ever going back to sposies. I spent about $350 to get my stash...18 one size diapers(12 mommy's touch, 3 bumgenius 2.0, and 3 Mother Eve). They fit my little guy(who was about 12 lbs when we started) and still fit my big guy, who is 38lbs. I have also recently started using cloth wipes and an herbal wipe solution. My oldest son had the worst issues with rashes, but hasn't had one since changing over to cloth. They aren't hard at all to deal with, and I have found them to be quite helpful as far as working on potty training my 2 year old. when he poops it is his responsibility to rinse out his dirty dipe. LOL With the baby I don't worry about it, breastmilk poop totally dissolves in the wash. I do laundry every other day or so, and it's not labor intensive at all. I just wash once on warm with a free&clear detergent, and then wsh again on hot. Then they chucked into the dryer. It's a lot easier than shelling out $80 a month on dipes and wipes for 2 kids!
  16. With my first child we used cloth almost exclusively until she started taking them off all the time (she was almost two). We did use disposable for trips and sometimes overnight. We used a diaper service, which was nice because not only did we not have to due laundry for them, but we also got a breakdown on how many diapers we were actually using week to week. They gave us 80 diapers a week for the newborn, and then as the baby got older we got bigger diapers and fewer of them. With breastfed babies the cloth definitely contained the poop better, but they do have to be changed more frequently, but that means less diaper rash. They did a buy 11 weeks get 1 week free deal, so I think we ended up paying about $15 for the cloth diapers. Plus the cost of the covers, which you need a minimum of four in each size, and cost about $10 each (I prefer Bummies). With my second child we used cloth for about six months, then switched to disposable. Mostly because they kept upping the price of the cloth and he grew so fast that I had to keep buying covers. I did get a breakdown from the diaper company one time about the natural resources used for one year of disposable diapers instead of cloth, and it was enough to provide gas for something like 5 cars for a year.
  17. I use cloth diapers for my baby until she was 6 months old, It was a diaper service that dropped thaem off and picked up the dirty ones. I didnt need to clean or do anything to them. It cost about 40 dollars a week for 60 and then I used disposables if I was going to be out of the house for an extended period of time. I found the cloth to be much better on her little tushie and still to this day she hasnt had a touch of diaper rash. I would probally do it the same way again if I have another just to save at least a few diapers going to the landfill. The company was called rock-a-dry-baby, may not be a word wide company.
  18. I guess I'm a little off topic because all my kids are grown and gone now but because of that and the ages they are, I used cloth the whole time for both of them and I would do so again if I were put into the same situation. I sort of am because I'm incontinent now myself and I currently have to wear diapers 24 / 7 and to this day I still prefer cloth over disposables. I only use disposables for long trips and vacations where washing cloth diapers would be very inconvenient, the rest of the time I wear cloth, yes, even to work, and I wear plastic pants over them and no one I work with even knew until I was put into a situation where I had to tell them. Disposables are cheaper but they do leak, especially on the side where there isn't any absorbent material unlike cloth that has a double layer there due to pinning them on. Disposables are more expensive in the long run. Cloth is not cheap up front but the longer you use them the cheaper they become per usage, the cost per usage of a disposable diaper stays constant because you can only use it once. If you are handy with a sewing machine like I am, you can make your own cloth diapers, there are patterns available on the internet, just look around and you can find them, some free, some for a price, it would depend on how handy you are. Me, I took a disposable the fit well and layed it out on the cloth for a pattern and made my own, I don't know what else to tell you except that if you use cloth you will keep a lot of paper, plastic and human waste out of our landfills and keep that stuff from being around for a hundred years and keep the waste from seeping into our drinking water and spreading diseases. Enough said, I've rambled long enough. I hope I helped. Good luck.
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