Monday, August 22, 2005

Cloth vs. Paper

Since before my daughter was born, I have considered the pros and cons of cloth versus paper diapers. Disposables certainly seem like the more convenient and less messy option, but cloth are cheaper and create less waste. When my sisters were younger I helped diaper them in the old-fashioned prefolds and pins, but cloth diapers now are much more confusing. There are prefolds and flats, of course, but added to the mix are all-in-ones, pocket diapers, contour diapers, something called a Snappi, and the list goes on. What's a mother to do?

Well, to start off, I decided to use disposables for the first few months, until we got more into the swing of things.

I just received the Deluxe Tester's Package from Baby Cotton Bottoms and am looking forward to trying all the different types of diapers. I must say that the hemp prefolds feel like they would be incredibly comfortable to wear, and the velcro on Kushies all-in-ones is not as strong as that on Bummis covers. I will give another update on ease-of-use and my favorite(s) in a few weeks.

1 comment:

Arevanye said...

I did cloth diapers for my oldest (Dydee service with diaper wraps) and switched to disposables with my youngest.

While the environmental considerations were the reason I started out cloth, by the time my oldest hit 18 months, her messes were just so ewwww, that I hated handling them (even the minimal handling that Dydee has you do, which is just put it in the hamper), But if I didn't rinse them out, then the diaper pail was toxic!

Also, those diaper wraps never seemed to contain the infant blowouts, and so you need a LOT of them, because they'd get soiled on the first wearing. Washing them with the baby clothes meant that invariably a bit of velcro would be showing and I'd ruin one of her sleepers because it would get stuck on it.

I'll be interested in hearing the results of your testing!