Do you really save money with cloth diapers?
Lisa asked:
I have been checking prices ( at stores, I dont buy stuff online) and them things are expensive. Not only do you have to buy the cloth diapers, you need covers which are 25 bucks each and they last for what..?..like a month? and thats just diapers and covers, what about detergent,water, cans,bags, ... Well Im having twins and Im thinking that disposable are the way to go...what do you all think?
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June 3rd, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Absolutely go disposable, they are much easier, quicker and cleaner, and with twins you need all the time you can get!
*Mommy of 6 (1 set of twins)
June 4th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
cloth diapers save the environment not your wallet.
June 6th, 2009 at 8:31 am
absolutely…cloth diapers although cheaper than diapers are well…a big pain actually…i know this cuz my lil bro..when he was a toddler , my mom tried the cloth thingy..but trust me…
1)they r so uncomfortable….poor little babies..
2)if they excrete in the cloth..it willl be really hard work to clean the mess…better to just dispose the diapers…
though cloth diapers r cheap..they arent necessarily worth it…
you gotta a point there binary
June 8th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Technically, you may save money on cloth diapers, but believe me your TIME is worth MONEY and you will spend a LOT of TIME messing with cloth diapers. I used them with my first child for the first year and then said NEVER AGAIN. With the next 3 it was disposable all the way. Spend your time with your babies and not having to mess around with cloth diapers.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
I use Fuzzi Bunz, reusable diapers. They are wonderful and have saved me lots of money. I bought 10…which are expensive but well worth it. I use 1-2 disposables a day (at night) and fuzzi bunz the rest of the time…I wash them about every other day (not too difficult) and I’ve only purchased one package of diapers since my daughter was born (she’s 15 weeks now). We received about 200 disposables at our shower and most of them were newborn sizes so I used those initially and then when she was big enough we switched to size small fuzzi bunz which are still good and will be for at least 3 more months.
Disposables are so wasteful and expensive…it’s really not that inconvenient to use reusables.
Check em out online!
These are EASY…no pins or covers, washing is easy and my water bill has not changed at all. These are not your cloth diapers of 30 years ago people!!
I guess if you don’t buy online that’s a problem but I wish everyone would use these. I have saved tons of money AND lessened the environmental impact. Look on ebay…they’re even cheaper there.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:01 am
I have a friend who uses cloth diapers, and she raves about how much money she saves by using them. (But she has her own washing machine and dryer, too.) It is true that you can save money–but not enough to matter, in my opinion. You still have to buy them, and the extra time involved in washing, drying, and pinning them on the baby just right, not to mention making sure that the liners haven’t leaked thru to the fabric…can you tell that I’ve changed some of my friend’s kids’ diapers?? lol
Two things that I would consider in your case:
A) You are having twins. That is TWICE as much work with cloth diapers, and as many times as you have to change diapers with newborns, you will spend all day long washing them and making sure you have clean ones in stock…and you will have very little time left for anything else.
B) If you don’t have a washer and dryer in your home, then you definitely do NOT want to use cloth diapers. It costs money to do laundry in a laundromat, and with the amount of laundry you would have with using cloth diapers, it’s no more expensive to buy disposables.
As much as they trash the environment, I’m sorry, but I highly recommend disposables. You take them off, roll’em up, and toss them. Especially with having twins. You will save so much time. You’ve got bigger fish to fry. You can start saving the environment later, when the kids are potty-trained. And you can find other ways to save money, like making your own baby food, which is far easier and less messy than using cloth diapers. If you want more info on that subject, feel free to email me! Anyway hope I’ve helped.
June 12th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Clothe diapers are not practical. If you can afford it there are diaper services, which pick up and drop off clothe diapers. Otherwise you will have to be committed to washing and drying a lot of poopy diapers every day. Unless you are super woman; with twins I would imagine that to be a full time job. Disposables are definitely more convenient and of course a lot less hassle. If you are concerned about environmental issues their are diapers that are biodegradable. If you are purely concerned about performance I recommend Huggies clothe style. For the money I think they are the best.
June 14th, 2009 at 1:41 am
not sure what country you live in but i’m in australia and have a baby on the way, and have been told by people who have had 2 children and used disposable for one and cloth nappies for the other, and they said that its actually cheaper to use disposables after buying the nappies, the liners, the covers, the pins and all the cleaning products you go through. Plus you have to spend every day in the laundry.
I’m definitely going disposables and i’ve only got one on the way!! However, cloth nappies do make very good burp rags etc etc so i would invest in a pack too
June 17th, 2009 at 3:44 am
What covers are you talking about that only last for a month? If you take care of your diapers and covers they should last through several babies.
We’re fortunate enough to have a flat water rate in our town so the extra washing doesn’t affect our water bill. We line dry year-round (which also helps the diapers last longer) and you really use very little detergent with them.
I’ve never had twins, but I have cloth diapered two at once, and from the looks of things I’ll have two in diapers again when my next baby is born in a few months. Just think about it this way: You only buy cloth diapers once. You can use them for all your future babies and the only added costs are a little bit of water, electricity, and a little extra detergent. If you’re not grossed out by used cloth diapers you can buy them online and save a lot of money that way. Almost all of my diapers were bought used, and none had any stains.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:58 am
No one can deny the convenience of disposable diapers! Fold em up and toss in the garbage. SO easy!!
But just because something is easy, doesn’t mean that it’s the best for either our children or our world. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge eviro-nut, but I care enough to make changes in my life by decreasing my contribution to landfill waste. When our daughter is born in August, my husband and I are going to cloth diaper her. And trust me, we’ve been told that we’re crazy not to use (waste thousands of dollars on) disposable diapers.
As for the cost comparison:
Your baby will go through about 8 -12 diapers a day ~ or about 9000 diaper changes by the time he/she is potty trained. At $0.24 a diaper, that adds up to about $2,160! Disposable wipes will cost at least another $600-800. In contrast, purchasing your own cloth diapers and cloth wipes to wash them at home will cost somewhere between $250 and $750. Considering your laundering costs (about $.50 a load or $120 over the course of 30 months) you will still save about $2,000 – $2,500 over an average 2.5 year period! And if you reuse your diapers over multiple babies, you can multiply this savings! Take the kids to Disneyland (or yourself to Bali!) on the savings! Translated into an hourly wage, you will earn over $20 an hour with the additional time cloth diaper laundering will take. I can’t argue with a wage like that! (www.babycottonbottoms.com)\
Cloth diapers have come a long way. If my only option was a piece of cloth and two pins, I very likely would not be going that route. However, the diapers that we are getting for our daughter look and act very much like a disposable diaper. And diapers of exclusively breastfed babies can be thrown directly into the wash! That doesn’t seem *that* incovenient to me. And to think, I’ll never have to buy diapers again! I can even use the same diapers on future kids!
We are going with the BumGenius one size pocket diaper. Check it out!
June 20th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Have any of you people who are saying cloth diapers aren’t good ever even used them? Do you have any experience? Frankly, you need some experience to know, correct? If you have never tried them you *really* do not know.
Cloth diapers do save you money. If you start out with basic infant prefolds (like unbleached Indian cotton), get some Snappi’s, and inexpensive covers (such a Bummi’s, prowraps, but there are others as well) then you can save tons! I cloth diapered my son for $300 for the first year of his life. Our water bills were not that high, and I sun dried to save on the electric. Yes, they are economical.
Edit: I also would like to address that some people claim they are not sanitary. Do you throw your underwear away after every use? It is no less sanitary than reusing underwear.
Also, to those who say it is time consuming…it really is not as time consuming as you think. When they’re soiled you emtpy them into the toilet (the same thing the disposable package tells you to do if you read it), and throw it in a wetbag. Washing is simple. Cold wash. Hot wash with a little detergent, and extra rinse. Then you are done. It is up to you how to dry them.
June 23rd, 2009 at 9:55 am
No, no money saved. Although it is great for the environment you are adding more work and using energy to wash those nappys. If you are wanting to save the environment…try seventh generation diapers. They are eco friendly and just a tad more expensive than pampers and huggies
June 25th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
YOU DO NOT SAVE MONEY IN THE LONG RUN