1. They save you MONEY!! Estimated saving for using cloth diapers varies depending on the where you gather up your numbers, but an easy way to calculate the savings that you could expect to see is by using the savings calculator at the Diaper Pin. It is amazing to see how quickly cloth diapers will pay for themselves…regardless of if you choose economic prefolds and covers or a more upscale pocket or all in one diaper system…
2. They are soooo much easier on the environment than disposables! For each baby diapered with cloth diapers, you will be saving 4,000-6,000 diapers from going to the landfill…accumulating in landfills at the rate of 3.4 million tons per year. These mounds of soiled diapers (Do you know you are actually supposed to flush the poop off of a disposable before you toss it in the trash can!?!?) are not able to break down well in airtight landfills…This process could actually take several hundred years!!! Disposable diapers accounted for 2.1% of the garbage in landfills in 1998, the last year that this information was collected.
3. The chemicals in disposable diapers…Dioxin, Tolune, xylene, ethylbenzene, styrene, isopropylbenzene, sodium polyacrylate…Sounds like stuff I don’t want near my babies!! There are questions about the safety of these chemicals…
4. Using cloth allows you to choose from organically grown, and sustainable textiles. Cotton is one of the world’s most widely known crops, but it is also popularly known for it’s pesticide use. When you choose to purchase organic cotton (or organic bamboo or hemp) you are choosing to support the harvesting of chemical free crops.
5. One of the best feelings I get about using cloth is knowing I will not have to run to the grocery store to get diapers. We used disposable diapers with our first 2 children, and it seems like I was always needing to call my husband, mother in law, or neighbor to pick up a pack of diapers for me…I love the freedom of knowing that as long as I have water at my house, I can have clean diapers.
6. Disposable diapers do not allow the skin to breathe…In May 2000, the Archives of Disease in Childhood published research showing that scrotal temperature is increased in boys wearing disposable diapers, and that prolonged use of disposable diapers will blunt or completely abolish the physiological testicular cooling mechanism important for normal spermatogenesis.
7. Cloth diapered babies tend to learn to use the potty earlier than babies who wear disposables. For the most part, babies who are wearing disposables do not feel wet when they pee, due to the reaction of the chemicals in the diaper. Cloth diapered babies actually get the opportunity to feel wet when they have peed, so they usually will want to learn to go to the potty sooner.
8. Cloth Diapers can be used for such a long time. A good quality cloth diaper is made to stand the test of time, and can easily be used for multiple childern. After your children are finished using them, their legacy lives on…they are the best cleaning cloths available! They are perfect for cleaning around the house and for cleaning cars…A disposable simply gets thrown away…
9. Cloth diapers are CUTE!!! There are such a wide variety of diapers on the market today, that getting the perfect fit is only a portion of the shopping equation…you get to select from some amazing fabrics (cotton, bamboo, hemp, velour, minkee…) as well as a HUGE selection of colors and prints. I don’t know where you will find any diaposable diaper that holds a candle to how cute cloth diapers are.
10. No one wants to wear paper underwear…Imagine the feeling you have when you are at the doctor’s office and they ask you to slip into their little paper gown and sit on their paper covered table…Not the best feeling, huh. Wouldn’t it be great if you could say, “no thanks…I’m going to slip into my cotton velour gown and sit on my minkee blanket”…Seems a little bit more comfortable… I think babies should be as comfortable as we are…so we should stop dressing them in paper.
It’s one of the most common ways I see mothers and fathers carrying their babies…in a bucket car seat. I refer to these babies as ‘bucket babies’. Almost everytime I go to the mall, the grocery store, the park, etc. I see babies in buckets. I feel so bad for both the baby in the bucket, as well as the ones who need to carry it.
As I sat at the mall for an entire weekend at a vendor stand, I had the opportunity to talk with many parents who thought that carrying the bucket was the only way to go…when in fact once they realized their were more comfortable and easy to use choices available, they were interested! We heard many reasons as to why people had chosen to keep their baby in a bucket…’she sleeps so well’, ‘it’s convenient’, ‘I don’t need to take her out and put her back in, I can just pop the seat in and out’, ‘I have tried a sling, but they don’t work for me’, ‘I can sit the bucket in the cart’, and so on…
A few of my worries with babies being left in their buckets:
Babies like to be held, and it is good for their development.
Babies deserve to be interacted with, and their interaction is limited while they are nearly covered up and tucked into their carseat, often while it is placed in a shopping cart.
Babies like to change positions, too…it feels good after a long car ride to get out of your seat and stretch out a little…it feels good for babies, too.
Those buckets are heavy! I can’t imagine how carrying those, as well as the weight of the baby, is good for your back, arms, or neck!
They bump into everything, your legs included. There is really no great way to carry one of these things without having it bump into your leg with every step. Not fun!
I have been walking through stores with my baby closely snuggled up in a carrier, with both hands free (well, one hand free…the other one is almost always rubbing my baby’s back!), talking to my baby, knowing she can feel safe…knowing she is warm…knowing she can hear my heartbeat…and wonder why this is what I see:
Mothers struggling to keep their babies from screaming while juggling the carseat, a shopping cart, and toys to try to distract the baby. Sometimes a whole shopping cart is dedicated to carrying a bucket carseat, while another person needs to oush the cart to put groceries in…My guess is most babies would be happier being held, and most mothers would feel less stressed. Isn’t that what we want? I watch those moms and desperately want to take off my sling and put it on them.
I have had the pleasure of teaching many parents about the benefits and convenience of wearing their baby. Our society doesn’t seem to recognize the importance of nurturing our babies. I hear things like “She will never want to walk if you carry her all the time”, “She is going to get spoiled”, “She can’t be comfortable like that” (meanwhile she is contently alseep), “doesn’t that hurt their legs?”, and so on…It is important to hold our babies. Each one of them will grow up. There will come a time when they don’t want to be held. There will come a time when you wish you could still be holding them.
