When we were going through the hospital classes preparing us to become first time parents, there were two things that stuck out during the two day parent boot camp. The first is that the average newborn goes through 240 diapers a month. The second is that if your kid is on their back too much, they will get flat head and have to wear a helmet. Both were shocking facts that drove important things out of my head, like breathing patterns and laboring positions for Mommy. Luckily, there's no breathing or labor positions during labor. Mommy will ignore everything during contractions. What you really do is get Mommy an epidural and wait for the baby to show up.
We had no problem with flat head stuff. Probably because I was always putting the kid on his face in shear terror of flat head. The second was definitely a problem. Wow, they are right. Do the math, 240 diapers equal a diaper change every 3 hours for 30 days. Sounds about right. Sure, it slows down a little bit as they get older. Maybe every 3 and a half hours once they turn 1.
So, which is cheaper, cloth or disposable? Well, the short answer is cloth and here's why by the numbers:
I assume that you will have the kid in diapers for 2 and a half years (913 days). Based on my best guess, we change an average of 7 diapers a day (6,391 diapers required). So how much does it cost to get 6,391 disposable diapers? That's a little bit difficult since you get more diapers in the newborn sizes than you get in the size 6 box for your toddler at the same price. I went with the price of Luv's Big Box of Size 3 diapers since it's a good size that both of our kids spent a lot of time in and probably represents an average. You get 108 for $17.99, which works out to 60 boxes times $18 a pop. That's $1,080 plus tax for all your disposable diaper needs.
Cloth diapers are also a little difficult to figure out since you have to figure out power usage for washer/dryer, water usage, estimate how often you wash, etc. Our cloth diapers are BumGenius brand and they require a cold wash followed by a hot wash setting, so two laundry cycles followed by a trip through the dryer. Also saving us a TON of cash is the fact we make our own laundry detergent. It works very well on everything at pennies per load over store bought detergent. Email me and I'm more than happy to provide the formula, it's easy to make and I figure we can do 2,000ish loads of laundry for $20.
Using an average washer/dryer and making our own laundry detergent, we spend about 50 cents to run our 25 diapers through the wash. I'm not factoring environmental impacts in since disposables go to a landfill and we're using about 20 gallons of potable water and about 3.75 kilowatt/hours of electricity every time we wash our cloths. I kind of think the environmental impact is a wash. Booyah!
Using the same 7 diaper changes a day, we would run 256 loads of laundry for our diapers, one every 3 and a half days at a total cost of $128. The current price for 25 of our diapers on Diapers.com is about $450. Total cost is $578 so cloth wins...right?
Well, kind of. There are definitely some pros and cons to using either. Disposables are definitely more convenient. You use it, toss it, and move on with your life. They tend to hold no. 1 better than cloth, but our experience has been that cloth holds no. 2 a little bit better. Disposables don't require a wet bag to put a dirty diaper in when you're out running around or travelling. Good luck asking your in-laws to dump a big bunch of disgusting diapers in their washing machine on Christmas morning. Disposables in the trash don't have to be handled again 3 days later when the smell is really coming out. Cons to disposables are definitely the cost and the cost of a good diaper pail with the correct bags to minimize smell. That is really important, don't skimp on the diaper pail or you will smell for it later.
Pros to cloth are mostly the cost. Cons would definitely be having to handle poop a little bit more than you would like. If you automatically cross cloth diapers off because you might get a little poop on your hands, suck it up sissy. You have (or are having) a baby and you will be covered in bodily fluids you never knew existed. Cloth isn't bad at all after you get your first projectile vomiting experience. The aforementioned difficulties with travelling are definitely a con. The last big con is adding a couple loads of laundry a week and then having to put the inserts back inside the diaper so they're ready to go again. I personally despise putting the inserts in because I have big meaty man-hands that don't fit well inside the diaper. My wife likes to do it since she gets to sit down and watch a little tv while doing something productive.
Now here's my big important recommendation. Do both disposable and cloth. Never ever make the mistake of running out of diapers, so always have disposables on hand. We use them overnight to hold that extra baby pee so we can get 8 or 9 hours out of a diaper instead of changing a wet outfit and crib sheet at 4 AM. We use cloth during the day when we're in town and it's convenient. Because of the initial cost of the diapers, we probably broke even on the money aspect for the first kid doing a mix of the two. With the second kid, we already had the cloth diapers so we are definitely saving over having to pay for disposables all day long.
If you made it this far in my blog post, congratulations, you are a complete dork about your baby. Hopefully this helps somebody since I know about 18 pregnant ladies right now.
CK
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