Objections to Cloth Diapering (and my answers!)

Today I'm posting a guest post on This Rookie Wife for her week long series on cloth diapering. I'm covering frequent objections to cloth diapering and the answers. Hope you enjoy! ps - we're headed back to Montreal today!! Can. Not. Wait.

1. Cloth diapering is gross!
   
   >>> Yes it is. So is all diapering. So is poop and pee and everything in between. Breast-fed babies, formula-fed babies, babies who eat solids - it's all GROSS. What I urge people to consider is that diapering of any kind is gross, so to look beyond that. How much more disgusting is cloth diapering than regular diapering? Minimally. Pee diapers are the exact same thing. Wipe, change, toss diaper in the garbage/laundry. Poopy diapers are slightly worse. Wipe, change, toss poop in toilet (for cloth diapering, though I do this for disposables too - who wants feces sitting around waiting for garbage day?), then toss diaper in the garbage/laundry. There's just one extra step. It's not without wincing, but it's just one step. And for my kids, it's just once a day, so I'm thankful for that :)
   
   
2. Cloth diapering is expensive!
   
   >>> No, it's not. Disposables cost, on sale, 25 cents per diaper. If you average 6 diapers a day, and potty train by age 2 (and that's early!), you're spending $1,100 on disposable diapers for one baby. Want another kid, like most people? That's $2,200 for two kids, assuming you buy diapers on sale and that they're potty trained early. Yikes. Cloth diapers are a larger up front cost, but once you spend around $300 on a high quality, new stash, that's it. You can reuse them all the time, for many children. Plus you can find great quality diapers second hand too!
   
   
3. Cloth diapering is complicated
   
   >>> It can be. There are lots of types of cloth diapers available - some are very simple and resemble disposable diapers in every way, others require more effort. Usually the easier a cloth diaper is to use, the more it costs, which makes sense. I use Apple Cheeks, Bum Genius 4.0, and Royal Fluff and find them all very simple - they do up in the same fashion as disposables but with snaps instead of easy-to-remove tape. They all require that you manually stuff and remove the absorbent insert, so that's the extra step above disposable diapering. I find it easy, but for a beginner it can be slightly annoying. My advice is to stuff the diaper right out of the wash, so when you are changing your baby, you're not adding steps then.
   
   
4. Cloth diapering will lead to more diaper rashes
   
   >>> This is absolutely not true. For babies with highly sensitive skin, doctors often recommend organic cloth diapers, as they have zero chemicals that will irritate the baby. Cloth diapered babies are known to have significantly fewer diaper rashes, if any, compared to babies in disposables. In fact, diaper creams aren't used with cloth diapering to protect the fabric of the diaper, and it's fine, because you won't need it! Once my daughter (and never for my son) had a bad bout of diarrhea which lead to a diaper rash and we had to switch to disposables for 2 days to make sure she was the driest possible, but the rash was brought on by the diarrhea, not the diapering.
   
   
5. Washing cloth diapers seems too tedious
   
   >>> there are some methods to washing your diapers that may seem like a hand full (like by hand!, pun intended ;), but most cloth diapering moms I know wash them in the washing machine. If you can wash your clothes without complaining that it's "too tedious", you can wash cloth diapers. Here's a link to exactly how I wash mine for those who are interested.
   
   
6. My husband won't go for it!
   
   >>> Mine was skeptical too, and now he's the greatest walking advertisement for cloth diapering! In the end, my husband figured that since I'm the one who changes over 75% of the diapers (I'm a stay-at-home-mom), I should decide how we go about it. I love that he reasoned that way, and I'd suggest it as a bargaining tool for you too :) He was also wooed by the numbers. What husband doesn't love saving money? But in the end, I'd definitely say it's more important to respect your husband and his preferences than to diaper any certain way!