Saturday, May 10, 2008

Cloth diapering-- the good, the bad, and the downright stinky


So we've been cloth diapering since Ollie was about 3 weeks old... which was about 4 months ago. Surprisingly, it wasn't all that difficult to get Karl and the 2 grandmothers on board. When I showed Karl the hard numbers on what it would cost to use disposables, he gave me the go-ahead to buy whatever cloth diapers I wanted (within reason of course). Here are my calculations (the economist in me just loves this crap--pun intended...LOL):


2.5 years of diapering = 912 days

Babies go through an average of 8 diapers per day, so

8 diapers per day x 912 days = 7296 (wow that's a lot of diapers!)


Disposable diapers cost about .25 each and if you can get cheap ones to work for you without leaks it's more like .16 each (let's take an average- .20 each)

.20 per diaper x 7296 diapers = $1459.20!


Let's take disposable wipes into account as well.

These cost about .04 each, but some diaper changes require more than one, and they come in handy for messy hands and faces too. So let's estimate that you use 1.5 wipes for every 1 diaper.

This works out to about 10,944 wipes

10,944 wipes x .04 each = $437.76

Add those together and your total for 2.5 years of using disposable diapers/wipes is $1896.96!


Besides the extra costs for electricity, water, and detergent, you can cloth diaper (and wipe) a baby for anywhere from $50 (for those super-frugal resourceful types) to $1500 (for a gorgeous stash of designer dipes).


Not only are cloth diapers and wipes cost-effective, they're healthier for your baby's bum and for the environment! I'll post articles on those topics at some point.


*getting down off my soap box now*


I look forward to sharing our cloth diaper experiences with you all!

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