Getting Dad on Board

shorty6788

Hello ladies!  I'm totally new to cloth diapering, so you'll have to excuse me.  I am 16w with our 3rd.  (We used disposables with our first 2, so that's why this is new to me.)  We, as a family, have made the choice to make some lifestyle changes.  This has been a long time coming, and it started when I was pregnant with our 1st, but now its progressing.

My husband gets on board with most of my ideas.  I announced to him that I would like to cloth diaper this time around.  If it wasn't cloth, it would've been a more eco-friendly/natural disposable diaper (like Bambo) than what we've been using.  His reaction was negative, to say the least.  His major concern is the cost of laundry, because (as of right now) we live in a complex and pay for the laundry facilities. I totally understand his viewpoint, but I don't think that he understands that the extra $25/mo is way more savings than buying disposables on a regular basis.  I know the initial investment can be costly, but I think it will pay off, since that's one of the many benefits.  

If you had to convince your DH to get on the cloth diapering bandwagon, how did you do it?  What did you say?

ACleanLife24

I had the numbers worked out way in favour but that was only paying for special detergent....

freezorburn

There are a lot of old threads on this topic, so if the search function works for you ...

But as far as cost for your situation, you might look into getting a portable washer. There were a few of the old regs who used them in similar situations.

crsanchez87

I would take him to the store to look at how much the disposable diapers cost and then multiply it by how many you'd have to purchase in a months time and compare it to the cost of the laundry facilities per month. My husband is a finance guy and that was the best way to convince him. Plus if you have a place, like a window or glass door where you can set up a drying rack then you would not need to worry about drying the diapers in the dryer, line drying is actually the best way to dry cloth. 

lionstigersbears

Remember you don't have to go all in right away. You could consider getting one days worth of diapers as a "trial," and maybe do cloth on weekends. I found that giving DH a chance to get his feet wet helped a lot and eased a lot of concerns. Good luck!

cmerribury

My husband was apprehensive at first, mainly because of the extra work. BUT, since it was our first, we never really knew any different. The biggest thing for him was cost. That's it. My mom was willing to invest in 36 AIO Bummis for us, which cost a fortune. Once that was out of the way, he was TOTALLY on board with it because it meant never having to buy disposable diapers. The only real money we spent was on detergent and liners, both of which were negligible in the grand scheme of things. 

Now he's a total convert. He tries to talk the guys in our friends' relationships into it all the time. Eventually he ended up being really happy about the lower impact on the environment and that there were no chemicals in them, as there are in others. I'd say lead with cost savings.

shantyrae

I agree about going from the price angle first! I told my husband if we got 75% of the CDs on our registry, we would have ZERO diaper expenses for little one. Also, no late night diaper runs! We ended up getting 90% of our diapers, newborn disposi's that we used in the beginning AND a years supply of wipes and DH got excited about the thought of no diaper or wipes expenses!