Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Cloth Diapers?

I consider myself a moderate environmentalist. I've been converted to not taking a bag at a store if I don't need it and Nelly Furtado has reminded me to turn off the lights every time I leave a room. I still own a car though and drive everyday. And I still take to-go cups at Starbucks even though I have a ton of commuter mugs at home that I could use.

Anyway, with Audrey, I really debated whether or not I should use cloth or disposable diapers. There's the argument of using too much water and energy when cleaning the cloth diapers. On the flip side, there's all of the paper and manufacturing issues with using disposable.

In the end, we decided to go with disposable. Just before Audrey was born, Toronto started the Green Bin Program, so it settled the debate for me. I could put diapers guilt-free into the organics bin and voila - Pampers turns into high-quality compost for farms and parklands.

But now with the second, I'm considering using cloth diapers part-time. Maybe using highly absorbent disposables at night, throwaway Huggies while I'm out, and maybe cloth diapers most of the time when I'm at home. My husband isn't convinced - he thinks it'll be more hassle than it's worth. And thinking about maintaining a diaper pail full of poo and pee slop makes me tend to agree with him.

In any event, on my sister's recommendation, I'm considering purchasing Mother-ease diapers. I like the idea of having diapers with snaps (instead of velcro) and want to avoid the foldable liners. The part-time packages seems like a pretty good deal - it comes with half the recommended amount of diapers, liners and covers. And it's about the cost of 60 days worth of newborn diapers.

I'm pretty convinced, but here are the things that are still on my mind:
  • What if I hate it and end up with the waste of owning cloth diapers and disposable diapers?
  • What about those diaper pails?
  • What about rashes?
  • What about leaks?
Wouldn't mind hearing what others thought on this one...

1 comment:

Yellow said...

There is a second hand market in cloth nappies in England (no really) perhaps if you end up with cloth nappies and then give up you could pass them on.

There are liners, some flushable, some re-usable/washable, some compostable which collect any solid matter and keep it out of your diaper pail.

Some nappies do leak but ask around and see what other people used. They tend to leak less when you are used to them (as disposable ones do on a newborn)

Babies who are used to cloth nappies don't seem to get rashes. My eldest had cloth nappies full time and developed a rash on the occasion I used a disposable.

In England some orgainisations I have found useful are National Childbirth Trust; The Real Nappy Association; Twinkle Twinkle

They all have websites so use that Google.

Hope that helps.

After all that Nappy Advice you would probably be surprised if you knew what I did for a living ;)