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We cloth diaper too (3 kids, a two and a half year old potty trained for about a year now, and 5 month old twins). Personally, I find disposable diapers to be w

We cloth diaper too (3 kids, a two and a half year old potty trained for about a year now, and 5 month old twins). Personally, I find disposable diapers to be way more disgusting than cloth. With cloth, you rinse it out and the majority of the gross stuff is down the drain. With disposables, you end up with a garbage can literally full of poop. Its like having a mini pit toilet in your house. We have also noticed, like you mentioned, that cloth diapers are easier on the babies' skin and makes potty training significantly easier. For anyone who is reading this and may be interested in cloth diapering: Get some quality covers and then buy a ton of flour sack towels. They make the best inserts. Super absorbent, cheap, and unfolds to a single layer, which means they get cleaner and dry faster.

dancek 9y ago
Props for doing that. We tried with our twins, but eventually decided cloth diapers are for people with single kids that aren't burnt out.
- milesvp 9y ago
  Ugh. Yeah, I regret deeply buying cloth diapers for my twins. The economics looks better for twins, since you only need like 50% more, but the time premium is higher than expected with twins, so it ended up eating into too much prescious downtime. Worse is we couldn't get them to stop drinking the majority of their fluid intake before bed, and the pee at night required us to use absorbant disposables anyways. In the end I'm not sure they were a net positive investment, even ignoring the higher than expected opportunity cost of havings twins.
- josefresco 9y ago
  "cloth diapers are for people with single kids" Maybe not for twins, but "one kid at-a-time" is more than doable and the second kid is where the real money savings come in.
  - dancek 9y ago
    Yeah, I meant that by single (English is my second language). And of course cloth diapers are probably a good idea for twins too, but I just couldn't handle it. There comes a point where you'll give almost anything to get five minutes of free time every now and then.
    - josefresco 9y ago
      Sister had twins - I totally get it. Their house was crazy for the first couple years. You do what works ;)
mixmastamyk 9y ago
> you rinse it out and the majority of the gross stuff is down the drain. How do you rinse it? What drain? > Get some quality covers and then buy a ton of flour sack towels. They make the best inserts. Super absorbent, cheap, and unfolds to a single layer, which means they get cleaner and dry faster. Don't understand this whole paragraph.
- eesmith 9y ago
  Many people have a laundry room (or area) with washer, dryer, and utility sink. For example, see http://www.mlexecutiverealty.com/_account/images/listing/122-9.jpg http://www.mlexecutiverealty.com/_account/images/listing/122... . Taking care of a baby requires specific education. You should not expect to know everything about the topic if you have not researched it. It is rude to express your confusion this way. As written it implies that the author did not express things well, when it appears instead to be that you are ignorant of the topic and don't feel like doing the research. I'm often that way, but since no one else cares, I don't comment about it. How is it that you did not think to do, say, a DDG search for "diaper insert", or even better, "diaper insert flour sack"? The first hit for the latter is http://mamanloupsden.com/2014/10/29/whats-deal-flour-sack-towels-cloth-diapers/ http://mamanloupsden.com/2014/10/29/whats-deal-flour-sack-to... , which seems quite relevant.
  - mixmastamyk 9y ago
    I don’t agree, it was terse but didn’t intend it to be rude, and there is some responsibility to use clear wording without obscure terms or jargon. Raised a child and never heard any of those terms before. Reminds me of many tech articles here where obscure acronyms are never explained. Also putting feces down the sink doesn’t sound like a great idea, though maybe it’s fine. No explanation given either way.
    - latortuga 9y ago
      You don't put it down the sink, you rinse off the diaper into the toilet. https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Baby-Cloth-Diaper-Sprayers/zgbs/baby-products/6104948011 https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Baby-Cloth-Diaper-Spraye...
latortuga 9y ago
> With cloth, you rinse it out and the majority of the gross stuff is down the drain. With disposables, you end up with a garbage can literally full of poop. Worth pointing out that just because you use disposables doesn't mean you can't rinse it out / dump into a toilet. We used cloth for 8 months and then transitioned to a daycare that wouldn't let us use them. I still dump all solids into the toilet because I don't want my baby's room to smell like poop 24/7. Also, if you read the box, most diapers will instruct you that you are supposed to do this, as human waste doesn't belong in landfills.
- war1025 9y ago
  The thing that grosses me out when I attempt to do that is then the polymer filling stuff gets all wet and nasty. That stuff just weirds me out... Our twins are currently just breastfed, which means their poop is basically yogurt. So nothing to dump in the toilet yet. I remember we would dump the harder poops out before we threw the diapers away if we were out of town and using disposables.
Feneric 9y ago
Disposable diapers are actually a burden on society in many places even beyond the obvious problem of essentially putting sewage in the trash; https://www.nearta.com/Papers/GovernmentDiapers.pdf https://www.nearta.com/Papers/GovernmentDiapers.pdf

dancek 9y ago

Props for doing that. We tried with our twins, but eventually decided cloth diapers are for people with single kids that aren't burnt out.

milesvp 9y ago
Ugh. Yeah, I regret deeply buying cloth diapers for my twins. The economics looks better for twins, since you only need like 50% more, but the time premium is higher than expected with twins, so it ended up eating into too much prescious downtime. Worse is we couldn't get them to stop drinking the majority of their fluid intake before bed, and the pee at night required us to use absorbant disposables anyways. In the end I'm not sure they were a net positive investment, even ignoring the higher than expected opportunity cost of havings twins.
josefresco 9y ago
"cloth diapers are for people with single kids" Maybe not for twins, but "one kid at-a-time" is more than doable and the second kid is where the real money savings come in.
- dancek 9y ago
  Yeah, I meant that by single (English is my second language). And of course cloth diapers are probably a good idea for twins too, but I just couldn't handle it. There comes a point where you'll give almost anything to get five minutes of free time every now and then.
  - josefresco 9y ago
    Sister had twins - I totally get it. Their house was crazy for the first couple years. You do what works ;)

mixmastamyk 9y ago

> you rinse it out and the majority of the gross stuff is down the drain. How do you rinse it? What drain? > Get some quality covers and then buy a ton of flour sack towels. They make the best inserts. Super absorbent, cheap, and unfolds to a single layer, which means they get cleaner and dry faster. Don't understand this whole paragraph.

eesmith 9y ago
Many people have a laundry room (or area) with washer, dryer, and utility sink. For example, see http://www.mlexecutiverealty.com/_account/images/listing/122-9.jpg http://www.mlexecutiverealty.com/_account/images/listing/122... . Taking care of a baby requires specific education. You should not expect to know everything about the topic if you have not researched it. It is rude to express your confusion this way. As written it implies that the author did not express things well, when it appears instead to be that you are ignorant of the topic and don't feel like doing the research. I'm often that way, but since no one else cares, I don't comment about it. How is it that you did not think to do, say, a DDG search for "diaper insert", or even better, "diaper insert flour sack"? The first hit for the latter is http://mamanloupsden.com/2014/10/29/whats-deal-flour-sack-towels-cloth-diapers/ http://mamanloupsden.com/2014/10/29/whats-deal-flour-sack-to... , which seems quite relevant.
- mixmastamyk 9y ago
  I don’t agree, it was terse but didn’t intend it to be rude, and there is some responsibility to use clear wording without obscure terms or jargon. Raised a child and never heard any of those terms before. Reminds me of many tech articles here where obscure acronyms are never explained. Also putting feces down the sink doesn’t sound like a great idea, though maybe it’s fine. No explanation given either way.
  - latortuga 9y ago
    You don't put it down the sink, you rinse off the diaper into the toilet. https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Baby-Cloth-Diaper-Sprayers/zgbs/baby-products/6104948011 https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Baby-Cloth-Diaper-Spraye...

latortuga 9y ago

> With cloth, you rinse it out and the majority of the gross stuff is down the drain. With disposables, you end up with a garbage can literally full of poop. Worth pointing out that just because you use disposables doesn't mean you can't rinse it out / dump into a toilet. We used cloth for 8 months and then transitioned to a daycare that wouldn't let us use them. I still dump all solids into the toilet because I don't want my baby's room to smell like poop 24/7. Also, if you read the box, most diapers will instruct you that you are supposed to do this, as human waste doesn't belong in landfills.

war1025 9y ago
The thing that grosses me out when I attempt to do that is then the polymer filling stuff gets all wet and nasty. That stuff just weirds me out... Our twins are currently just breastfed, which means their poop is basically yogurt. So nothing to dump in the toilet yet. I remember we would dump the harder poops out before we threw the diapers away if we were out of town and using disposables.

Feneric 9y ago

Disposable diapers are actually a burden on society in many places even beyond the obvious problem of essentially putting sewage in the trash; https://www.nearta.com/Papers/GovernmentDiapers.pdf https://www.nearta.com/Papers/GovernmentDiapers.pdf