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cloth diapers/price comparison and experiences
so, i was not going to bother doing cloth diapers because i did not realize the nice new inventions, plus the ease of the system. now that i am considering it, i am wondering if anyone has sat down and added up the savings over a year including softener salt, electricity, detergent, etc?
and- has anyone started out cloth and abandoned it for disposable or done different with different children? what was your experience?
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Re: cloth diapers/price comparison and experiences
Summer 2011
Summer 2011
OK, thanks for clarifying what softener salt is!
We've been cloth diapering since birth & I love it! ?We do use disposables when we go out to public places & Huggies Overnites at night (everything else that we tried overnight leaked). ??I have not done the math, but I think that cloth is cheaper than disposables. ?Plus, you never have to worry about running out & having to rush out to the store! ?Aside from the upfront cost of the diapers themselves, you are right that there are additional water, electricity, & detergent costs. ?
Water: ?In my mind, I think that the water used to wash the cloth diapers is probably equivalent to the water consumption of 2 extra humans using the toilet daily, which they will eventually do. ?So environmental/financial cost is just the cost of waste disposal of 2 additional people. ?Plus, when you factor in the water consumption/pollution involved in manufacturing disposables, the water usage for cloth diapers is no biggie (environmentally, at least).?
Electricity: ?I wash a load of diapers every day. ?So the washer & dryer each run for about 1-1.5 hours per day to pre-rinse, wash & dry the cloth diapers. ?I don't think that's a big deal (we have HE washer/dryer)...others may disagree.?
Detergent: ?You cannot use your "normal" detergent on cloth diapers or risk leak problems from build-up (trust me, I "tested" this myself!). ?We use Planet detergent, which IS more costly than regular detergent. ? Again, I equate it to toilet paper cost for 2 extra people, so to me, it is just waste disposal cost. ?Also, you have to factor in the cost of extra garbage if you use disposables. ?More trash bags, potentially increased waste disposal costs, etc. ??
Stalk the Eco-Friendly board. You'll learn alot there. We use CD on our daughter. We bought Kissaluv's size 0 for the newborn stage (which for our chunckster was only about a month), then switched to pockets which I love. And most everyone who's seen them thinks they are amazing (and they are). They are a bit more of an investment up front than prefolds but I know I'm still saving over what I'd be paying in disposables. We will use them for our twins since we already have them from our daughter. Once you get used to doing the laundry its not that much extra work at all.
I was considering CDing at one point and so I made a whole spreadsheet up to compare costs (I based in on disposable prices for Huggies from Sams Club and the middle of the road to slightly nicer cloth diapers they have now) and of course now I can't find the spreadsheet anywhere. Crap. I don't have actual numbers for you, but I think the CDing turned out to be ~300$ total cheaper over the estimated lifespan of twins (~24months). It was a much smaller number than what the lady in the cloth diaper boutique had quoted me. Also, That number was for costs of diapers only (no wipes, laundry soap, garbage bags, etc).
I think if we were having kids in succession, the CDing would make much more economical sense, but for us, since we are having our kids at once and won't have others, the cost savings didn't seem to outweigh the convenience factor and so we chose to go the disposable route.