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Cloth Diapers?

leaette

A-List Customer
Messages
456
Location
Pittsburgh, PA
my son is just about 10 months old and we use disposable ones. i'm very eco conscious but that is one thing that i will NOT give up. nothing is more grosser and unsanitary than using cloth diapers. you have to swish the diaper in your toilet to get the poo out and then let the diaper soak in a bucket until you wash them. but think of all that water dripping all over the place from the toilet to the bucket. ewww.
and when you wash them....think of where you are washing them....in your washing machine where you wash your clothes! just plain YUCK!!!!
they leak. they are ver inconvienent when you are out and about.

they came out with a more eco friendly disposable last summer. you buy the special cloth diapers and they have a eco-friendly disposable liner. haven't tried them. but i'm sure you can find them online.
 

ShooShooBaby

One Too Many
Messages
1,149
Location
portland, oregon
the family i work for on fridays use cloth diapers and they are great! i've never had a problem with leakage. they have a great system set up so the rinsing and soaking is no problem. i've never felt "ew" about it and she's not even my kid! i feel way more "ew" at my job with the family who uses disposables, thinking about having a bucket of poopy diapers in the house, that are eventually going to sit in a landfill.

those hybrid diapers are a pain in the a$$ - i worked for one family who had them and they clogged the toilet with at least every other flush.
 

Joie DeVive

One Too Many
Messages
1,308
Location
Colorado
When I become a Mom I plan to go the cloth route. I'm thinking diaper service at the moment.
Here's a question though, does anyone know where to find rubber/plastic pants?? I haven't seen them in the stores, and figure with cloth, they'd be kinda important.... Thanks!!
 

leaette

A-List Customer
Messages
456
Location
Pittsburgh, PA
i'm sure they would be kinda easy to find. try babies r us if you have one in your town. they have always had everything i've ever needed.
try walmart too.
 

ShooShooBaby

One Too Many
Messages
1,149
Location
portland, oregon
Joie DeVive said:
When I become a Mom I plan to go the cloth route. I'm thinking diaper service at the moment.
Here's a question though, does anyone know where to find rubber/plastic pants?? I haven't seen them in the stores, and figure with cloth, they'd be kinda important.... Thanks!!

bumkins. there are lots of small companies (many are stay-at-home moms) that are making similar ones as well, i'm sure if you googled a bit you could find them. this is the type of thing all the cloth-diapering moms i know use. it's great because you can vary the amount of stuff you put in them. for the baby i nanny we use a thick cloth insert, a fleece liner, and if we're going somewhere or i'm putting her down for a nap, an additional layer called a doubler. it works really well, they last, (this is the second kid to wear some of them!) and again i've never really had a problem with leakage. you have to change the baby more often, but i strongly prefer that to a disposable thing filled with god-knows-what to absorb more. you only have to rinse poo-diapers, and seriously, if you're wearing a rubber glove and keep the diaper pail right next to the toilet, it's not unsanitary and it's not a big deal. there's nothing gross about it, especially compared to some of the stuff kids will expose you to!
 

Joie DeVive

One Too Many
Messages
1,308
Location
Colorado
Thanks ShooShoo and Leatte.

Leatte, while I hadn't been actively looking for them, while I was shopping for friend's showers, I was keeping an eye out. I saw cloth diapers and baby safety pins, but no rubber pants. That's why I asked. I was looking at Target and Babies R Us. Of course, the Babies R Us was in an area without diaper services, so that could have something to do with it. [huh]

Thanks ShooShoo. I'll check that company out. My ick factor is reasonably high. And a diaper service removes even the ick of having poopy diapers in your washing machine. :D
I also have a theory that cloth diapers help kids potty train earlier. After all, they can feel the wet more easily than they can in disposables. I have no proof, but it's something I noticed among people I've known using the two different products.
 

DancingSweetie

A-List Customer
Messages
366
Location
Sacramento
When it's your own sweet little infant the ick factor goes away. I used cloth for the first few months for both my girls. Having a service was really nice for part of the time, but I did end up having to wash diapers when I didn't have service and it wasn't so bad.
 

dani

Familiar Face
Messages
67
Location
maryville, tn
when i was preggo i was very much into the natural parenting, breastfeed, cloth diapers ect. i did a lot of research on the cloth diapers, and found they tend to give babies more diaper rashes, because most people do not have the right things to clean them with, and when the cloth is wet it rubs the skin, and can cause a diaper rash. some cities have diaper services, where they come pick up the diapers, properly clean them, and bring them back, the town i live in had one but it cost a lot of money. i weny with the disposable ones, and used the cloth ones for burping, and stuff like that. hope i helped.
 

Minerva

Familiar Face
Messages
74
Location
Downers Grove, IL USA
Joie DeVive said:
I also have a theory that cloth diapers help kids potty train earlier. After all, they can feel the wet more easily than they can in disposables. I have no proof, but it's something I noticed among people I've known using the two different products.

Redirected from the now-closed Vintage Mamas thread, so I'll put in my two cents here. :)

We did cloth with fleece covers over the diapers, the diapers had snaps so we skipped the pins. I've never swished a diaper in the toilet, soaked a diaper, or felt the need for rubber gloves. I can count on one hand the number of times she needed a change of clothes due to a diaper explosion -- and two of them were before she was a week old. We just kept a polyvinyl drawstring bag with us to stash the wet diapers while out if she needed a change and that worked out fine.

The kid never had a diaper rash. She hated being wet and got changed the second she did anything in the diaper. She was using the big-people potty and completely out of diapers the week after she turned two. We know a lot of three- and four- (and higher, sadly) year old kids who are still in those disposables they make nowadays. There's enough old family photos in the house to say that until the disposables came along, a three year old in diapers was "late".

I'm also pleased to say my kid's diapers won't be in the landfill for the next hundred-plus years. The husband is pleased that he didn't have to pay to dispose of used diapers every week (around here we pay per bag).
 

mannySpaghetti

One of the Regulars
Messages
213
Location
Haverhill, MA
Whew! I've never had to deal with clothies with my three kids, but I do remember some not so fond memories having to clean out the 'ole bucket when my sister was born for my ma. Damn I hated that job! :rage:
 

tuppence

Practically Family
Messages
532
Location
Hellbourne Australia
We call them nappies in Australia.
I've read that the environmental impact is the same. Because of the chemicals used to soak nappies, the water, and the electricity needed to wash/dry them.
So don't think you are ruining the enviro if you go with disposables.
 

Lillemor

One Too Many
Messages
1,137
Location
Denmark
I have a huge stack of them which I've used for anything other than diapers. It'll soon be the only thing left from when my boys were babies. They're still useful as multi-rags. They're the only cloth that'll wipe water and dirt completely off my glasses. They're worth every penny for that reason alone!

Here they're commonly found in supermarkets and baby shops. Most people use them as rags. Some counties have cloth diaper pick up/wash/delivery service. I wouldn't use it even if they offered the service in my county/council. Personal choice. Enviroenment played a very little role in that choice but I felt that disposable diapers was the more environmentally sensitive choice. Don't want to get into an environmental row:) If you for any reason feel cloth diapers are the right choice for you, your baby, the environment, then I'm certainly not one to stop you.
 

David Conwill

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,854
Location
Bennington, VT 05201
Lillemor said:
Here they're commonly found in supermarkets and baby shops. Most people use them as rags.

The ones sold in most supermarkets and baby shops (i.e. Gerber prefolds and the like) are only good for rags. Proper cloth diapers are pretty much available only in botique stores or online, though there are occasional rumors that Target might start selling the good stuff.

We've been cloth diapering for 14 months now and I wouldn't trade our cloth diapers for all the free disposables in the world. Anybody that's interested in learning the options out there for cloth diapering (and it's come a long way since plastic pants and diaper pins) should check out www.diaperswappers.com.

As we like to say - if your diapers aren't cloth, they're garbage. :D

-Dave
 

Lillemor

One Too Many
Messages
1,137
Location
Denmark
David Conwill said:
The ones sold in most supermarkets and baby shops (i.e. Gerber prefolds and the like) are only good for rags. Proper cloth diapers are pretty much available only in botique stores or online, though there are occasional rumors that Target might start selling the good stuff.

We've been cloth diapering for 14 months now and I wouldn't trade our cloth diapers for all the free disposables in the world. Anybody that's interested in learning the options out there for cloth diapering (and it's come a long way since plastic pants and diaper pins) should check out www.diaperswappers.com.

As we like to say - if your diapers aren't cloth, they're garbage. :D

-Dave

I know they must've been different because I've heard of people having to bleach them and sew the diapers into other things and you wouldn't want to do that with modern cloth diapers that completely change after the first wash.
 

DerMann

Practically Family
Messages
608
Location
Texas
When I was born, my mother and father were living in Saudi Arabia. We were there because my father was working as some sort of contract for the Saudi government (repairing aeroplanes or some such). Anyway, my mother was largely unable to leave the apartment complex by herself, and as a result, she used cloth diapers on me (and possibly my brother).

This was 1990, by the by.
 

Minerva

Familiar Face
Messages
74
Location
Downers Grove, IL USA
David Conwill said:
As we like to say - if your diapers aren't cloth, they're garbage. :D

Cute. :) I'm about to sell off my stash before the elastic goes in them, so if we ever have another kid, I'll have to check out the site to see what's good to get at that point.

The husband was initially fighting the cloth ... until he tried to complain to his mother about it. She told him that he and his brother had cloth diapers and were better for it. Early 70s, so how vintage that would be is a bit iffy. My mother, on the other hand, felt they were too much work (like many things about parenting).
 

David Conwill

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,854
Location
Bennington, VT 05201
Minerva said:
I'm about to sell off my stash before the elastic goes in them, so if we ever have another kid, I'll have to check out the site to see what's good to get at that point.

My wife just started replacing the elastic in our Bum Geniuses. It's going pretty well, so if you're at all handy, you could try that. OTOH, if you're like my wife, you'll enjoy buying new ones even more! :)

-Dave
 

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