Why do you CD?

[AFWife]

Just curious

Why do you use cloth?

[Lil'Momma]

Money and smell. Lol I have three lo's under the age of three. While my oldest uses the potty ninety percent of the time, we still have accidents. Diapers for three was way out of our budget. Cloth has saved us tons. The other reason was the smell of a bag of dirty sposies. Yuck! My kiddos also breakout from anything so cloth was the best all around! The fact that it is good for the environment is an added bonus!

[littlemizflava]

no running out of diapers
no running out of wipes
no fighting to get diapers/wipes out the packages
no carting the huge packs home
disposable diapers stink
the chemicals in disposables
disposable are crunchie, scrachie and nasty
cloth is cute
cloth fits better
cloth is easy to care for
cloth has many more options over disposables
cloth fits skinny, chubby, tall, short babies
custom folds and styles to fit your baby
cloth is soft next to baby
cloth can be easy to make
cloth diapers can be repaired
cloth diapers can be reused if ruined or no longer needed (cleaning rags)
potty training/ECing is easy with cloth babies
:::CHEAPER IN THE LONG RUN:::
:::BETTER FOR THE EARTH:::

[MyBoysBlue]

Even the chemical smell of the clean Sposies make me feel ill. I loved cloth diapering my second son. I used sposies on my first.

I had so much less messes and blow outs with the cloth than the sposies.

It only cost me $250 to diaper my DS 2. That is from birth to when he was trained at 2 years and that is after I sold his used diapers. I originally paid $500 and sold them for $250. You can't even come close to that with sposies.

DS 2 never had diaper rash for more than the time between diaper changes. Sometimes if I missed a poopy diaper for a bit he would be a bit rashy but by the time I changed him again a few hours later it was gone. DS 1 who was in sposies was rashy a lot. I could use any diaper but Pampers or he broke out.

I found washing and drying the diapers were less of a hassle than going to the big box store and buying a case of diapers then hauling that box around the store, to the car, from the car to the house, opening the box, then getting rid of that box, and then hauling those stinky dirty diapers to the curb.

Of course the enviro bonus, but for me the price was what got me started. I wanted to stay home and not have to go back to work so I did what I could to cut costs.

[ChetMC]

Lots of Reasons

When DH and I first got married we were living next to people with a baby. The amount of garbage they produced because of their disposable diapers grossed me out.

Later we discovered that the smell of most disposables did not agree with DH.

I worked the numbers for one child in cloth diapers before we started, and calculated that we would save some money. As things stand right now, I estimate that we will end up diapering four children for three years each on roughly $1800. That's about $225 a year.

One of the other things that I like about cloth is that, once you get a system that works for you, cloth diapers are less prone to leaking than disposables. All of our messy poop leaks have been in disposables while we were travelling.

[KristyDi]

The reason I decided to use cloth was money. I was given sm, m and lg Bummis covers (6 in each size) by friends who had used cloth on their 2 LOs. I was also given a dozen of the Gerber prefolds (they kinda suck, but work as doublers or alone in an emergency)

Then I spent $30 on a dozen GMD prefolds, about $24 on some different covers and $30ish on a few fitteds. A few months ago I bought 3 BG OS for $15 each.

So total I've spent $129 so far. I do plan to buy some other covers (found I prefer Thirsties) and another dozen GMDs and maybe even a couple of different pocket, just to try them out. It honestly thrills me a little each time I walk by the baby aisle at the store and don't have to spend any money on diapers to throw away.


I volunteer in the church nursery once a month and can't get over how the kids reek of that weird chemical sopsie smell. I didn't notice it so much when I was using them on dd for the first couple of months, but boy do I notice it now.

Also I found that dd's sensitive skin is much healthier in the cloth.

The environmental benefits are a nice perk, but honestly weren't much of a deciding factor.

[kriket]

I agree with all previously mentioned reasons, money, the nasty smell of sposies, the insane price of sposies etc

I will admit that I think they are cuter too! : They are fluffy and soft! Most are colourful and they are always a conversation starter in the grocery store bathroom.

Plus I secretly get a kick out of never buying 'baby stuff' (Diapers, wipes, formula, bottles, pacis) at the grocery even though he goes with me every time.

[TheGirls]

I do it for the financial benefits, and because I much prefer cotton to the chemicals in sposies. Plus I try to avoid using disposable anything when I can avoid it.

Added plusses are that I have VERY few blowouts/leaks relative to sposies and they're really cute.

[inky leeuhhh]

i started out because of the environmental reasons. i used sposies on dd1 for a few months before i started using cloth, and could not stand all the icky diapers i threw away. after using them for a little bit, i just developed a genuine preference for them. i LOVE the cuteness and variety, that they don't stink when peed in, i even love the giant cloth bubble butt! i briefly thought "oh gee im going to save some money doing this", but then developed kind of an addiction and now i'm not really sure i'm saving anything. i donated dd1's dipes after she pt'd because i knew i wouldn't be having any more kiddos for a while, so i didnt recoup anything. oh but wait! we do plan on having one more, so some of the diapers will get re-used... but i'm sure the stash will still be added to .

[donutmolly]

My #1 reason is cost -- I've diapered very inexpensively (homemade, recycled fabric mostly)... I love all of the other reasons mentioned above, but the bottom line is that I'm cheap!

[ChetMC]

On the Topic of Being Cute

We have gotten so many compliments on how nicely our girls' dresses puffed out thanks to their cloth bums.

[Gremco]

Cost mostly. I hated throwing away money on diapers. I also love that I'm filling up a landfill with nasty plastic and waste. I'd rather have everything go down a drain where it can wind up in a sewage plant that will in turn make fertilizer with the poo.

[Michigan Mama]

I started for environmental reasons. I hated throwing away a bajillion diapers a day, knowing that with cloth I could keep re-using.

I realized the cost savings later on...

Love my cloth in every way - I'll never go back!

[heidirk]

I started in order to save money. I bought a birth-to-potty package, when I became a SAHM, figuring if I was home I'd have time to wash them, and the sposies were much more expensive than I thought.

Now I love them for a variety of reasons, including-

cool designs
I love supporting WAHM's
my ds's have turned out to be allergic to sposies!
nice fabrics/no crinkle sound

I cringed every time ds1 pooped in a clean sposie- now I don't care, that's what the diaper is for, i'll just wash it!
no mounds of festering sposies in the garbage

I also have a fascination with sustainable daily living- ie, if WW3 happened tomorrow, I'd still have diapers, and food for my baby, and I'd know how to do lots of things other people don't.

[sarajane]

Started out wanting some alternative to typical baby wipes because of the chemicals in them, they seemed so harsh. So, I thought we would use cloth wipes then I thought well, why not the diapers too? The more I read about saving money and thought about how much I hated paper mama pads (figured diapers must be even less comfortable), and that we wouldn't ever be out of diapers I was sold on the idea. I have used sposies here and there. My heavy, heavy wetter is in one right now for bedtime, I am shopping for hemp to remedy that situation.

She's like her mama, gotta have something to drink right before bed, that doesn't help, lol.

[frontierpsych]

Mostly money, and sustainability. It just generally made more sense to us than using disposables.

[Juliacat]

I still haven't worked out why people use disposables. I just think they're gross. I'm so grossed out by them that I will bring cloth even for a week's vacation with no laundry facilities where I will have to rinse by hand.