by Morgan Fedderly
We have all heard the nursery rhyme that claims that little boys are made of frogs, snails and puppy dog tails. This of course, then leads into the claim that all girls are made of sugar, spice, and everything nice.
Stop right there.
I have a baby girl and I can attest to that last statement being totally false. The loads my sweet little baby girl was leaving in her diaper just weeks after coming into this world were anything but nice! The nursery rhyme, it seemed, only applied from the waist up. From the waist down we were battling some pretty significant diaper issues. While Dad was ready to applaud her efforts and throw her a high five (what is it with guys?) I was ready to throw up my hands in defeat upon having to change yet another outfit, ruined after the diapers we were using failed to contain the blow-outs. Ugh. We were at a loss as to what to do, until my sister introduced us to the idea of using cloth diapers.
Cloth diapers? Yes. Cloth diapers. If you have images of safety pins, crunchy plastic covers, and messy white towels dancing through your head, stop right there. Modern cloth diapering is nothing like that. The pins of days past have been replaced with a safe fastener called a Snappi; the covers are now made of many different, breathable fabrics-none of them plastic; and the diapers themselves are not only really efficient and easy to use, they are cute too. Really, really cute.
There are many reasons to make the switch to cloth, but the top ones include:
A) To save money. On average, it will cost about $2000-5500 to diaper a single child in traditional disposables. When it comes to cloth, it is very realistic to invest $350-400 on a cloth diaper package and be set from birth to undies. If you have subsequent children, that savings only compounds.
B) Environmental reasons. Hey, we only have one Earth. Doing our part to preserve it is important. Aside from all the irreplaceable energy and natural resources that are used to make disposable diapers, it takes nearly 500 years for one to decompose. One stinking diaper! Not to mention the waste that gets thrown into the ground. By choosing cloth, you aren’t contributing to the depletion of precious resources, nor are you responsible for adding any more toxins to our landfills. Way to do your part!
C) For the health of it. Babies who are cloth diapered often suffer fewer diaper rashes, and potty train six months to a full year earlier than babies who are in disposable diapers!
And those are just a few of the reasons to make the switch from disposable diapers.