shame on the today show! *more info*

that s*cks.... here is their e-mail addy if you want to give them a heads up on cloth. i am going to!

[email protected]

thanks for the info!
xoxo (typing with a broken arm )

Ignorance is bliss eh?

I was just going to post about this too!

We all need to email the today show and tell them that more people than they think use cd's!

Let's email them mamas!

:

I sent an email.......

: I am speechless.......

here is the e-mail i just sent them:

Quote:

Here is mine

Shame on you for not even considering cloth diapering! Boy, are you going to get a lot of emails.

My baby is currently 12 months old. I have spent a total of maybe $300 in supplies to diaper his bum. It takes 1 load of laundry a week. The supplies I have now will last till he is ready to potty train. Maybe I will spend another $200 before he is 3 on new diapers. I'm not talking rubber pants, pins and leaky gauze cloth either!

Not only do I spend less, but I am not filling up the landfill with thousands of throw away diapers full of unprocessed baby crap, pee and germs from vaccinations.

Even if I had unlimited funds, I would use cloth!

Do you know there is an entire consumer economy based on cloth diapering, where many moms stay at home with their children and make diapering supplies to earn a living?? They own their own companies, and earn a income while at home with the kids. Do an internet search, or check out Ebay under "cloth diapering"

I understand you sell commercial time to companies who sell diapers and that is what drives your segments. But to totally dismiss cloth diapering, that is just neglectful

I emailed them too!

I did it too!

here's mine:

Dear Today Show,

Although I didn't see you show this morning personally, I have heard a little bit about your segment on diapers.

It is true that cloth diapers are not as easy to find these days as they seemed to be 30 years ago, but the world of cloth diapering has changed greatly during that time and is still thriving today.

Gone are the days of leaky gauze flat diapers and rubber pants. Nowadays, popular diapers are often made of materials that hold moisture away from children's bums and are very absorbant, the most common of which seem to be fuzzi-bunz (check out http://www.fuzzibunz.com for more detailed information).

Pocket diapers such as this consist of a microfleece inner layer that keeps the babies diaper area dry (and thus prevents rashes), and a waterproof outer layer that keeps the diaper from leaking. Before you put the diaper on the baby, you stuff the diaper with a few absorbant inner layers. If the diaper gets pooped on, the poop shakes off easily and quickly into the toilet instead of hanging around and smelling up the house.

My daughter was recently diagnosed with an allergy to disposable diapers after a nasty bout of diaper rashes, and I have been amazed by the number of other kids I've found with similar allergies, the ease of cloth diapering, the high proportion of people who also cloth diaper or whose minds change as soon as they see how different cloth diapering is nowadays, and the low cost. I no longer have to spend money on diapers and wipes every week! I have to do one extra load of laundry, but that hasn't amounted to very much extra work.

Raising kids can be extremely expensive. You had the opportunity to reach a large audience of parents with some true money-saving tips. I genuinely suggest rethinking your approach to this subject, and I would be happy to gather cute examples of modern cloth diapers for you to present to your audience, should you choose to do so. If you would like to see the great variety that's out there for yourself, follow this link: http://listings.ebay.com/aw/plisting....html?from=R11
for a sampling of many different types and styles.

This is a quickly growing segment of the economy. New businesses are springing up daily, many of which sell out their sock as soon as they display it. I highly suggest you do some research. Fortunately, researching cloth diapers is as much fun as researching baby clothes!

Best of luck,

Casey Tesfaye
Silver Spring, MD

Here's what I sent:

I am sure you will receive many other emails from avid cloth dipering moms like myself after your segment on diaping this morning. I am sure those moms will point you to mainy online resources for more information on cloth diapering so I won't repeat them. I will just list my reasons for using cloth.

There are environmental benefits: disposable diapers make up 2% of all waste in US landfills, compared to newspapers at 3%...think of the proprotion of people who purchase newspapers v. those who purchase diapers and you will see that that is a staggering amount. Those disposable diapers are filled with untreated human waste, as few user of disposables follow package directions (and in many jurisdictions, the law) and dumb the solid wasted into the toilet where it can go through a sewage treatment plant.

There are health benefits: the number of chemicals contained in a disposable diaper is staggering...it only took a few instances of me finding little gel balls (from the absorbent inner material) on my new sons precious skin to convince this mom to make the switch to cloth. I don't care how many studies say that those chemicals are safe...I don't want any chemicals coming into daily contact with my son's delicate skin for 3+ years!!!

There are financial benefits: Even an extravagent cloth diapering supply would cost FAR less than the $5,000 mentioned on your show. I have purchased the best and cutest Work-At-Home-Mom made diapers for my son and have maybe spent $500 for a supply that not only will last until he is potty-trained, but can be re-used for my next child.

And lastly, as every mom knows, you will change thousands of diapers over the course of your baby's life. Anything that makes that a pleasure instead of a chore is welcome. As one of the most popular WAHM diaper business owners says..."It puts a smile on your face at a time when your baby's attention is focused entirely on you" and if that's not worth a few extra loads of laundry, then I don't know what is.

Thank you for your time.

Andrea Sclafani
mom to Cole (3/25/03)

I e-mailed them too, here is what I sent:

I have to say for the first time in my history of watching the Today show, I was very disappointed in the information your provided to your viewers. Your segment on diapering was not anywhere near complete. To dismiss cloth diapering as something we have done in the past but no longer do as it is too much of a pain is SO wrong. I know HUNDREDS of mothers that cloth diaper, with many MANY more I have never met I am sure. The cloth diapering community is a large, warm, loving and growing community that supports people in all choices and gives fair say to disposables as well, however we have not been shown the same consideration by the disposable diaper companies have we?

To say that disposables are 'easier' and 'only $5000' is a SAD misrepresentation of the truth. Disposables when used properly are no more easy than cloth, matter of fact, in my opinion they are more difficult. I don't ever run out of cloth in the middle of the night, I don't have to lug huge bags of garbage to the road full of human waste ever week, and I can customize my diaper to what my baby needs to stay dry and not have leaks, can't do that with a disposable. With three young children I do a lot of laundry anyway, 1-2 extra loads a week didn't even effect our water or electric bill. The 'extra' work it is for me, is a lot less than all the lugging I would have to do with a disposable system (home from the store, and to the garbage outside, because disposables STINK). I have spent less than $200 on my diapering system and I have opened my own business making covers and such out of wool to offset the cost. So actually I have spent NOTHING to diaper my baby. That is quite a difference over $5000? not to mention you didn't add the extra costs disposables have above that of the purchasing them. What about disposal? we throw away TONS and TONS of diapers every day, what about the cost of that? no one figures in that, but I can say people using disposables will have at LEAST one extra bag of garbage per week, those costs add up.

The environmental cost and the cost of our babies health is the greatest cost of all. Most disposable diaper users do NOT dump solid waste into the toilet where it belongs, even though it IS recommended by the diaper companies. They wrap it up all secure in its own little germ bomb. I can't imagine what kind of super bomb/germs are being mutated in the dumps all over this country. And honestly I don't think disposables are an evil entity, I used them on my first two babies before I knew better, however we are lending to a more and more disposable society when dump and landfill space is becoming more and more scarce. There are disposable everything from washcloths to dish rags to bibs and changing pads. A lazy society and big companies making us think that if you throw it away it MUST be easier. A lot of parents would see cloth is MUCH easier than we are led to believe. Not to mention it is safer for babies. Infertility is on the rise, disposable diapers have been around for about 30 years, think there might be a correlation? there are a TON of chemicals and products in disposable diapers to make them ultra absorbant and 'stay dry', kids are potty training later and sitting in their own waste longer because they don't 'feel' it when they are wet, of course this is good for diapering companies, the older a child is the more diapers you have to buy. Dioxin is in cloth diapers, yet it was banned from tampons because of a risk of cancer and TSS, but we are willing to put our babies most precious parts next to this stuff for 3 1/2 years (average potty training age now)? I would much rather have cotton up against my baby.

Because of the stay dry feature in disposable diapers, and their HIGH cost (I am sorry but to me and MOST Americans in todays economy $5000 is a LOT of money) people leave their babies in the diapers until they have to be changed, meaning they are full or they have a BM. Well I don't care how 'dry' a baby is, they are still sitting in their own waste and this is a SAD SAD fact that is just GROSS. If a home for the elderly were to leave their residents sitting in their own waste for hours on end, only carring for them 3-4 times a day we would say SCANDLE however it happens to innocent babies every day in this country and we call it being frugal. This is NOT healthy at all for a baby to sit in its own waste. Yes I cange my baby more often in cloth, but not because of leaks, not because of the diapers not soaking as much, not because my baby feels wet but because it is GROSS not to, disposable users should also be changing their babies just as often.

I seriously hope that you get FLOODED with e-mails, maybe NBC can wake up and do a spot on TODAY's cloth diapers! it is insane to say that no one uses them anymore, if you only saw how CUTE they are, and totally functional. Not to mention re-sellable. I have put in about $200 in diapers, when I am done I can sell them and get probably half that back at least. I would like to see someone try that with a disposable!

Feel free to contact me if you would like anymore info (or lecture ) I have links but I know others have e-mailed with those as well, so I won't repeat them.

Marnie Nickelson
Michigan
www.thecushietushie.com

Heres my e-mail (and I don't even watch TV! :LOL)

"WOW. Totally dismissing the entire cloth diaper industry with a simple "No, not really"? I'm astounded. Do any of you have any idea how many diapers & covers can be bought for $5000? I'll tell you - approximately 250 top-quality premium self-closing easy-care diapers & covers, THAT's how many! And probably more. Most cloth diaper users have an active stash of around 24-36 diapers, and about 10 covers that they use at any one time, and most cloth diapers come in 3-5 sizes. So if you account for buying the best diapers in large quantities in all the sizes, MAYBE you'll get to $5000. Maybe. You can even factor in the cost of washing the diapers.

But here's the kicker - what do you have left to show for that $5000 spent on disposable diapers? Can you see the mountain of useless garbage in your mind's eye?
That same $5000 spent on cloth KEEPS GETTING USED. I'm using some of the diapers my mom used on my sisters 18 years ago! Cloth diapers can be kept & reused for each baby in the family, can be passed on to other families, and can be resold. If you're wondering how there could possibly be a market for used diapers, just check out cloth diapers on e-bay - it's HUGE. Cloth diapers can be made of so many different materials, that there is something ideal out there for everybody! You can use anything from pins, prefolds, and plastic pants to organic cotton, hemp, and ethically harvested wool held on with top-of-the-line snaps or self-closing hook & loop tapes. And the funny thing is, very few cloth diapers, even the top-of-the-line exclusive Work at Home Mom-made ones, cost $20 apiece. Most are in the $10 to $15 range.
Do the math. Make sure the people who come on your show know something about the subject before spouting off inaccuracies!

If you'd like information about cloth diapering, or the work-at-home cloth diapering industry, here's a couple sites to visit:
www.diaperpin.com
www.borntolove.com

We cloth users are out here - and we're a vocal bunch! Expect a bit of e-mail on the subject!"

Here's my email...

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing in regard to your segment on diapering, air date 10/10/03.

I am disturbed because cloth diapering was not discussed as an option, but merely dismissed as old-fashioned and unnecessary.

I am a 29 year old, college-educated new mother. I did a vast amount of research on diapering options during my pregnancy as I strive to become as educated as possible on child-rearing.

Cloth diapers are the right choice for me for copious reasons. The easiest to understand reasons concern environmental issues and exposure to chemicals. However, I have another, more important, reason.

I yearn for the simpler days of generations ago. I want my child to be brought up by their parents in a clean and safe home. I don't want her exposed to chemicals and products created for "convenience" and that supposedly make the parents' lives easier.

Raising a child is not easy, but it can be natural and pure and free from corporate interference. It is my fantasy that cloth diapering and breastfeeding become the norm again in this country.

Am I a radical environmentalist or an anti-progressive anachronistic throwback?

Nope.

I'm a modern American mother.