This post is long overdue. We have been cloth diapering for nearly a year and a half now. Better late than never, right?
Let me start by saying: before I even considered having kids, I honestly did not think all that much about the routes I would take with things like childbirth or diapering. I always assumed I would follow the social norms (ie: hospital birth with epidural and disposable diapers).
My friend Diana from Hormonal Imbalances (she has an amazing cloth diapering section on her blog that you should check out!) and I found out we were pregnant around the same time and she intended to use cloth diapers.
My first thought was, “I can’t even keep up with my own laundry, so I certainly can’t use cloth diapers!”. Diana, sensing my hesitation, quickly offered some websites I should check out that would help me decide. THAT is when I found and fell in love with the world of cloth diapering.
I am not Super Woman or a “Domestic Diva”. I do have a little-known origami and napkin folding hobby that may explain the intrigue, but with the type of cloth diapers I use, none of those strange awesome skills are necessary 🙂
Yes, I started out with about two dozen prefolds, which do require some folding, but my husband was not a fan. Those prefolds, some fitteds, about three covers, and a couple of Thirsties All-In-Ones (AIO), got us through the first couple of weeks of Little Man’s life. That is the point at which we started looking into purchasing a larger quantity of pockets and AIOs.
We knew what we needed: blowout protection. He was constantly blowing out of his diapers, so we were on a mission to find a diaper that would hold at least some of the mess in the diaper so we weren’t changing his outfit ten times a day (I mean really, five times a day is quite enough!). We also did not want to break the bank.
After lots of online research, time with other cloth diapering friends (I haven’t found quite as many cloth diapering buddies here in the North East as I had out west), and a little too much time in a local cloth diapering/breastfeeding boutique, we decided to go with Rumparooz (best decision ever). We bought 24 of them from that local boutique because they gave us a bulk discount. That purchase cost us approximately $500.
If you are thinking about cloth diapering to save some money, you maybe thinking that $500 sounds like a lot of money. With that in mind, let us talk numbers for a moment:
- Best case scenario, a bag of disposable diapers will cost around $7 a bag (if you buy in bulk) and each bag will last you about four days, five at most.
- That is approximately $0.24 per diaper and, predicting about eight diapers a day (give or take), that will cost $700 by the end of the year, not including wipes (you can also buy cloth wipes)
- According to what I have heard online and from others, the average child is in diapers for three years, which means – one child will cost you at least $2,100.00 in disposable diapers.
- If you have two children, at $2100.00 a child, you will spend at least $4200.00 in disposable diapers.
If you don’t believe those numbers, please do your own calculations and, if I’m that far off, let me know. I’ve heard those numbers several times before and never bothered to do my own research until right now. I am actually kind of surprised that my numbers came out to virtually the exact same amounts I was given when I first had Little Man.
Anyway, I bet $500.00 for a set of 24 diapers that will last you through multiple children doesn’t sound so expensive anymore. All in all, with prefolds, fitteds, AIOs, and the Rumparooz, and about 48 cloth wipes, it cost us less than $1000. In my opinion, that is still a pretty good deal, and I’m not doing much more laundry than I would already be doing with a baby or toddler.
So that’s it. Probably not as complicated or scary as you thought! If you have any questions or need any help, please feel free to contact me. I would love to help you with this! I really enjoy doing research (You really shouldn’t be all that surprised, I’ve already mentioned multiple times how strange I am!) and helping out!
Wow you are a courageous woman…I was always soo hesitant about using them because I also thought they would be a hassle and time consuming. I guess this is just one of those oldies that’s also a goodie. Now do they have cloth pull ups? My eldest still has accidents at night. By the way look what I found for you in a box of disposable diapers…..a BLOGGER AWARD!
RachelJoy recently posted..They Like Me- They Really Like Me
Thanks for this post. We used cloth diapers for a long time. My son’s 10 (and no, we don’t still put him in them) and we still use the remaining diapers for rags. There is, in my opinion, another good reason to use cloth diapers: the massive amount of diapers ending up in landfill. I work at a public recreation facility and we’ve managed to divert almost all of our waste from landfill by composting and recycling. What’s left? Diapers. On weekends diapers make up 22% of our garbage. Just something else to think about.
Cheers
Eric@I’ve Become My Parents recently posted..Slow down Puberty’s overrated anyway
Thanks so much for that comment Eric. That is an awesome point. I’m sorry I didn’t mention that in my post. That was a huge part of my decision too. I remembered hearing statistics about the number of diapers taking up space in the landfills and those numbers really stuck with me and gave me the conviction to commit to cloth diapering.