It´s the Little Things that Matter

Now this is something that I truly appreciate !!! 

I know that a certain few of you would too :-)

Why Cloth Diaper ???

I recently surveyed a few of my Facebook ¨Mama Friends¨, I wanted to know if they would consider cloth diapers, If they had no interest at all, or if they wanted to know a little more about it.  Well the results are as expected. The yes and nevers were equal, and a few mamas wanted to know more about cd´s.
How exciting :-) Together there were more mamas who would cloth diaper and mamas who wanted a little more info, than those who said no!

Lets get started

There are many reasons parents choose to cloth diaper their child/ren. 
The Top 3 are:
1.Cost Saving
2.Health
3.Environment

Cost 
Disposable
It is estimated that a baby will need @6,000 diapers during his first 2 years of life.
Lets say a baby uses 60 diapers a week at an average cost of @ .23 (store brand) per diaper, 60 diapers a week at .23 is $13.80,  multiply that number by 52 (weeks in a  year)   $13.80 x 52 = $717.60. Multiply the product by 2.   $717.60 x 2 = $1,435.20.
That is how much it will cost to diaper your child for 2 years, and hopefully your child is an overachiever and potty trains by age 2 (some do).
If you decide to have more than 1 child than multiply the that number by however many kids you do have.


(Keep in mind that as your baby gets bigger his diaper size will too, the price may stay the same as size 1 diapes, but the amount of diapers you get, will go down) 

That is a LOT of money !!!!!!!!!


Cloth 
You can go the most economical route, or you can go all out with cloth diapers.  Since we used a store brand for the estimated cost of disposable diapers, I am going to be using prefolds in our cloth comparison (second to cheapest option).


Prices of prefolds and covers can vary depending on brand and if you buy new or pre-owned.


To make things simple take the Econobum brand by Cotton Babies (The makers of Bumgenius) It is a great way to diaper your baby for less with a trusted brand name product.
A pack of 12 onesize prefolds, 3 onesize covers and 1 wetbag only costs $48.95. If you buy 3 (enough to wash every 3 days) you can diaper your child from birth to potty training for only $146.85.

(Keep in mind that as your child grows out of the newborn stage, he will most likely not be needing 12 diaper changes a day, so you can even get by with only 2 packs of the econobum and diaper your child for under $100)

Plus cloth diapers can be used on multiple children. I would add about $50 to the total for extras or replacements per extra child.  We will just round up to $200

So cost wise, it is a wise choice to use cloth, it is VERY healthy for your wallet :-)


Health
Disposable
It sounds kind of funny to say ¨Ingredients¨ when talking about a diaper, a diaper should be simple; however, when it comes down to what goes into the process of making a disposable, they are anything but simple.
Here are some of the ¨Active Ingredients¨ found in each disposable.


Per diaper: 
one cup of crude oil  - the plastic
four trees - the liner
chemically bleached non-woven fabric - the filler
sodium polyacrylate - a superabsorbent polymer gel added to the filler
adhesives and a soup of toxic chemicals, all fused together.


Disposable Diaper Ingredients
NBC12 covers diapering


It is almost impossible to live a completely toxic free lifestyle, but we can make better choices, especially when it comes to our little ones.


Cloth
There are various options available in modern cloth diapers. The materials used can be all natural; such as, organic cotton, hemp, bamboo or some people prefer using microfiber or Zorb inserts.  Either route, anything that touches your babies precious skin is soft and fluffy, no need to state ´cloth-like¨on the box... IT IS CLOTH !!!


ENVIRONMENT 
Disposable
Most people don´t think much about this, but disposable diapers take hundreds of years to break down. They say it takes from 250 - 500, and seeing as disposable diapers have only been on the market for a little over 50 years, that means, the first disposables are still intact, with fecal matter wrapped tightly inside, somewhere in a landfill.
Over 92% of single use diapers end up in landfills, and even though the instructions on the packaging states that all fecal matter should be flushed down the toilet before disposing of the diaper,,,lets be real here, how many moms do you know really take the time (have the time) to do that ??? I know I didn´t    :-Z


Our landfills can only hold so much, they are getting pretty ¨full¨and disposable diapers play a major part in their contents.

Cloth
Even though many people may argue that the water it takes to wash your cdiapers causes more of an impact on the environment... there is not a whole lot of research to PROVE it... and in my opinion, using water causes a lesser impact than throwing garbage into the ground :-)


To wrap up this LOOOONG post, using cloth is smart for your pocket, good for your babies health, and better for the environment.