Comments on: Cloth Diapering: Does It Save Enough Money To Be Worth The Extra Effort?

By: Vilate

Vilate — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:40:47 +0000

firstly Alecia hang them out in the sun. It is a natural bleacher and will get those stains out!

secondly, I don’t know where you got your #s for the cost of diaposibles, but they are way off.

A quick estimate of cost: Consumer Report estimates that the most inefficient washer and dryer system costs approximately $0.78 per load, whereas more efficient models cost approximately $0.44 per load. So wash your own twice a week for $0.44-0.78, including water, hydro and detergent — or spend $16.94-$22.05 for single-use disposable diapers. Please keep in mind that your child is in the large size single-use disposable diaper for the longest stage of diapering, and yes, they are the most expensive at approximately $0.45 each.

here is somehting else to think on…
Home laundry may take less than 10 minutes of your time per load, while using disposables entails repeated trips to the store. When running low on diapers and the weather was foul outside, I was so thankful that I just had to dump the diapers into the washer (less than $0.78) turn it on and within two hours (while I did something else), clean, fresh, soft cloth diapers were available. I would not have relished bundling up the baby(and other kids too), warming up the car and trekking to the store to spend $30.94 and carry the bulky disposables home.

If you have any CDing questions you can visit my webapge at http://www.niftynappybybvilate.weebly.com

By: Alecia

Alecia — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:45:30 +0000

I started using the Bum Genius cloth diapers when my oldest was 18 mo old. I rotated through the same six diapers until my second child was born. I can easily get by with 15 diapers, and I regret not doing this from the very beginning. I use the home made detergent and it’s great for my regular laundry needs but it doesn’t get the stains out of the diapers. Any suggestion?

By: Anne

Anne — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:39:58 +0000

Nobody ever mentioned the cost of the water used to wash the diapers in. Where we are, they just raised the price of the city water. Too many people moving into the area, not enough water to go around, so we’ll charge everyone more so that everyone will use less! (actually it is graded, if you are under so much you get this rate, if you are over you pay more per gallon, if you are even higher then you pay even more per gallon!) In any case what it comes down to is seeing a difference in my water bill by how much laundry I do. (Summer’s lightweight clothes can have more of them in a load, so I wash fewer loads and therefore use less water.) Don’t quite know how much a load of diapers every day would make a difference, but in some place like Southern California, you might want to be aware of the cost and availability of the water needed to clean the diapers!

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:34:27 +0000

I bought Fuzzi Bunz after my research. I bought sets of 18 in sizes small, medium, and large. I have two sons and they didn’t stay in small and medium as long so they are in better shape. My youngest son wore diapers until he was 18 months old my second was 19 months old. Neither one of my boys had a diaper rash. Savings most people I know don’t start potty training until 2 1/2 or 3 and have to take their kids to the doctor for diaper rash medication. (I worked at an up-scale day care during my undergraduate studies)
As with any diaper you should be changing them at least once an hour. With the cloth diaper a child feels it when he is wet and changed to dry. They learn they don’t like wet so they want to stay dry. With a disposable diaper they put a chemical in it to absorb the wetness or pull it away from your babies bottom. They do not learn about being wet. And the craziest thing to me is a pull up. Expensive marketing plea to con parents out of more money. If you are serious about potty training your child use underwear. If you are scared of potty training like I was read a book. I read how to potty train in a day and my boys were going out in public with underwear on their third day of potty training.
I put my career on hold to stay at home with my children. So I am the one taking care of the diapers. I have a sensitive stomach and the diapers don’t make me gross out. You pull the liner out and put it in a bag. If it has feces in it you just pour it in the toilet. It will fall out. Their is no scrubbing or yucky touching. I wash my diapers once a day with ALL Clear. Dry on delicate. If they start looking yucky I take them out side and hang them on a make shift cloths line and it bleaches them out.
I do not use cloth diapers on over night outings. The only disposable diaper I found worthy of being sold were Huggies Supremes also the most expensive.

By: Stacey

Stacey — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:44:56 +0000

I don’t think this article is entirely accurate. First of all, you stated that a person would wash diapers about 50 times. I know I washed an average of twice a week. The average child is started with potty training at age 2. So that’s more like 200 washes. If you figure an average of 6 diapers a day (twice that in the newborn, and maybe fewer by age 2), using your .20 per diaper, then the expense is actually $876. That’s for 2 years. The cost of 200 washes at .50 each is $100. You could buy a pretty good supply of BumGenius with that. But the reality of cloth diapering is that most of us don’t buy all-in-one’s for the full supply. I bought a total of 6 dozen Chinese prefolds, at an average of $20/dozen. Also, I only needed the small then medium covers. Two of each size at $7 each for Bummi’s Super Whister Warp put my total expenditure at $144 for start up and $100 for laundry. I saved $632 on the first child I cloth diapered. By using them again for my next child, my savings jumped even more for a total of $1408 saved in just diapers. Now, if you add in the cost of wipes, which I used wash cloths in place of, and diaper cream that I didn’t have to buy because I had no rashes with cloth diapers, then my savings goes up even more. Add to all of that, the satisfaction I have of knowing that I DIDN’T put nearly 10,000 MORE disposable diapers into land fills, and there is simply no contest.

I didn’t read all the comments and don’t know what all was said, but I felt you did not present the full picture in your article. I was also very confused by the 50 loads of laundry from birth to potty training. Maybe I misunderstood what you said. If so, perhaps you could clarify?

By: Crystal

Crystal — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:15:24 +0000

I didn’t read EVERY comment, so this may have been mentioned.

You can sell cloth diapers and get a pretty good return, especially if you bought them used already. I spent $10 each for Fuzzi Bunz used and sold them for $9 each. I used those diapers for over a year! I had about a dozen of them. So $12 plus laundry costs to diaper my kid for a year? Yup, totally cheaper than sposies.

But even if I had spent $18 each on the diapers, I could have sold them for $11 each and that still wouldn’t be a bad price.

In many case I MADE money off of cloth diapering. I would find cloth diaper covers at thrift stores for $1 each, use them until she grew out of them, and then I sold them for $4 each.

By: tara

tara — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:22:50 +0000

gDiapers are NOT good for the environment, contrary to what the first commenter posted. You have to do all the laundry of using cloth, yet keep buying more inserts! How does that make sense?

By: EngineerMom

EngineerMom — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:04:40 +0000

I wanted to use cloth diapers, but there is one major problem that I have not found a work-around for:

Most daycare centers and many home daycares will not touch cloth diapers. Disposable, or don’t bother bringing the kid.

I work, and my husband is in graduate school, so daycare is not a luxury – it is a necessity.

This is an important consideration for parents thinking of using cloth. As soon as the kid goes into daycare (which is likely to be well before he or she is potty-trained), disposables become the only option.

I suppose all those cloth diaper burp rags I have could, in theory, be put to use as actual diapers for a future child…

By: Rosalee

Rosalee — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 21:56:45 +0000

Yes, I’m happy for all of you that have chosen to use cloth diapers. But,please remember the real reward in using them other than “environmental impact reduction”: It’s proof that you are willing and proud to take more time than the majority on something you care so intensely about that you would die for. Our children will remember and they will be better people. And better people is what this world ultimately needs.

By: Christine

Christine — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:50:44 +0000

I used cloth diapers on our 4th child & began using them with the 5th. I would still be using them today, (for our 6th) but the 2 of them were so close together (17mos) that the laundry was overwhelming! I got rid of them 7ms into the last pregnancy – wish I had kept them! We used diapers from a company called mother ease – they were decent priced (about $200+/- for 12 with covers) and were fairly similar to plastic. Now that I’m actually BUYING diapers, I would love to have those back! I kept a 5 gallon bucket in the laundry room sink & washed the diapers every other day – wasn’t too hard at all, except with 2 kids in diapers!

By: Mary Beth

Mary Beth — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:58:05 +0000

I love my BumGenius one-size diapers. One-size means I don’t have to keep buying bigger sizes. I only have to do one cycle and an extra rense in our high-efficiency front-loading washer. I wash diapers every 2-3 days. There has been no noticable increase in our water bill, and I feel so much better knowing we’re not putting ‘diaper zits’ in mother earth… and I can either use these diapers if we’re lucky enough to have a second child, or sanitze and re-sell these. Why anyone who has a washer/dryer and start-up funds would use sposies is beyond me.

By: jess

jess — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:24:08 +0000

I bouth 12 all-in-one cloth nappies for my son at a cost of 10 dollars each, which is a total cost of $120. I wash 3x a week now (he is 28 months and no sign of potty training yet) along with all his other clothes, so I’ll call it $0.50 a week in washing costs. 52 weeks a year x 3.5 years of nappies = 182 weeks. total cost of disposables is then $90.50+ $120 = $210.50.. also dont use wipes, cloths are just perfect.

cloth nappies are incredible. I love them!

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:57:57 +0000

We made the switch to cloth about 3 months ago. I really regret not doing it sooner, not only for the environmental impact, but the cost savings as well. We do still use some disposables when our son goes to day care and Grandma’s (3 times a week) which probably equates to about 3 diapers on each of those days. So you figure 9 disposable diapers total per week at $0.14 each (we buy the Target diapers that run about $14 for a box of approx 100). The rest of the time, we use the cloth diapers. I would guess our son goes through about 7-8 diapers a day, so right there we are saving 40 diapers a week at least (7 per day x 7 days less 9 disposables used) which equates to about $5.60 a week or about $25 a month.

We spent around $200 for a dozen BumGenius diapers, which means our payback period is about 8 months. Our guy will probably be in diapers another year or so, not to mention his future brothers/sisters will use these as well. I estimate we’ll save in the thousands by the time we’re all done. Yeah we use a separate detergent, but we’ve had the same bottle for a few months and I think we spent $4. You use so little of it for each load that it lasts forever. The water and electric usage to wash a few extra loads a week is negligible since we have a high-efficiency washer and EnergyStar dryer.

And the best thing is – we’re not throwing all that non-biodegradable junk (and poop) in a landfill for our kids to clean up later.

By: Hot Momma

Hot Momma — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:26:54 +0000

Try baking soda in the diaper pail and or in the load you’re washing for extra help getting rid of the urine smell! I’ve made all of my own cloth diapers, and gotten a few bum genius’ free. I have to buy the rubber pants, but after repurchasing them for my second child I learned not to throw them in the dryer, and they’re holding up a lot better! I also have a three year old in cloth training pants, with the rubber pants over it and we save so much money. I factored out months ago, that even if I were only to do one cloth diaper a day that would save me an entire package of disposables each month! This is how I try to sucker my mom friends in, but once you’re already doing 1, it’s easy to start trying to do all cloth, except for when you’re out of the house, naps, and bed x. I think it is our responsibility to take care of this planet so that our grandkids can take two steps without knocking over a landfill of diapers! Anyone seen Idiocracy? Great movie and great political statement about how we have no real plan for where all of our garbage is going!

By: greenmommy

greenmommy — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:12:56 +0000

My husband and I have used cloth diapers with our now 7 month old since day one and have loved them. We use the bum genius one size diapers, which have a snap system so that you can make them longer as the baby grows. They are supposedly good for up to 35 lbs but I can’t vouch for that since we’re not there yet. This does eliminate needing different sizes, which is more cost effective. These diapers are as easy to use as disposables and we’re very happy with them. We also use cloth wipes. I have often wondered how much money it actually saves us, which is why I was drawn to this post to begin with. For us, it was a consideration of both financial cost and environmental concern, so the cloth diapers won out. We do use disposables when we’re traveling but I buy the Seventh Generation unbleached ones. They are quite expensive, but we use disposables so rarely that it’s not a big issue. We were lucky to receive all of our diapers as a shower gift from my mother and also got a bunch of used fuzzi bunz from my sister in law. Our new ones came from cottonbabies.com and I think their website lets you sell back used ones in good condition. You can also sell them on ebay.
Overall, I think cloth may become the way to go for more people as oil prices go up. Disposables are partly made from petroleum so I imagine the prices will be getting higher.

By: Charlotte

Charlotte — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:33:33 +0000

I have used cloth on both my boys and I love cloth diapers. They are not difficult to use – we have travelled to Hawaii, camping, parents house and used them exclusively. My oldest son potty trained at 21 months during the daytime and he is now 32 months and is night time trained with no accidents ever. My youngest has never had a sposie on. My costs to start were less than $150, as we got some free velcro diapers off freecycle, and used the Kushies wraps and I made my own wool wraps. Most of this is money for the wool, which we use as clothing. And it is the easiest load of laundry I do, no folding, just put it in a nice basket and use it right out of the basket. My wipes cost me $5 for Walmart faceclothes and they are still going strong.

My friends tell me they don’t pay that much for sposies, but with gas as expensive as it is, and them having to make special trips with their kiddos just to pick up diapers when they run out, they probablly spend more than they think. Plus those pull ups cost about 5o cents per diaper!

Anyways, I think it is whatever you get used to. My husband loves the cloth, and even uses pins and snappis like a pro…

By: Tracy

Tracy — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:21:42 +0000

I disagree with this article. I have been using cloth diapers on my daughter since she was three months old, and I couldn’t be happier with my decision. I use prefolds with Bummies wraps and I when she was a newborn, I found them to be far superior at keeping everything in then disposable. At her age now, I do not require double diapering her, even at night, she wakes up as dry everyday. In addition, my husband who is a database programer built a program to track our savings and I have faithfully entered a count from every diaper laundry for the past 30 months. In that time, we have save on diapers alone, $2100. When she was three months old, I made my own cloth wipes but unfortunatley we never added in those savings. While I believe the above article was a well thought out analysis, it can’t beat the hard data I have from the experience of using them first hand. The one downside to using cloth is that it is hard to find pants and onsies to properly fit. I was able to turn this problem into a cash savings opportunity as it gave me the incentive to make all my daughter clothes which is a tremendous saving. I have designed and modified a pants pattern for her that grows with her enabling her to fit the same pair of pants for 15 months now! It takes committment but the savings are there and I would recommend and encourage cloth diapers to anyone!

By: CK

CK — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:23:53 +0000

I have a very easy, no-fuss way to wash cloth diapers. Throw them in the washer, and let them agitate for a minute or two. Stop the washer, and let the load soak for 1 hour. Restart the load, and voila–you are done! No need to wash twice, or do an extra rinse, or any of that jazz. Once a week or so, I wash them in soap, and then again in just vinegar. A vinegar wash does help with the smell, but I’ve found no need to do vinegar each time.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 23:08:41 +0000

My oldest daughter we used clothes diapers on and then 3 other kids also,
all 4 kids were potty trained by the time there were 15 months, I saved a bunch of cost and now that my youngest is 13 I still have some great rags

By: Michelle

Michelle — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 15:19:22 +0000

I’ll have to disagree on this one. I’ve done both (I have 5 children). Even if it DID cost a LOT more to cloth diaper, the impact you’re saving on the environment, in my opinion, is worth it. However, I don’t find that it’s more expensive in the long run. The initial cost for us last month was approx. $400 (for 2-dozen flat prefolds for newborn-20lb, 12 liners, 12 doublers, 12-all in ones from 20lb-35lb, a cloth changing pad, a cloth wetbag and 2 dozen cloth wipes). So far, I do about 3 extra loads per week in baby clothes and these items . Of course that will decrease as her bladder grows. I’m finished. She’ll use these until she’s potty trained in 2 or 3 years. My total cost was $400 plus my electric/water goes up about $10/month x 12months x 2 years= $640. If she doesn’t potty train until the age of 3 then the total cost rises to $760.

Disposables are about $15 bag, wipes are about $5/tub. So that’s $20/week (supposing we don’t go through more than one tub per week) x 52 weeks = $1040/year times at least 2 years. So we’re talking $2080 by the time she’s potty trained. If she’s 3 before she trains, then that’s $3120.

Add into the disposable cost all rash treatments due to exposure to chemicals; the untold health problems because those chemicals enter the blood stream and damage the immune system, etc and there’s an even higher price to disposable. Add to that the fact that disposables have been discovered to cause sterility in males, and there’s even more cost down the road.