5 ms·

We're using cloth diapers for our daughter (6m). She's still exclusively breastfed so no solid poops but so far I estimate we've saved over $100/mo by this deci

We're using cloth diapers for our daughter (6m). She's still exclusively breastfed so no solid poops but so far I estimate we've saved over $100/mo by this decision. The story may change when she starts on solids but I recommend everyone to try out cloth diapers, just make sure you have a routine and system in place to make it less overwhelming (we have two diaper pails next to the changing table, one for disposable wipes and one for the diapers, every other day we wash the diapers and liners).

Forgeties79 8mo ago
Looking back my wife and I have said that we could probably have done cloth diapers during the breast-feeding phase but man… Definitely not with solid foods. I don’t know how people did it. Like yes of course if we didn’t have an option we would do it, but with disposable diapers right there… There’s no way I’m ever choosing cloth diapers and solid foods lol
- jonhohle 8mo ago
  I never thought solid was too bad, if it was solid. We had a sprayer on the toilet and typically everything would spray right off. There are worse kid messes that I’ve had to deal with (and >10 years later, still do). At least one of my kids would get bad diaper rash, though, in cloth. We had to make sure the were constantly checked and changed even when it wasn’t obvious.
  - Forgeties79 8mo ago
    > if it was solid Big if lol but yes agreed otherwise!
- bloomingeek 8mo ago
  Indeed, we tried it back in the early 80's. When they started on solid foods, it was simply terrible and unsanitary. With our first child we had to use a laundromat, they almost banned us. With our second, we had a own washer and we banned ourselves!
gazook89 8mo ago
My experience with two kids is that solids are easier. With good diet, the poop has a good chance of just being a “roll off” and into the toilet. Get a spray wand/ hand held bidet attachment for toilet to help rinse it off before it goes in wash.
- abustamam 8mo ago
  That's good to know! Makes me feel a bit better. We do have a bidet but it's a toilet seat bidet so we may need to rethink our system.
  - gazook89 8mo ago
    It won’t ALWAYS be nice little rollers. And it depends on diet. Right now with 1 year old it’s a lot of smears but with a good shake they peel off and into the toilet, sometimes helped with the spray wand. We also use a cheap synthetic fleece cloth liner, too. We just got a couple yards of it from fabric store and cut it into strips. The poop mostly hits that, and since it’s synthetic it slides off well.
    - abustamam 8mo ago
      That's a good suggestion!
josh_p 8mo ago
We tried with "hybrid" diapers for all three of our kids, a cloth shell with a disposable liner. They worked, but they're still a lot of extra work. We always kept disposables on hand for when we couldn't keep up. Our second and third kids are twins (2 for 1!!) and that was a lot harder to keep up with. And I ran into problems where I didn't set the diaper right and they would leak overnight, making more work. We had to give up on cloth just to stay sane. I guess my point is, yes, try it if you're able to. But also when you've got a new baby, do what you gotta do for your health, physical and mental, so you can take care of your family.
- abustamam 8mo ago
  Yep, absolutely! Everyone's situation is different, and I'm not gonna be on a high horse and tell people to think of the environment or their wallets. It's hard to think of the environment when you're dealing with literal shit in your house. Twins... God bless you
  - josh_p 8mo ago
    thanks, mate! and you as well :D I love having kids, lot of work and all that. but it's the best thing I've done with my life so far.
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 8mo ago
We did cloth the entire time (G Diapers, not sure if they're still around). It was a cloth shell with cloth liners. Worked fine.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
caminante 8mo ago
I submit the cost benefit is closer to neutral with extra washer cycles, setup costs, labor, friction while travelling... This is probably better ROI than "breastfeeding saves money" when formula is so cheap and you avoid pumping, washing, and labor while exhausted.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- lukas099 8mo ago
  Exclusive breastfeeding (not bottle feeding breastmilk) is less labor than formula. The problem is potential discomfort, and inability for both parents to split the labor more equally.
  - caminante 8mo ago
    You raise a good distinction with exclusive breastfeeding and no bottle. That assumes -Always available to breastfeed - mom doesn't work (or at least has tremendous flexibility) -and doesn't need to pump Those are overly idealistic to me and impose overhead costs.
  - tshaddox 8mo ago
    “Potential discomfort” undersells it.
    - bombcar 8mo ago
      Spending the time to get the baby to really latch correctly is well worth it, if my wife's experience is anything to go by.
- abustamam 8mo ago
  I'm not sure where you live but formula is not cheap here. We use disposables while traveling. It's just easier.
  - 8mo ago
gus_massa 8mo ago
That's like $3 per day (a coffee). Most diapers only get pee, but cloth diaper are more difficult to use, let's add 2 extra minutes, 4 or 5 times per day. No solids means "not hard rock solids", they still make a nasty stinky brown paste. Hopefully only once per day. But that diaper MUST be partialy hand-washed, don't put it as is in the washing machine. At least a partial hand wash and then go with the rest to the washing machine. This is like an additional 5 or 10 minutes. So it's like half an hour of extra sleep for $3, and when you have small kids sleep time is never enough.
- vjvjvjvjghv 8mo ago
  “ That's like $3 per day (a coffee).” Or $1000 per year? That little coffee a day already pays for a vacation flight.
  - anonym29 8mo ago
    Assuming cloth diapers cost an extra 10 minutes a day, the time savings of disposable diapers are "worth" 60 hours a year. What do you value more - $1000 or 60 hours of your time?
    - gus_massa 8mo ago
      I's estimating like 30 minutes per day. It's not only the time to change them, also wash, dry, fold, store. Each part adds like 1 or 2 minutes for all the diapers, in particular folding can't be done in bulk. Probably wash the diapers with shit twice once to remove most of it manually (+ 1 or 2 minute) and one in the washing machine. The 10 minutes go away too fast. An I remember my mother talking about boiling or blenching the diapers, add like 15 or 20 minutes 2 or 3 times per week (that's like 5 minutes per day). And I may be missing other hidden time sinks.
      - abustamam 8mo ago
        YMMV but we usually fold diapers while watching TV or during Zoom meetings or whatever. It does take time, but it's not like we'd magically get more sleep if we used disposable diapers, since we usually sleep at a predefined time and wake whenever the little one wakes us. Maybe we get a few more minutes to watch TV or whatever. Not a huge deal IMO. But again, YMMV. If it doesn't work for your lifestyle, it doesn't work! Nothing wrong with it. My comment is merely for folks to not knock if before they try it. We certainly wouldn't have if someone didn't gift us a pack.
kannanvijayan 8mo ago
We used cloth diapers for our son for about 8 months, and then it just got to be too much of a hectic nightmare washing the poop cloths between work and other issues. So we did disposables for about two years. We were having a hard time getting him trained off of the diapers, until one day we just decided to follow some advice we'd heard and took them off and let him go diaperless on the floors (thankfully wooden).. and he trained in a couple days. Just thought I'd pass along the one training suggestion I have. Cloth or disposable.. when you're ready for them to move off it - it really helps if they're able to see and associate their bowel and bladder movements with the physical artifacts. I suspect it helps it click faster that yes, "this is the stuff that needs to go into the potty and not pooling around my legs in a clammy cold puddle".
- apexalpha 8mo ago
  >Just thought I'd pass along the one training suggestion I have. Cloth or disposable.. when you're ready for them to move off it - it really helps if they're able to see and associate their bowel and bladder movements with the physical artifacts. Cloth diapers help a lot with this. It's one of the reasons kids on cloth diapers are usually much earlier trained. Modern diapers are so good there's essentially no feedback.
  - kannanvijayan 8mo ago
    That's why we started with cloth. We just didn't have the tenacity to pull through and gave in within a year. I agree that the modern diaper is so good that it effectively disconnects the feeling of evacuation from the consequence of it. I think the other thing kids pick up on when you're mopping up their floor leavings is the grossness aspect, which is a bit more learned. They see you grimacing every time you touch it - they see you taking care to ensure that it doesn't get on other parts of your body. Toddlers watch body language and reactions a lot to understand how they should relate to things.
- abustamam 8mo ago
  > let him go diaperless on the floors (thankfully wooden).. and he trained in a couple days. This terrifies me! We have carpets. Some tile, but also some carpets. I guess it's not too different from when the cats have an "accident" though, just bigger messes.
jswelker 8mo ago
That math does not match my math with my kids. Does that factor in the price of water and electricity and detergent? And are you comparing to store brand diapers or the luxury name brand ones? The price difference is literally 5x for some sizes.
- abustamam 8mo ago
  I haven't run the numbers that deeply.
- bombcar 8mo ago
  Every time I get tempted to try it the $20 gift card at Target keeps pulling me back in.
thatfrenchguy 8mo ago
Hard to say how much money you’ve saved because running the washer and dryer is not free though :)
- abustamam 8mo ago
  This is true! Hard to gauge how much we spend there.
beAbU 8mo ago
What's the unit cost of a nappy in your area? Here it's like €0.05 each, so monthly maybe €50 max incl wipes. I'll have to actually measure how much we use in a day though.
- magicalhippo 8mo ago
  I was surprised by the price as well. We go through about 4-5 packs of disposable diapers per month for our 6mo, fewer when the kid was younger (more diapers per pack). Each pack costs $8 for the fancy kind[1] which we get, so that's just around $40 a month currently. This includes 25% VAT. However there's a two-for-one at my local stores, so in reality we pay more like $20. [1]: https://www.libero.com/product/touch-open-diaper/touch-4-open-diaper/ https://www.libero.com/product/touch-open-diaper/touch-4-ope...
- abustamam 8mo ago
  Here at Costco (where you can get stuff in bulk and items are usually cheaper per unit) it's about $0.20 per nappy which is about €0.18 if I'm doing my conversions correctly. We go through maybe 5-6 a day for our 6 month old. The number I was comparing was probably when she was newborn and going through 10+ diapers a day and requiring multiple diapers per change because she'd pee or poo on her new diaper while changing her. We've been using cloth diapers since she was 1 month old. We do keep some disposables on hand when traveling and just in case we forgot to do laundry or whatever, but I think we've maybe just used 3 or 4 in the past 5 months.

Forgeties79 8mo ago

Looking back my wife and I have said that we could probably have done cloth diapers during the breast-feeding phase but man… Definitely not with solid foods. I don’t know how people did it. Like yes of course if we didn’t have an option we would do it, but with disposable diapers right there… There’s no way I’m ever choosing cloth diapers and solid foods lol

jonhohle 8mo ago
I never thought solid was too bad, if it was solid. We had a sprayer on the toilet and typically everything would spray right off. There are worse kid messes that I’ve had to deal with (and >10 years later, still do). At least one of my kids would get bad diaper rash, though, in cloth. We had to make sure the were constantly checked and changed even when it wasn’t obvious.
- Forgeties79 8mo ago
  > if it was solid Big if lol but yes agreed otherwise!
bloomingeek 8mo ago
Indeed, we tried it back in the early 80's. When they started on solid foods, it was simply terrible and unsanitary. With our first child we had to use a laundromat, they almost banned us. With our second, we had a own washer and we banned ourselves!

gazook89 8mo ago

My experience with two kids is that solids are easier. With good diet, the poop has a good chance of just being a “roll off” and into the toilet. Get a spray wand/ hand held bidet attachment for toilet to help rinse it off before it goes in wash.

abustamam 8mo ago
That's good to know! Makes me feel a bit better. We do have a bidet but it's a toilet seat bidet so we may need to rethink our system.
- gazook89 8mo ago
  It won’t ALWAYS be nice little rollers. And it depends on diet. Right now with 1 year old it’s a lot of smears but with a good shake they peel off and into the toilet, sometimes helped with the spray wand. We also use a cheap synthetic fleece cloth liner, too. We just got a couple yards of it from fabric store and cut it into strips. The poop mostly hits that, and since it’s synthetic it slides off well.
  - abustamam 8mo ago
    That's a good suggestion!

josh_p 8mo ago

We tried with "hybrid" diapers for all three of our kids, a cloth shell with a disposable liner. They worked, but they're still a lot of extra work. We always kept disposables on hand for when we couldn't keep up. Our second and third kids are twins (2 for 1!!) and that was a lot harder to keep up with. And I ran into problems where I didn't set the diaper right and they would leak overnight, making more work. We had to give up on cloth just to stay sane. I guess my point is, yes, try it if you're able to. But also when you've got a new baby, do what you gotta do for your health, physical and mental, so you can take care of your family.

abustamam 8mo ago
Yep, absolutely! Everyone's situation is different, and I'm not gonna be on a high horse and tell people to think of the environment or their wallets. It's hard to think of the environment when you're dealing with literal shit in your house. Twins... God bless you
- josh_p 8mo ago
  thanks, mate! and you as well :D I love having kids, lot of work and all that. but it's the best thing I've done with my life so far.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 8mo ago

We did cloth the entire time (G Diapers, not sure if they're still around). It was a cloth shell with cloth liners. Worked fine.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

caminante 8mo ago

I submit the cost benefit is closer to neutral with extra washer cycles, setup costs, labor, friction while travelling... This is probably better ROI than "breastfeeding saves money" when formula is so cheap and you avoid pumping, washing, and labor while exhausted.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
lukas099 8mo ago
Exclusive breastfeeding (not bottle feeding breastmilk) is less labor than formula. The problem is potential discomfort, and inability for both parents to split the labor more equally.
- caminante 8mo ago
  You raise a good distinction with exclusive breastfeeding and no bottle. That assumes -Always available to breastfeed - mom doesn't work (or at least has tremendous flexibility) -and doesn't need to pump Those are overly idealistic to me and impose overhead costs.
- tshaddox 8mo ago
  “Potential discomfort” undersells it.
  - bombcar 8mo ago
    Spending the time to get the baby to really latch correctly is well worth it, if my wife's experience is anything to go by.
abustamam 8mo ago
I'm not sure where you live but formula is not cheap here. We use disposables while traveling. It's just easier.
- 8mo ago

gus_massa 8mo ago

That's like $3 per day (a coffee). Most diapers only get pee, but cloth diaper are more difficult to use, let's add 2 extra minutes, 4 or 5 times per day. No solids means "not hard rock solids", they still make a nasty stinky brown paste. Hopefully only once per day. But that diaper MUST be partialy hand-washed, don't put it as is in the washing machine. At least a partial hand wash and then go with the rest to the washing machine. This is like an additional 5 or 10 minutes. So it's like half an hour of extra sleep for $3, and when you have small kids sleep time is never enough.

vjvjvjvjghv 8mo ago
“ That's like $3 per day (a coffee).” Or $1000 per year? That little coffee a day already pays for a vacation flight.
- anonym29 8mo ago
  Assuming cloth diapers cost an extra 10 minutes a day, the time savings of disposable diapers are "worth" 60 hours a year. What do you value more - $1000 or 60 hours of your time?
  - gus_massa 8mo ago
    I's estimating like 30 minutes per day. It's not only the time to change them, also wash, dry, fold, store. Each part adds like 1 or 2 minutes for all the diapers, in particular folding can't be done in bulk. Probably wash the diapers with shit twice once to remove most of it manually (+ 1 or 2 minute) and one in the washing machine. The 10 minutes go away too fast. An I remember my mother talking about boiling or blenching the diapers, add like 15 or 20 minutes 2 or 3 times per week (that's like 5 minutes per day). And I may be missing other hidden time sinks.
    - abustamam 8mo ago
      YMMV but we usually fold diapers while watching TV or during Zoom meetings or whatever. It does take time, but it's not like we'd magically get more sleep if we used disposable diapers, since we usually sleep at a predefined time and wake whenever the little one wakes us. Maybe we get a few more minutes to watch TV or whatever. Not a huge deal IMO. But again, YMMV. If it doesn't work for your lifestyle, it doesn't work! Nothing wrong with it. My comment is merely for folks to not knock if before they try it. We certainly wouldn't have if someone didn't gift us a pack.

kannanvijayan 8mo ago

We used cloth diapers for our son for about 8 months, and then it just got to be too much of a hectic nightmare washing the poop cloths between work and other issues. So we did disposables for about two years. We were having a hard time getting him trained off of the diapers, until one day we just decided to follow some advice we'd heard and took them off and let him go diaperless on the floors (thankfully wooden).. and he trained in a couple days. Just thought I'd pass along the one training suggestion I have. Cloth or disposable.. when you're ready for them to move off it - it really helps if they're able to see and associate their bowel and bladder movements with the physical artifacts. I suspect it helps it click faster that yes, "this is the stuff that needs to go into the potty and not pooling around my legs in a clammy cold puddle".

apexalpha 8mo ago
>Just thought I'd pass along the one training suggestion I have. Cloth or disposable.. when you're ready for them to move off it - it really helps if they're able to see and associate their bowel and bladder movements with the physical artifacts. Cloth diapers help a lot with this. It's one of the reasons kids on cloth diapers are usually much earlier trained. Modern diapers are so good there's essentially no feedback.
- kannanvijayan 8mo ago
  That's why we started with cloth. We just didn't have the tenacity to pull through and gave in within a year. I agree that the modern diaper is so good that it effectively disconnects the feeling of evacuation from the consequence of it. I think the other thing kids pick up on when you're mopping up their floor leavings is the grossness aspect, which is a bit more learned. They see you grimacing every time you touch it - they see you taking care to ensure that it doesn't get on other parts of your body. Toddlers watch body language and reactions a lot to understand how they should relate to things.
abustamam 8mo ago
> let him go diaperless on the floors (thankfully wooden).. and he trained in a couple days. This terrifies me! We have carpets. Some tile, but also some carpets. I guess it's not too different from when the cats have an "accident" though, just bigger messes.

jswelker 8mo ago

That math does not match my math with my kids. Does that factor in the price of water and electricity and detergent? And are you comparing to store brand diapers or the luxury name brand ones? The price difference is literally 5x for some sizes.

abustamam 8mo ago
I haven't run the numbers that deeply.
bombcar 8mo ago
Every time I get tempted to try it the $20 gift card at Target keeps pulling me back in.

thatfrenchguy 8mo ago

Hard to say how much money you’ve saved because running the washer and dryer is not free though :)

abustamam 8mo ago
This is true! Hard to gauge how much we spend there.

beAbU 8mo ago

What's the unit cost of a nappy in your area? Here it's like €0.05 each, so monthly maybe €50 max incl wipes. I'll have to actually measure how much we use in a day though.

magicalhippo 8mo ago
I was surprised by the price as well. We go through about 4-5 packs of disposable diapers per month for our 6mo, fewer when the kid was younger (more diapers per pack). Each pack costs $8 for the fancy kind[1] which we get, so that's just around $40 a month currently. This includes 25% VAT. However there's a two-for-one at my local stores, so in reality we pay more like $20. [1]: https://www.libero.com/product/touch-open-diaper/touch-4-open-diaper/ https://www.libero.com/product/touch-open-diaper/touch-4-ope...
abustamam 8mo ago
Here at Costco (where you can get stuff in bulk and items are usually cheaper per unit) it's about $0.20 per nappy which is about €0.18 if I'm doing my conversions correctly. We go through maybe 5-6 a day for our 6 month old. The number I was comparing was probably when she was newborn and going through 10+ diapers a day and requiring multiple diapers per change because she'd pee or poo on her new diaper while changing her. We've been using cloth diapers since she was 1 month old. We do keep some disposables on hand when traveling and just in case we forgot to do laundry or whatever, but I think we've maybe just used 3 or 4 in the past 5 months.