It’s probably not a huge surprise that we cloth diaper, considering we tend to take the hard way with everything, right? I say that with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek, because really ya’ll - it’s not that big of a deal. But, I also know that if you’ve never done it before, it seems like a huge hassle - why bother, when there are endless shelves of Pampers for the picking at every corner store and bigbox? There are a lot of good reasons that people have for cloth diapering (environmental impact, less rashes, earlier potty training, etc) but for us, being big cheapos, it came down to cost.
I took pictures of our diaper stash today as I sorted through it, getting ready to wash the newborn and small diapers, and as I did added up what I think we’ve spent on diapers over the last two years. The bulk of the cost would be for the stash of large Fuzzi Bunz I bought used online, too busy and too burnt out to make her large stash like I had the smalls and mediums. The rest of our stash came from scrap fabric, thrift stores, and online deals on less than perfect ‘designer’ diapers. All of these diapers will be used by Cricket also, which brings the cost per use down even further.
The grand total? Maybe $250, and that is pushing it. We’ve kept an eye on our electricity and water bills over the last two years, and on average, we spend $5 more a month when we are washing diapers than when we are not. Over two years, that is about $120, but I kind of roll my eyes at this, since I am sure we would have spent $5 a month on gas getting back and forth to the store for an emergency pack of diapers when you run out, so eh.
No, lets look at what we would have spent on disposable diapers. Say, averaged over a kid’s diapering years, they go through 10 diapers a day. If a kid potty-trains early, you are looking at 2 years of diapers (730 days) or, if they are more average, 3 years (1095 days). So, at 10 diapers a day, you are looking at about 7500 to 11000 diapers. Now, according to this site, the average price for a Huggies diaper is about a quarter (.258, the price per unit averaged over the 5 sizes). Not bad, right? Now.. what if you pay a quarter for every diaper for 2 years? You just shelled out $1935 for poop catchers that do not even always work. And what if your kid is (gasp!) average and goes closer to 3 years before they potty train? $2838 dollars thrown into the landfills. And THEN? You have another kid.
To which I say: Ouch.
I actually have more to say on cloth diapering (for example, how easy it is. For realz) but it is late, and if I don’t post this soon I will miss my NaBloPoMo deadline and potentially pass out at my desk, so I’ll leave it at that. Cloth diapering is for those of us who like to have money for things like, oh, otterpops and trashy novels. You know, the important things in life.
Oh, and my kid is cute, when she is not taking great pleasure in poking eyes out. We, uh, should work on this before Cricket is born.
Okay, two posts back to back, but I couldn’t stick this on the bottom of my wedding rant.
This diaper is amazing. We cloth diaper, and have stuck with it for a year and a half, only falling back on two packs of disposables over that time. 99% of the time I am glad we do it, and that other 1% is usually when she is poopy, and hey - even kids who wear Huggies poop, so I think I am am SOL.
Still, the idea of cloth diapering two kids is intimidating. We generally only do a load of diapers every 2 or 3 days, between the diapers I have made, and the Fuzzi Bunz I’ve bought here and there. Double that, and I will be up to my neck in, well, poo.
Another problem is keeping 40630 tiny diapers separate from the 9639 large diapers. Storing them, sorting them, knowing which insert snaps into what - it gets a bit overwhelming. Diapers are generally in three sizes: Small, Medium and Large. I made the majority of Ella’s smalls and mediums, but have not had time to make a good stock of larges. Then, there are these semi-successful diapers that they call “All-in-ones” which is supposed to mean S-L, but generally really ends up small-medium to medium-large. We have a number of them, but have been less than impressed.
But then there is this diaper:
(Ella at 1 month old, and 18 months old, showing off her belly and artwork)
This is a diaper I bought before Ella was born, and she has worn it almost every week of her life. It has a million snaps to make it smaller or larger, and a good deal of elastic, but really, it’s amazing. I am gearing up to make a million of them, so that I can use them on both the kids, but the problem is that I have no idea who made it. The tag washed off a long time ago, and I can not find a paypal record. I am faced with deconstructing this one for a pattern, or trying to stretch it and pin it and trace it and go insane trying to chart all the snaps while it curls up.
This won’t fix the problem of the poo, but hey, maybe Ella will potty train before then, right? RIGHT?
