Cloth Diapers - Why They Are the Right Choice for Your Baby
Being a parent of a baby is wonderful - even though your baby will live their first two years wearing diapers. Our main priority as moms and dads is looking out for our baby. Because our lives are so busy - we are all looking for ways to make things easier. And sometimes the choices that we make aren’t always the correct one.
The choice of diaper type that we as parents make can have a positive or negative influence on our child’s health, their comfort, and the health of the world that we live in. And there is a great deal of money to be saved when people choose cloth diapers over disposable-style diapers.
Here are 7 great reasons for choosing cloth-style diapers over disposable-style diapers.
1. Healthier for baby - disposable diapers are made with the super absorbent chemical, sodium polyacrylate, which absorbs and holds fluids in the diaper. This chemical has been linked to toxic shock syndrome. Another chemical concern is Dioxin. Traces of the carcinogen Dioxin have been found in disposable diapers. Dioxin causes liver disease, immune system suppression and genetic damage. It is a by-product of the paper-bleaching process used in the making of this type of diaper.
2. Lower possibility of diaper rash for your baby. Disposable diapers are made of very dense material, while cloth diapers are made of breathable cotton. This means that you baby will be cooler, thereby reducing the build up of bacteria growth which lowers the possibility of a rash. Babies that wear cloth diapers get changed more often because they will feel wet to the touch when the baby is wet. Disposables on the other hand are so absorbent that even when the baby is wet the diaper may not feel wet and therefore the baby will not be changed as often. This will result in a greater chance of the baby developing a diaper rash.
3. Comfort for baby - today’s cloth baby diapers are made of several layers of 100% soft cotton flannelette. More and more parents are choosing 100% cotton for their baby’s clothing as natural cotton fibres FEEL BETTER. Not only is 100% cotton known to be more comfortable, it’s cooler and more natural to your skin, especially on sensitive body parts. Unlike disposable diapers, cloth child diapers stay cool even on the hottest summer day.
4. Save money - raising a baby is expensive and we all want to save money when we can. There have been numerous studies that compare the costs of purchasing disposables versus the cost of purchasing and washing cloth baby diapers at home. The results of the studies vary but they all agree that the cost of cloth, home laundered diapers, is considerably lower than buying disposables. Consider that over a 2 1/2 year period where there will be approximately 7,500 diaper changes, the savings of cloth over disposables is in the range of $1,000 to $2,000. This savings is even greater when you consider that the same diaper can be used for another baby. In our case - in Holden’s first year we have saved over $800 by using cloth. Think of what you could do with the SAVINGS you earned from buying and laundering your own diapers!
5. Better for the environment - it is probably obvious that cloth diapers are better for the environment since they are reusable. Here are some more issues to consider. A good quality cloth diaper can be laundered at least 100 times. If you are having more than one baby they can be used for your second and third child. It does take energy to launder the baby diaper, but the energy used is a small fraction of what a disposable diaper does to the environment. It is estimated that a disposable will take 400 to 500 years to decompose in our landfills. The companies that make today’s disposables will use over 1 million metric tons of wood pulp and 75,000 metric tons of plastic each year. What a cost to our environment.
6. Easy to change - today’s modern cloth diapers have snap or Velcro closures, and adjust for the size of your baby. When using the all-in-one cloth diapers it is easy for anyone to change the baby. Even Holden’s grandpa (JoPa) can make the diaper change without any complaints from baby or JoPa.
7. No outer diaper cover required - today there are all in one diapers that have a built in waterproof outer cover meaning that there is no need for a diaper cover.