How much extra work are cloth diapers?

Mnstr

I'm contemplating using cloth diapers for a number of reasons, the most being how sensitive baby's skin is (I'm due in May). But my husband says absolutely not. He is grossed out by washing diapers in the laundry (even ones that are just pee diapers). I'm trying to convince him. He also says it's a lot of extra work and it won't save us that much. Any suggestions or thoughts?

I was thinking of showing him the all-in-ones or something simple like that because I believe when I say cloth diapers, he thinks of what his mom used when he was a baby. Any suggestions on the best cloth diapers would be great to. I feel so overwhelmed with the different products.

Mandmeesh

There's a FAQ at the top of this board that's awesome.  Cloth Diapering 101 series on youtube (7 parts) greenmountaindiapers.com has pictures of babies in cloth and a rundown of the different options. 

And unless your baby never pees or poops, guess what? YH will be washing clothes with pee and poop on them.  I'm amazed that people think pee and poop only gets in the diaper (well that's true with cloth)

TJ1979

Well I guess you're going to be throwing away a lot of onesies and socks and burp cloths and sheets and changing pad covers. Not to mention your clothes too. Cause guess what? Newborns pee and poop on EVERYTHING! Especially when they are wearing pathetic disposables that blowout daily. But hey, if he likes to throw away money rather than using a washer and dryer to, ahem, wash and dry... then saving money with cloth diapers doesn't sound like his style anyhow.

sarenu1

The best diapers are the ones that work for you and your situation. I work full time, so I need pockets and all-in-ones for daycare. If I stayed home, I'd actually use prefolds/flats and covers. They look complicated, but I've found they are my most fool proof solution and the easiest to get clean. As for poop in the washer, regardless of cloth diapering, if you have a kid, poop will get in your washer. It's a washer, it's there to clean things. I've been cloth diapering for about 18 months now. My washer doesn't smell and is not dirty.

Mandmeesh

Also, the money-saving part.  if we used disposables, we'd have used around 3,600 diapers.  That's THREE THOUSAND.  I have no idea how much disposables cost because I've never bought them, but I would bet that 3,600 diapers (and I rounded down.  we used close to 20 diapers a day for the first six or so weeks) is a lot more expensive than a newborn stash costing $150 and the OS stash that I've spent less than $500 on

Mamatolilbee

TJ1979 said:

Well I guess you're going to be throwing away a lot of onesies and socks and burp cloths and sheets and changing pad covers. Not to mention your clothes too. Cause guess what? Newborns pee and poop on EVERYTHING! Especially when they are wearing pathetic disposables that blowout daily. But hey, if he likes to throw away money rather than using a washer and dryer to, ahem, wash and dry... then saving money with cloth diapers doesn't sound like his style anyhow.

This! We have had so many friends tell us they just throw out onesies when they have a poop explosion!! To me that is such a waste. We have not once had a poop explosion using cloth.

Also, I think your husband would be surprised at how easy they are. We used prefolds during the newborn weeks and when I changed over to our OS pockets he continued using the prefolds and told me he didn't know how to use the pocket. He still hasn't touched the AIOs.

shan417

We have a newborn and have been using cloth for 4(?) days now, and I have actually been doing less laundry! Cloth doesn't leak and we had leaks at least once a day in disposables, which leads to washing clothes and blankets and my clothes soaked with pee anyway. Realistically, with the savings from cloth, you could buy a whole separate washing machine and still make out (unless you keep hanging out here and catch the addiction).
But I haven't found them to be any noticeably more work. Actually, probably less because I'm not changing outfits all the time.

Aurora_Borealis

For a newborn cloth is actually less work. No nasty poopsplosions like you get with disposables. The few times we had DD in a disposable in the first 6 months we were pretty much guaranteed to have a super poop that resulted in poopy clothing (until I figured out I could put a diaper cover over the disposable to contain everything). It's way easier to wash a diaper that's supposed to get poop on it as opposed to something like a stroller, carseat or even just peeling a poop-covered onesie off a screaming baby.

As far as the laundry, it's 3-4 more loads a week. With a baby, that's nothing.

As far as the cost savings, my kid is almost 2 years old. I've spent $475 net (after selling stuff that she's outgrown and such) on her diapers, will not need to buy any more and can probably get $200 for what I have left when I'm done with it. So I will have diapered for $275. $275 will buy about 2 months worth of diapers in my HCOL area. So yeah, the savings is significant. And the extra cost of water, electric and detergent for us is less than $5/month. That would be more than negated if we used disposables since we would have to pay more for trash collection as we would need a larger bin to hold a week's worth of disposables.

Oh, and in nearly 2 years of CD-ing my washer is clean and has never smelled like poop.

LEMSA

DH does sposies, I do cloth. He found out pretty quickly how expensive disposables are. Even doing it part time.

TJ1979

LEMSA said:

DH does sposies, I do cloth. He found out pretty quickly how expensive disposables are. Even doing it part time.

I think another couple was doing this too... Was it you @nana_osaki06? And your SO decided pretty quickly that the cloth wasn't all that bad and started using it?

freezorburn

Google Cloth Diaper Calculator. There are a few sites that have these and you can compare to the cost of disposables.

Also this is a great place to lurk and learn. Just hang out here for a few days and you'll get a sense of what a lot of people like around here.

nanabanana06

TJ1979 said:

DH does sposies, I do cloth. He found out pretty quickly how expensive disposables are. Even doing it part time.

I think another couple was doing this too... Was it you @nana_osaki06? And your SO decided pretty quickly that the cloth wasn't all that bad and started using it?

Yup, that was mine. I got a bit lazy for a while and didn't stuff diapers. He disliked having to stuff them and deal with them. So we decided that on days he had Cade he'd do sposies. About a month or two later he stopped using them since I started keeping up with the diapers again and he realized they aren't that hard. My SO is kind of a stick in the mud. However, CDing means a lot to me and I put so much work into it. I think he realized that and stopped using disposables.

Mnstr

Thanks all! I think I'm going to a specialty diaper shop tomorrow to learn a bit. I feel like there are so many options--it's so overwhelming.

I also got to thinking: If I was out shopping or over at someone's house, how do I take care of dirty diapers? With sposies, I guess I would just throw them away. Do they make something you can carry them home in that isn't too gross? Or maybe just baggies or something? How does that work?

blondolphn

They make wetbags that you toss the dirty stuff in. It is super easy!

nanabanana06

They have special waterproof reusable bags called wet bags! I throw dirty dipes in and zip it up. It contains all the smell and when I get home I dump it into my hanging wet bag.

Aurora_Borealis

Mnstr said:

Thanks all! I think I'm going to a specialty diaper shop tomorrow to learn a bit. I feel like there are so many options--it's so overwhelming.

I also got to thinking: If I was out shopping or over at someone's house, how do I take care of dirty diapers? With sposies, I guess I would just throw them away. Do they make something you can carry them home in that isn't too gross? Or maybe just baggies or something? How does that work?

Wetbags. The cloth diaper shop will have them.

And no, you would likely not throw away a sposie at someone else's house without specifically asking. Wet or poopy sposies smell *terrible* and I would be annoyed if someone threw one in my trash without asking first. Especially when I had a dog.

Edited for clarity.

nanabanana06

Oh yeah. @Aurora_Borealis is right. Sposies stink to all hell. Even when we use them they go right into the outside trash. No way in hell would I let that stuff sit around in my house. Ew.

Also, the special things they make for putting dirty sposies in are the devil. I've used a Diaper Genie and the Munchkin one. Both stank, were expensive, and one actually had maggot in it.

freezorburn

Where I live, you are not supposed to throw a used sposie in public trash. Not in a restaurant washroom, not at the mall, not at the museum, not even at the Dr.'s office, UNLESS they have a special receptacle for them. Some places do, but the default is that you are supposed to take your dirties with you and dispose of them at home with your household waste. Hence a lot of stores  here sell tiny little disposable bags for people to put their dirty disposable nappies in. 

Today I had to buy a pack of sposies because during the holidays we are going to have 4 days without laundry immediately followed by a 10-hour international flight. I probably have enough diapers for 4 days, but 4 days is a long time for diapers to sit in the wetbag, not to mention the extra weight. So I bought a pack of sposies. I hate carrying those things around. Even the fancy biodegradable hypoallergenic sposies that I get, it's a big pain to buy them. Because we don't have a car. So I gotta lug this huge pack of sposies home while pushing the stroller. I'm so glad I don't have to do that on a regular basis. I think it's the second pack of sposies I've bought all year. Laundry is way easier.

jess9802

I thought CDing was fantastic for the first six months, when DS was still EBF. It was definitely cheaper than disposables, we didn't have blow-outs or leaks of any kind. I find CDing a toddler and dealing with dirty diapers now to be a lot more challenging and annoying. I absolutely loathe spraying diapers, and my son does not have "ploppable poo" most of the time. In our house, I pretty much do all of the diaper changes and I spray all of the diapers b/c that was the deal I made with my husband to use cloth in the first place. I still like CDs, but I can totally see how someone who has to be convinced to do them in the first place would want to quit once it becomes necessary to start spraying or scraping diapers.

TJ1979

@jess9802 have you tried liners? I usually tell people they are a waste, but in your situation they just might be a sanity saver.

tjkdlhb

disposables smell worse than cloth.

A friend left a poopy diaper in our trash.  It stunk really bad.

jess9802

@TJ1979, I haven't tried the liners b/c I've heard they can be very hard on sewer lines. I'm stubborn enough to not quit now, I just bitch under my breath every time I'm sitting on the bathroom floor spraying out a diaper. God bless my mother, though - she watches DS during the day and never complains about it.

csspencer

Before we were using cloth, we were dealing with blowouts with almost every dirty diaper. So we had to wash poopy clothes constantly.

PipSqueak0313

Just out of curiosity, what do the people who think cd laundry is gross do when they or their kids get sick?  Or am I the only one that has family members that have lost bowel control courtesy of a digestive bug?

PipSqueak0313

To answer the OP's question....when I first mentioned the idea of using prefolds with covers to dh, he considered it and decided that we should try it because even if we decided we didn't like it, cd purchases would not be more than the cost of buying the disposables and therefore we would not have lost any money. (I forget where the breakeven point was for the prefolds with a few inexpensive covers though I seriously want to say it was about a week for us - not counting re-saleability)

Dh loves the hook and loop covers since the snap ones confuse him too much....and he hates the sposies since he kept ripping the tabs off while attempting to put one on.  He claims they are too flimsy (I don't disagree)

The hardest part of washing them to me is remembering to bring the mop bucket I use for a diaper pail back upstairs after starting the wash machine. 

usernewname

Dh has the same reservations so we decided on a diaper service. He doesn't realize how much laundry we will have to do now and tossing clothes and blankets all the time isn't a good idea. He'll see soon enough haha. Is there a compromise you both can reach? I told him we'd save so much money buying our own but this is one thing he will invest in.