Before my son was born I was fairly certain that I would use cloth diapers. I just couldn't figure out which ones, or how it would really work. There are waterproof outers, rubber covers, flushable liners, washable liners, diaper doublers, hemp, cotton, prefold, snap, velcro and tie. It was sort of too much for me, so the first few weeks we used disposable diapers that had been given to us at baby showers. I felt ok about it because the baby books said newborns are often too small for most diapers. Then my sister-in-law gave us a set of cloth diapers from cricketts diapers, which we used for a bit, but which are actually too hot to be used in non-air conditioned settings. DS was actually sweating through them, rather than wetting through them. I subsequently found that the liners could be used without adding too much heat, so I adapted the system slightly and lined a waterproof outer with two diaper doublers. But I digress. I think more people would use cloth if a company made it simple to set up a wash/wear system. If you buy disposable diapers, all you need is a garbage can. If you buy cloth you need a pre-wash bin, or a toilet for flushing the liner + a laundry basket for the outer, or 20 diaper covers and liners so that you aren't doing laundry every day. It's complicated and burdensome, so people stick with the simplicity of trash.
Here is my confession: I find myself putting DS more and more in disposables because he soils them less and less. It's like I can only be so eco-friendly, and training my infant to go in the toilet lets me off the hook for using cloth diapers. Makes sense, right? I'm in denial about my apparently minimal commitment to Mother Earth.
The diaper debate is ever present in parenting chats/blogs/forums and made an appearance on the NYT Motherlode Blog today. She asks if people are turning to cloth to save money in this poor economic climate. Many commenters indicated that it was a part of their decision, but most also said that their time was a key factor in deciding to go with cloth. Spending a minute swishing a cloth diaper around in water is no big deal when you are spending most of your day with your child, but if I worked full-time outside of my home, I wouldn't want to waste time pre-washing cloth diapers, (and then real-washing them later.) It is a huge question, and one that doesn't have an easy answer. For me, mixing cloth and disposable has worked the best. It's just so easy to be lazy, and so hard to remember how many tons of landfill waste we are adding each day.
Photo by Photocapy from Flickr used through Creative Commons License
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