Mama readers, I need your help. I’m stumped. Everything I’ve read so far has led me to believe that cloth diapers (over the duration of diapering your child) are less expensive than disposables. If that’s the case, that cloth is cheaper and also better for the environment, why don’t I know a single person who has ever used cloth? It’s all about Huggies or Pampers.
I’ve also looked into diaper delivery services in San Francisco (both cloth and compostable options) and I find the prices to be unbelievably reasonable–similar to the cost of getting your daily fix of caffeine at Starbucks.
Can I ask what diapers you use/used?
How did you decide on that brand or service, and why?
Would love your thoughts within the comments of my blog (versus Facebook) for all future generations of mamas who have the same question.
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Take a look at my previous pregnancy question and how readers responded:
I used disposable diapers. I started with Pampers, and then tried Huggies and Luvs. Luvs was cheaper than the other two and worked well for my kids. If you go disposables, you just have to try some different ones and see which works.
I have a friend who has an infant and she is using cloth diapers. She likes them and doesn’t find them expensive or inconvenient. If I were having a baby now I may consider it, but I’m more environmentally conscious now that I’m old. 🙂
I used Pampers for both girls and never had an issue. I know others who do love and swear by cloth diapers for their kids, but to be honest, I really just wanted to get rid of the smell and dirty diaper as soon as I could and never could stomach the thought of washing and reusing. But that is just me.
Tiny Tots diaper service is GREAT! I have some covers around I can send your way. It’s super easy and you can still go disposable in the night. I remember feeling so excited for each pee caught in cloth vs paper, one less diaper in the landfill, considering how often you need to change a baby. Oh, and you should consider elimination communication which really reduces total use of both paper and cloth. More on that live!
We used disposables – Pampers and Huggies – with our twin girls (who are now 4 years old) and that worked fine for us. I was interested in cloth but there was no way I could have kept up with the laundry with twins.
However, for our baby boy (almost 6 months old) we’re using cloth diapers, and love it. We started him in cloth around a month old once he fit into them better, and we’ve become big fans of the Bum Genius brand of pocket diapers and all-in-ones (AIOs) and also the Flip line of covers and inserts. Both of those brands are made by Cotton Babies, which is headquartered locally here in St. Louis, so we received a great education on how to use cloth at their store. We wash everything at home, every couple of days, and it’s completely manageable, even with being home 24/7 with two busy preschoolers and an infant. Even my husband, who was skeptical at first, has found the system to be very easy, and it really is a huge savings over disposables. If you do have access to a diaper service I would definitely check into it, as many now also cater to the AIO and pocket style of diapers rather than just the flat fold cloth diapers and waterproof covers.
Good luck!
Our kids are grown now, but I used disposables on all three. Luvs to be exact…they were inexpensive. 🙂 But quite honestly, it’s your preference. If you like convenience, I’d say disposables. If you like the natural lifestyle…go cloth. As long as the little one stays clean and fresh, is all that matters! 🙂 Have a good one Catherine!
I used cloth diapers with both of mine. We had a diaper service for the first nine months (give or take). I washed the diapers myself once the poop was of a consistency to just be plopped in the toilet. I liked bumkins for covers and all-in-ones and bummis pocket diapers. The diaper service also had some plain jane white covers that were real workhorses. Also, once they started peeing through the cloth diapers at night we moved on to disposables for bedtime.
I don’t think I could have stomached cloth diapers in the beginning if I didn’t use a service. With a service be prepared to store all those clean diapers somewhere.
Best of luck!
We were huge Tiny Tot users in the beginning. Loved the cloth. Loved the pick up and delivery. Bag on the porch, easy as pie. When M started daycare and being mobile (same month), we moved on to Naty disposables. Expensive but I really struggled with making diaper choices I was okay with. I’ve had to throw all that out the window now since m has no interest in potty training. The choices are slim at his stage. Funny as we still have some of the leftover cloth floating around. They make the best clean up towels.
I remember researching this topic to death when I was pregnant and it didn’t stop then either.
Elizabeth was little, came home at 5pounds, so we started with Premie pampers swaddlers. Once she was around 10pounds we moved to cloth using Tiny Tots sized tri fold cloth inserts and a few different covers. We tried ProWrap (because they were handed down but I didn’t like them), Bummie whisper wrap and settled on my fav Thirsties Covers. She was long and lean and they fit her the best.
We used disposables as night and on longer car rides, or when she had bad toxic poo diaper rash (the immediate irritates the skin kind) or when we were going to be out all day or on trips.
I wanted to use an All in one or a pocket diaper but I was gifted a Year of Tiny Tots, so I had to use a Cover instead. Can’t turn away that gift! They have a great service and are very helpful.
However at 6mo I went back to work and Eric began his stay at home phase of his life and he wanted to simplify things and chose to move to disposables.
For Jacob, it’s been disposables the whole time. We were looking to simplify and honestly, they are simpler.
For both my kids when using disposables, Pampers Swaddlers until they were in 3s and then Kirkland all the way.
Some advise-
Poop is just poop. You get over it and just deal with it. I think doing cloth forced me to get over the fact fairly quickly that yes my hands have poop on them and it’s all washable.
Pampers Swaddlers are awesome for newborn BM poop! Great absorption and the liner really does pull that liquid poop a away from that fresh and sensitive newborn skin. The cover is soft when you’re snuggling your tiny precious gift.
If you have a heavy night wetter, Huggies overnights are great when going up a size at night doesn’t work.
Sign up for Amazon Mom!
Diapers being delivered to your door is awesome and most of the time is the cheapest way to go. Diapers.com sometimes beats Amazon prices.
Don’t pre-buy too much. It’s shocking how long or short they will stay in a size or if a brand of cover or disposable works for you. It all depends on each kids shape and growth spurts.
Ahh the world of diapers.
Hi Catherine! Been following your blog and am very excited about the impending arrival! Regarding diapers, one thought to consider is that you might have different needs depending on if you are home or out and about. For example, with food or formula, when I was home I would have the time, equipment and ingredients to prepare whatever I wanted. But when I was out and about, the little pouches of food or premixed formula containers were much easier and convenient to deal with. You might find the same with cloth versus disposable diapers. It’s probably always good to have disposables on hand for when the convenience is important (airplanes, restaurants etc.) but then try whatever you want at home! Good luck with everything! -Erin
I used disposable. There were far too many diapers for me to even consider cloth diapers. I used Pampers…especially loved the Swaddlers! :)-Ashley
Hi & congrats! We use cloth about 60-70% of the time and are happy knowing that we’ve made a small effort to help the environment, throwing out less trash and buying significantly less diapers. Yes, it is cheaper, but it’s also daily work that most people don’t want to/have the time to do. If you want to do cloth, I would suggest registering for a couple different ones during your pregnancy, and taking your time with it. We didn’t start using them full-time until our babe was about 5 months. I posted about it on my blog here:
http://www.peacelovemusicgrows.com/2013/04/mtn-mama-cloth-diapers.html
Let me know if you have any more questions 🙂
I used disposables too. Huggies when they were little cause they fit the best, then Pampers eventually fit better. I did it for convenience mainly. I have friends that used cloth though!
I used disposable but i didn’t know about the cloth or how that whole thing worked. The convenience outweighed anything else at the time.. The bottles were enough to maintain!!! You’ll make the right decision don’t fret. 🙂 I used Huggies but honestly, you’ll see what makes your baby happier 🙂 Happy Hump Day Catherine! -Iva
I used disposables mostly for the first one, until potty training – then it was cloth. For the second one, I cloth-diapered for a year and did the laundry myself. Then after a year, with school and work running at full speed, I had to switch to disposables. I have used a number of different types of cloth diaper brands (and even blogged about them, haha) – BumGenius, Grovia, and types – All-in-Ones, Pockets, Prefolds, Flats, etc. They’re all cut different and you won’t really know what’ll work for your baby (or for you) until he’s born.
I use disposable, but I live in western MA and it seems like I’m in the minority! I know that’s different from elsewhere. I really just didn’t have the time/patience/tolerance for ick factor to do it. It’s a great thing to do, but I’ve never done it.
Uh.. it’s been too long. Huggies, Pampers… I don’t remember which brand I preferred. Sorry! One of my employees tried to use the cloth diapers, but it didn’t work out too well. Just wasn’t a feasible solution in our office.
For my daughter we used disposable, but it started to cost more as she got bigger (the same price for less and less diapers). For my son, who came along 18 months later, we used cloth. It was great. We had disposable on hand for outings and such, but the cloth was great.
I would go with the cloth, but have disposable on hand for outings and such.
Disposable. My thoughts on cloth diapers: I don’t want to spend time cleaning that sh!t. Literally. LOL Especially with a newborn, their poop is runny. I used luvs diapers (soft, cheaper than pampers and huggies); and used Amazon prime – free shipping and auto delivery.
My Mom used cloth diapers for some of my siblings, disposable diapers for others. I think it kind of depended on our stage in life at the time (sometimes she has been more of a stay-at-home mom than at other times)–I definitely think that cloth diapers are cheaper in the long run, but I’ve known several people who have used them, and I can’t think of anyone who would claim that they are easier! Definitely more time-consuming–although it sounds like modern cloth diapers are perhaps a little easier to deal with than the cloth diapers of 15 years ago that I remember rinsing out! 😛
When I was considering my options in 2009, I thought about cloth diapers. Chickened out because I didn’t find a service. I think having a laundry service that goes to your home is key for first time cloth diapering. Today, I would go with The Honest Company’s non-toxic disposable diapers. They are safe for baby and convenient for mommy.
Good luck! You’ll find your own way once you are in the trenches for yourself. Keep an open mind either way as you experiment. Don’t be dead set on one or the other to avoid unnecessary disappointment.
~ Ferly
Gifts We Use {to grow, love and serve}
Stumbled across your blog via the linkup thingy on The Wiegands. So I use cloth…and live in SF too! Yeah buddy! We are a 80% cloth family. I opted to not use a diaper service because we have a w&d. Not sure if you do. I do a load every 3 days or so. Anyways, we use BumGenius, Fuzzibunz, and Flip covers with pre-folds. BumGenius and Fuzzibunz are good. Especially at the beginning where the poop is like non-stop liquid. With disposables…no matter the brand my little guy would have DAILY blowouts. Blak. Got super old super fast. With cloth…not one blowout. They don’t hold as much pee though so you have to change them more often. The Flip covers with pre-folds are by far the most absorbent…the best for night time. Now that he’s 7 months old we are starting solids and that’s a totally new situation. Their poo is totally different and isn’t that same liquid stuff. Anyways, with the water shortage and introduction of solids I’m doing a bit more disposables. Obviously disposable are easier but it really wasn’t very hard work to use to me…heck, especially if you used a diaper service. Cloth is super popular down south where I’m from but there isn’t a huge following in SF from what I’ve found. Anyways, it’s a bit of an investment and there was no way I was going to do laundry when Jack was first born so maybe start out with disposables, buy a days worth of cloth, try it out, and then decide from there. For a three day supply of cloth diapers we spent around $250 or so…so it’s an investment. We plan to use them though for future babies. Sorry that was so long! 🙂
We used disposable as well (Pampers). I was planning on using a cloth diaper service but a good friend of mine had one and had a hard time doing the cloth diapers up so that they wouldn’t leak. She eventually switched to disposable and I never tried the cloth ones, knowing that if she had problems making them leak-proof that I definitely would.
And you’ll be FINE either way – I promise! Maybe get both to start and see what works best for you and baby.
And EEEP it’s getting closer!!!
I wanted to seriously consider cloth diapers while I was pregnant, but my husband just laughed at me when I brought it up. He said it wasn’t practical for us and, now that Reuben is here, I completely agree. I work full time so we just can’t expect my mom (who watches him) to deal with them, ya know?
So we started with pampers swaddled since that’s what everyone got us at showers. We stuck with those until the gifted packs had run out and then switched to target brand and LOVE them. He rarely leaks out overnight, they fit him well, and best of all is they’re totally affordable. We spend about $30 on a box that will last 5-6 weeks.
I used disposable for both of my children. I just didn’t like the idea of washing and rinsing poop out of the cloth diapers. I wanted to be done with the poop when it came out by rolling that diaper up and throwing it outside in the trash. I can understand moms’ reasoning for wanting to use cloth diapers though. It’s all about preference.
I use only Pampers! Disposable is a lot easier too! I never use other brands. When I used other brands, my son got rashes so Pampers all the way! 🙂
We use disposable because 1) we share a w&d in the condo, 2) with my parents watching her with my nephews it was better to be on a standard system. Plus we got enough diapers to make it to her 2nd birthday. I think I’ve bought 2 packs of diapers so far.
I’ve had friends that loved their cloth diapers. They have the insert ones but have a w&d they don’t share.
In terms of resources, I’m not even sure which is better trees vs water vs gas.
I did have a friend who did elimination communication and uses only one diaper a day for overnight.
I started with a cloth diaper service because, well, I’m a Cal gal and hug trees. But my husband refused to shove the cloth diapers in the service’s bin (it was kinda gross) and used the disposables every time he changed Riley. Then I spoke to a friend in the water industry who said that, actually, for our area, the water resources used for cloth diapers was worse than our landfill situation. So, I switched to disposables and never looked back. As far as brand, I can’t remember, but one brand smelled too chemically. I think we used pampers.
We use cloth diapers now. We started at about 4 months (prior to that she was too little for the “one-size” diapers, plus she was spending lots of time in the hospital and we had other things to worry about!
We use Flips. Simple and easy… a cover with an insert. We received some as shower gifts, and beyond that I’ve probably spent about $50 on additional covers and detergent. Our daycare provider has no issues with them, and even my husband doesn’t mind them. We do have a “diaper sprayer” which helps with the cleaning.
And yes, I wash diapers at home every other day. That’s 3.5 loads a week… I dry them in the sun as often as possible – basically March through October.
BTW, even when using disposables, the poop SHOULD go in the toilet, not into the garbage. Not that anybody (even me!) ever does it that way.
I used g diapers cloth diapers with my son for about a year and a half then switched to disposable diapers for convenience. We even went so far as to make our own wipes. G diapers have cloth inserts as well as liners you can use to make poopy diapers easier to clean up. They also make a disposable insert for use when you’re out and about (I want to say it can be composted too). I loved using them and felt good about the financial and environmental choice.
My son is almost 3 and now that he’s in absorbent disposables, he is not very interested in the toity. I read a potty training book called Diaper Free Before 3 which led me to think I should never have given up the cloth diaper for sheer convenience. Children need to feel wet or uncomfortable and disposable diapers are so absorbent they eliminate that sensation.
So… Now that baby two is here, I’m trying the reverse. I’ve started her out in disposable diapers since infants go through so many diapers in a day, and as she gets a bit bigger I plan on moving her into the cloth diapers and starting the toilet training/ practice earlier than I did with my son.
We use bumGenius 4.0s on our 6 month old. We started with cloth the day we brought her home from the hospital. She was super tiny so we used the BG newborn size diapers for the first few months, then graduated to the one size. No diaper rashes, and no leaks or blowouts. We love them!