I used disposable for my first 11 kids and now for my 12th I decided since I thought that the cloth are much cuter so I just put the cloth over the disposable!!!

Wow! there are so many great options out there now for cloth diapers. Are there no longer diaper services? When my girls were babies (20+) years ago, I did cloth at home, though childcare insisted on disposable. Once a week the diaper service took the dirty ones and brought clean ones. The only problem was when hubby mistook the bag for trash and had to climb into the alley bin to retreive the diapers – only did it twice before he learned (LOL)

We don’t have a huge range of the new style cloth nappies in Australia. Mostly cloth means the old fashioned square of material you fold into strange shapes and then pin on and perhaps cover with plastic or thick woolen pants. What we do have in Australia is a huge water shortage/drought problem so we have to weigh up continually washing cloth nappies against creating more landfill with disposables. Of course, we could import the new and improved cloth styles from the US but then you also have to account for air-miles when you consider the green issue. Quite frankly, I’m torn.

We use bumGenius diapers. Love them! They aren’t your momma’s cloth diapers.

Cloth are much cuter- but disposable are easier and i like them better!!

I have both – disposables and bumgenius. I was really excited to try the cloth, but unfortunately, it’s a real pain. No matter how many liners I use, my daughter leaks over night, never happens with her disposables. Tossing a disposable in the trash versus scraping, spraying, soaking, washing, drying twice to truly get the cloth dry???? It really is much less convenient and I really wanted to love the cloth

I absolutely love Huggies, I have used them on my son since day 1. He has never had a blow out with them or a diaper rash. I used to work at a daycare and those kids were always getting diaper rashes, most of them had store brand diapers too.
I never really thought that so many people were using cloth diapers, wow, I’m impressed. I know that diapers are not good for our environment, but they are so nice and handy to use (would be nice if they weren’t so expensive)…..

Here’s an interesting article on research and opinion on this topic… thought I’d share.

We’ve used both. We wanted to CD from the start, but we had no local shop and were completely confused by the selections online. That combined with a tiny, preemie size newborn, we ended up starting with pampers. My first born had TERRIBLE diaper rash with all diapers… disposable and cloth with the exception of pampers which got expensive. Finally we figured out the issue with the cloth… it was in our wash. A big issue with CD is figuring out the best detergent to use for your child and for your water type. By the time my son was born, I was a cloth diaper addict. He is cd’d completely. My daughter was in cloth diapers completely (once we figured out the detergent thing) until potty training, but still CD at night. We moved recently… so we’re figuring out the right combo again. We’ve found that now that my kids are sleeping 12hr nights, they are better off in a disposable at night, but use cloth during the day (my daughter is now in cloth trainers… warning, kids think pull ups are diapers and they really did set her back when preschool asked that she be in them, I eventually told them no more and started sending her in her cloth trainers).

as far as more wash… with two in cloth, I only added one extra wash every other day. When it was just my daughter, I did an extra wash every 3 days only b/c I didn’t want them sitting for any longer than that. During the summer, it’s great to hang dry! I don’t use bleach (don’t use it anyway and most CD sites don’t recommend it, harsh for child’s skin). Vinegar is great for stripping the dipes every so often… and we’ve figured out in our new area that we need to add a little calgon to help wash out all of the detergent residue. We use a natural detergent (Allen’s Naturally).

There are affordable ways to try cloth.. many trial packs (like the one at jillian’s drawers, they have an online site)… A few favs of mine are Crickett’s, Ariana’s Closet, Preston’s pants (especially her fleece pockets)and Eli Monster. Another perk to cloth is that I can support working moms… moms who sew from home! I feel good about that. There are also great sites like diaperswappers where mom’s sell gently used dipes. I know that may gross some people out (my husband is one of them, so we don’t buy used) but many moms do… so in that sense, you can make about 25-50% back by selling your used dipes. Which adds to an issue the research doesn’t include… the reuse of the dipes… I have 6 fuzzibunz that I used for both kids, purchased 2 1/2 years ago. And I continue to use them.

Like with anything, it’s a personal choice. It’s sad that anyone would feel guilty about any of these types of parenting topics. We all do what we can and what we feel is best for our children and our families. I agree with the comment of looking at what is best for your environment. I live in a big city, the less trash and more recycling I can do the better.

Has anyone taken into account the energy and water used to produce the disposables and then the gas to ship it ect not to mention packaging. I don’t know seems that cloth would be way less energy no matter what.

Yes, there have been studies that cloth and disposables have the same environmental impact. BUT do they take into account that MOST cloth diapering families don’t use bleach at all (yuck!), use biodegradable detergent (like Charlie’s Soap) and many hang dry their diapers or use high efficiency washers and dryers? Of course not! Listen, I diapered my first child in disposables (Huggies), but now that I’ve done the research for my second, how could I knowingly let my sweet baby sit in chlorine bleach 24 hours/day for 2+ years? AND cloth diapers are so much cheaper (and cuter)! No judgment, though. Everyone has to make the best decision for their own family.