Why we chose Cloth Diapers

I am asked this a lot. I have been asked by friends, colleagues, family. If you're in the midst of cloth diapering you realize how popular it is, but if you've never been exposed to someone who does cloth diapering the idea sounds so messy, so time consuming...so hard!

I will start by saying I didn't always think that cloth was the way to go. In fact when a close friend of mine was pregnant with her daughter 4 years ago and wanted to cloth diaper I kind of thought she was nuts. I mean why cloth diaper when there are disposable diapers? Part of my thinking was that because I would never get the option of staying home for a year with my future children, would it be too much work to work and cloth diaper an infant? Even my mother who cloth diapered three babies told me that disposables would just be easier when my time came.

It was always a little thought in the back of my mind though, so I started bookmarking websites and articles, saving them into a folder for safe keeping when my time came to have a baby. When I first got pregnant that's when the real fascination with cloth started. I started lurking on a forum devoted just to cloth diapering. Fast forward to today and I don't regret using cloth at all. In fact the only regret that I have is that I didn't use cloth from day one (or at least day three when we got home from the hospital). Maybe one day if God blesses us with another baby I will be able to buy these for my baby.

There are a lot of reasons why we chose cloth. I say we because Andre has been on board 110% with cloth diapering, and if you ask him will tell you that he prefers cloth over disposables! It started with me really wanting to make this parenting choice, but I always asked him if it was okay, and if he was on board too.

If you ask a lot of people why they chose cloth they will say for the financial savings. It's one of my reasons, but not the number one reason. It's like a bonus.


My number one reason for choosing cloth diapers: It makes me physically ill to think of my child creating literally 1 TON of toxic garbage in her diapering years. To top it off this garbage will sit in a landfill for approximately 500 years! I just can't do it. Now I do use disposables sometimes, but I do make the effort to plop the poop out first, so I'm at least reducing the toxic affect of those few disposable diapers we do use.


My number two reason for choosing cloth diapers: I hate the idea of my daughter sitting in a plastic, chemical laden diaper 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for years! Disposable diapers contain dioxin, which is a known carcinogen. Cloth diapers do not contain (as many) chemicals. I'm fully aware that there are some chemicals used in the bleaching process of some of the fabrics used in cloth diapers, but they are not nearly as bad as the ones used in disposable diapers.

My number three reason for choosing cloth diapers: The potential to save money. Will I save thousands of dollars cloth diapering? Maybe, maybe not. The point is that all the money that I spend on cloth diapers, are being spent on a reusable product. I get to use that one cloth diaper countless times. Then when I'm done with it I can sell it to someone else, recoup some of that money, and it can be used on another child. To me that is money well spent.

I will add that cloth diapering is a choice that my husband and my family because we felt it was the best parenting choice for our daughter. I know that there are many people out there that use disposable diapers. They are making the best parenting choice for their child.

Here are some resources that I used for this blog entry:

http://www.cheerfulcheeks.com/Earth
http://www.realdiaperassociation.org/diaperfacts.php