True or False: The Truth About Cloth Diapers

True or False: The Truth About Cloth Diapers

This post contains affiliate links.

Have you seen the look? You know, the look. The look of sheer horror when someone discovers you use cloth diapers? I’m not talking about the look of “oh my goodness we just became BFFs” when you tell this tidbit of information to a new found cloth diapering mama. No no. I’m talking about the look you get when someone who has never seen a modern cloth diaper finds out you use cloth. I think the best version of this look was thrown at me by a flight attendant on a West Jet flight back in August of 2015. She was giving us the low down on flying with an infant (even though we’d done it multiple times before), and then she pulled out this plastic bag and asked me to put any dirty diapers into it before we threw them in the garbage. I said, “I don’t need that, we use cloth diapers.” I’ve never seen so much confusion and horror flash across someone’s face in an instant like that. I get it. She’d probably never seen a modern cloth diaper, and yet she probably had all kinds of assumptions about them. She probably had a lot of the same assumptions about cloth diapers that my own relatives had before they saw our diapers in action. Not only did people tell me that they’d placed bets with their child-free friends about how long we’d last using cloth diapers, but they also told me all the reasons that cloth diapering was “choosing the wrong path”. I kid you not. I’ve decided it’s high time I write up a post with the most common assumptions non-cloth diaperers have about cloth diapering, and reveal the hard truth about cloth diapers. 

 

True or False: The Truth About Cloth Diapers
Does your house smell like poop?

1. “Your house is going to smell like poop.”

True or False: False. Yes. Someone told me that if I cloth diapered my baby that my house would smell like poop. Let’s get a few things straight about poop. First, if your baby is exclusively breastfed (EBF) their poop doesn’t stink. I know this is incredibly hard to believe, but anyone that’s had a newborn baby knows this to be true (even Obama agrees). But the assumption that because I use cloth diapers to catch my child’s poop means my house will smell like poop is completely false. You see, there’s a little something called a toilet, and my understanding is that there’s at least one in most homes these days. Once your child’s poop actually starts to smell (ie. when they start solid food), it goes in the toilet and is flushed away. (In case you didn’t know, this is actually something you’re supposed to do whether you use cloth or disposable diapers.) So we don’t actually have a whole lot of smelly poop just hanging around the house. I mentioned this assumption to a good friend of mine who uses disposable diapers for her children, and she looked at me with an eyebrow raised and said, “Umm, no. I’ve been to your house and it does not smell like poop.” There you have it.

2. “You’ll have buckets of gross diapers soaking all over the house.” 

True or False: False. Soaking modern cloth diapers in anything (even just plain water) is not recommended at all. First, having buckets or tubs of soaking diapers anywhere in your house is a potential drowning hazard with littles running around. Second, soaking diapers can actually do more harm than good. It’s especially hard on the elastics of modern cloth diapers to leave them soaking for any significant length of time and can result in drastically reducing the longevity of your diapers. It’s also a perfect breeding ground for bacteria. The longer you soak diapers, the more bacteria there will be, and the more stinky your diapers will get. There’s absolutely no need to soak your cloth diapers as part of your normal washing routine. Washing machines (yes, even HE front loaders) clean diapers just fine without any additional soaking.

True or False: The Truth About Cloth Diapers
No soaking required with modern cloth diapers!

3. “The special detergent will be so expensive.” 

True or False: False. Well, technically yes, those “cloth safe” detergents can be quite pricey, BUT you don’t have to use them (and in all honesty, I don’t think you should use them). Did you know that almost any mainstream detergent without built in fabric softener is safe to use on your cloth diapers? It’s true. In fact, I use Tide Original HE powder, and I use that same detergent for all the laundry I do. There’s no need to spend tons of money on specialty detergents. The odds are good that whatever you use on your regular clothing will work well on your diapers! (If you’d like some tips on choosing a detergent for your cloth diapers, check this out.)

True or False: The Truth About Cloth Diapers

4. “Your utility bills will skyrocket from all that extra laundry.” 

True or False: False. I wondered about this too. Adding an extra load of laundry every three to four days would surely drive the cost of my utility bill up, no? So I did some math and the results surprised even me! It turns out that the increase to my utilities is actually really minimal (averages out to less than $3 more/month).

5. “I hate doing laundry, it takes too much time. You’ll be doing laundry ALL THE TIME.” 

True or False: False. Do you take your laundry down to the river and pound it on the rocks for hours on end when you need to do your laundry? No? Me neither. There’s this lovely appliance called a washing machine. Believe it or not, it does all the work for you! Once every three to four days, I dump the dirty diapers in the machine, press a few buttons, and then I walk away. I spend less hands on time washing cloth diapers than the time it would take me to drive to the store, walk to the disposable diaper aisle, line up to pay, and drive home. As a bonus, I spend exactly no time scouring flyers (or the internet) for the best prices on disposable diapers.

True or False: The Truth About Cloth Diapers
These are most definitely not the tools I use to wash cloth diapers.

6. “You’re going to be touching poop.” 

True or False: True. But guess what? If you’re a parent, you’re going to be touching poop whether you use cloth or disposable diapers. It’s just a fact of life with a baby. Babies poop a lot. Sometimes they don’t wait until the clean diaper is on before they start pooping. Sometimes you step out of the way in time and it misses you (but hits the wall/floor/your partner), sometimes your sleep deprived self doesn’t move fast enough and it ends up on you. Other times the poop is so incredibly massive that there’s no way those wipes are going to spare your hands from poop. Yes, I’ve touched poop, but I’d hazard a guess that there isn’t a parent out there who hasn’t. Although I do have to remove non-EBF poop from a cloth diaper, there are plenty of non-poop touching ways to go about doing that. My favourite method is the Spray Pal diaper sprayer and shield method, and then once poop is solid it literally rolls/shakes right off the diaper with no poop touching required.

True or False: The Truth About Cloth Diapers

7. “Cloth diapers leak!” 

True or False: False. Cloth diapers are actually pretty leak proof. Yes they need to be changed more frequently than disposable diapers, but I don’t consider that a bad thing. Would you like to spend five or more hours sitting in your own urine? I know I don’t, so I can say with certainty that my kids wouldn’t want to either. The only exception to that is overnight. Yes, we use cloth diapers overnight, and yes they last a solid 12 hours without leaking. Cloth diapers should be changed every 2-3 hours during the day, and some diapers will last a solid 4 hours before needing to be changed. Of course, if baby poops the diaper gets changed right away. To go back to the whole touching poop thing, there’s one thing that rarely (if ever) leaks out of a cloth diaper. It’s poop. Even runny, humungous EBF poops. Even runny, humungous baby’s not feeling well poops. A poopsplosion in a cloth diaper is a very rare phenomena and is usually the result of user error rather than diaper failure. Yes, you’ll have edge to edge to edge poops, but the elastics in cloth diapers do a beautiful job of containing even the largest of messes (even when they happen in the jumperoo). From my experience with disposable diapers, the same cannot be said about them. When we were using a combination of cloth and disposable diapers in the early days with The Heir and Petit Prince, we had multiple poopsplosions out of the disposables. The most common were the up the back poopsplosions where the disposable diaper seemed completely incapable of containing the poop, but I’ve seen poopsplosions out the legs too. A friend of mine reported a poopslosion that went out the legs, down to baby’s feet in their sleeper. How much poop do you think those parents touched trying to clean that one up?

8. “Cloth diapers stain and look dirty.” 

True or False: True. Yes it’s true. Stains are a very real thing with cloth diapers. An effective wash routine can definitely minimize stains, but that gold EBF poop is particularly staining (which you’ll know if you’ve ever tried to wash it out of baby’s clothing after a poopsplosion). Stains don’t mean the diapers aren’t clean, but they definitely can make the inside of a diaper look kind of gross. The good news is that stains can be sunned out quite easily (even through a window), and over time they will wash out. In fact, Petit Prince’s diapers are almost all stain-free and I rarely bother to sun out stains; they just end up coming out in the wash over time on their own.

True or False: The Truth About Cloth Diapers
“How will I ever learn how to put this diaper on my grandchild?” said no grandparent ever.

9. “Cloth diapers are too hard to put on. Dad/Grandma/Babysitter won’t be able to do it.” 

True or False: False. Yes there absolutely is a learning curve to getting a cloth diaper put on correctly. Yes they go on differently than disposable diapers (I will be addressing this in another post soon, promise). However, it’s not rocket science. It’s actually quite simple once you get the hang of it. King Dad does diaper changes around here too, and he has no trouble getting the diapers on just right. He’s mastered both snap closures and velcro closures, and can put on any of the brands of diaper in my stash (no, hip snaps don’t throw him off). The same can be said for grandma. I’ve shown the grandparents how to put on a cloth diaper, and they’ve done it just fine each time. I think we often don’t give the people in our lives enough credit. It’s a diaper.

10. “You’ll never be able to leave the house if you have to carry dirty diapers around everywhere you go!” 

True or False: False. With disposable diapers, you just toss the soiled ones in the garbage when they come off the bum. It doesn’t matter where you are, you can just toss it in the trash and be done with it. It’s true that with cloth diapers you will have to transport soiled diapers around in your diaper bag when you’re out. That most definitely doesn’t mean you can’t leave the house! It also doesn’t mean you’ll be trailed by the stink of poop all day if you’re carting dirty diapers around with you. For cloth diapering on the go, there are travel size wet bags for containing soiled diapers. Not all wet bags are created equal, but my favourite brands not only hold in moisture so the rest of your diaper bag doesn’t get damp, but they also hold in any stink really well. When I’m on the go, I tend to end up doing diaper changes in bathrooms anyway, so if there is a solid poop in the diaper I can simply drop the poop in the toilet, place the diaper in the wet bag, and away we go. However, there are times when I’m changing baby on the grass in a park or in the trunk of the car. If there’s a poop in that diaper, it’s getting folded and rolled up in the cloth diaper, and tossed into the wet bag to be dealt with at home. To me, it’s no big deal. With a good wet bag, there’s absolutely no stink escaping so no one will even know you’re carrying around a dirty diaper. My favourite travel wet bags are made by Funky Fluff and Planet Wise, both are available at Lagoon Baby in Canada and Nicki’s Diapers in the USA.

True or False: The Truth About Cloth Diapers
My favourite wet bags from Funky Fluff and Planet Wise.

11. “Cloth diapers are too expensive.” 

True or False: False. The up front cost of cloth diapers is definitely higher than the up front cost of disposables. With disposables you buy enough to get you through the first few weeks or month, and then continue to purchase them as you run out. With cloth diapers, you’re buying enough diapers for your baby to use from birth through potty training all at once. Depending on the type of cloth diapers you’re going to use on your baby, the cost can range from under $250 for a full stash of prefolds and covers to $650-750 for a full stash of premium brand all-in-one diapers. Yes that seems like a lot of money when a pack of disposables costs less than $30, but keep in mind that that $250-$750 will diaper baby right through potty training. Plan to have more than one child? Those same diapers can be used on subsequent children, so your cost of diapering second or third babies is almost nothing! Meanwhile, with disposables you’re spending $30-50/month per child until they’re potty trained. Then there’s the resale value. You can’t sell used disposable diapers, but you can sell previously loved cloth diapers! It’s not unheard of to sell your used cloth diaper stash for 30-50% of their original value (or even more if they’re especially well taken care of). So that $250-$750 initial investment easily becomes just a $125-$375 total investment to diaper two or more children. Not too shabby.

What assumptions have people in your life made about what it’s like to use cloth diapers? Have you run into any objections from your friends or family? I want to hear all about it!

TheMonarchMommy.com

The Monarch Mommy Top Mommy Blog

81 Comments on “True or False: The Truth About Cloth Diapers

  1. One of my friends won’t CD because she doesn’t like the shape that it gives babies. Which to me is a pretty weak (and odd) argument- and I have told her that she could use sized diapers to get rid of that “problem”. She also believes that all babies who are CD battle yeast diaper rashes (despite the fact that we never had an issue with that). Some people will come up with any excuse in the book to not CD apparently! I know CD isn’t for everyone and I’d never try to convince anyone to do it who clearly doesn’t want to, but the myths do drive me crazy sometimes.

    • Yeast? Babies in disposables get yeast rashes too. It’s all about whether the child is prone to yeast or not. Neither of mine have ever had a yeast rash either.

  2. I consider cloth diapering but because I was totally clueless, I was a bit overwhelmed. This information would have been so helpful then!

  3. Love this! Showed it to my mom and gained more support for my decision to CD!

  4. LOL wow people actually say those things? My husband and I looked at each other the other day and said with our second child we are DEFINITELY using cloth diapers.

  5. Today is my first day cloth diapering my son and sadly I believe many of the negative myths about cloth diapering. I’m very glad I’m doing it now.

  6. Oh how funny. The pictures make me smile (or it’s the lack of sleep) …

  7. This is a really well written article! It’s true that people have a lot to say about cloth. We didn’t say much about it ahead of time, and people found out along the way. It is dissapointing when people have tried the really inexpensive poorly made diapers that seem to circulate around the BST’s, and they complain about the bulk and leaks and stink; but it’s like anything else, if you buy the cheapest product available, you should not expect it to perform like a quality product should!

  8. I don’t understand why, with the Internet at their fingertips, people choose to remain ignorant about things they make automatic assumptions and judgments about. If you’re going to fee that strongly about something, maybe at least read a little about it first!

  9. I mostly get comments like I’m some kind of super mom for using cloth. I think they think it’s super hard and time consuming.

  10. I definitely had more leaks than I would have with disposables…. But I was still learning AND I didn’t change often enough. Overnight was a struggle at first until I found the right diapers.

    I think one downside (even though I love CD’ing and HIGHLY recommend it) – is the learning curve. If I hadn’t done soooooooo much reading, I may have given up!

  11. Pretty much all false or unimportant trues. I do indeed do a lot of laundry. But that’s not the diaper’s fault. Again, i touch plenty of poo. But I doubt I’d escape that fate with ‘sposies– at least now i touch it as I spray it into the toilet, not as I try to get my daughter’s clothing off.

  12. This is great at dispelling the myths! I think most people will just have 1 excuse after the other if it’s something they don’t agree with. Sometimes you just have to walk away.

  13. nt believe how ignorant some people still are concerning modern cloth diapers…or anything for that matter. #1 there is the internet so really most rumors can be put to rest easily with google. #2 A lot of these things people say just dont make sense, “really you are not already doing laundry, come on now you throw it in and leave it, it isn’t like the good old days with a board and bucket!) and finally #3 if these people think that the wont be seeing poo touching poo and smelling poo all the time , than perhaps having a baby isn’t for them! LOL
    I saw more, smelled more and, most importantly had to clean up MORE POO WITH DISPOSABLES on my first than I ever did with my second in cloth.

  14. I’m so glad my family was on board with my cloth diapering. Even my granny told me how she cloth diapered 8 children, and washed with tide! Thank you for sharing.

  15. I love this so much! I get lots of these comments, I need to save this article and just sent to people when they make those comments

  16. I love doing cloth! So many people, even family, thought (and still think) i’m crazy for doing it but it’s really not that bad! Stuffing diapers is relaxing, I enjoy it! I wash once or twice a week (same as regular laundry). Not so bad! Worst part is poo and you get over that quickly..its just poo!

  17. We’ve got the look from my mi when we made the switch to cloth 4 months ago and she still doesn’t want to change my kids diapers cause they are in cloth but I really don’t care what other people think! I love them

  18. I always find it interesting when people say using cloth diapers are “too much work”. Is an extra load of laundry more work than rushing out in the middle of the night for more diapers? I’ve been there! Anyone who says they will hate it because of laundry has no idea how cathartic folding diapers really is. Great article!

  19. Love this cloth is not a popular choice where I live.I have heard every excuse in the book why people won’t even consider it.Yet they are on local group looking for free disposable diapers.

  20. I just had my first experience with this the other day! I was told I needed to change my son’s diaper because it was bulky (as disposables get larger when soaked), I nicely explained we use cloth diapers, and I had just changed him, so he’s good. The look on the lady’s face (complete stranger too) was horrified disgust and asked, “what, havent you heard of Pampers??”. When I told her they are actually much cheaper and all around better than Pampers, she clearly didn’t believe me until hubby jumped in and confirmed what I said. She had in mind the old style rubber pants that didn’t breathe, and was amazed after learning about how much cloth has improved since then.

  21. I’ve heard most of those too. Actually the only thing that stopped us from Cloth diapering from the beginning was the washing cost. We used my grandma’s once a week for our clothes (it’s old and would not be efficient) and our apartment’s washer dryer price was outrageous. I’m glad we finally got over most of those.

  22. Preach! Yes please and thank you. Awesome post, I even learned some new things to tell other people when they’re on the fence about clog diapers.

  23. This is a great article to share with my friends who are skeptical about cloth diapers.

  24. Oh my gosh this is so true. When our churches first realized my husband and I CD they had 4 different people trying to figure out how to change our daughters diaper! Not kidding they couldn’t ask hubby who was preaching and I was gone! I have had parishioners tell me they can’t handle it because it’s too much work. Others have told me that the cloth diaper they tried didn’t work the one time they tried it and they threw it out because there was poop everywhere!!!!! And I have been asked now that I am having twins and plan to cd again from the day we bring them home “Can’t you just use pampers for 3 months….well maybe only on the Sunday’s they are here” no not an option. Tried disposables with my daughter when our washer was broke and I had to go back to cloth because she got such a bad rash from her disposables. Will only have cloth on the twins!

  25. My house smelled like poop when I used disposables! After switching to CD my house smells wonderful!

  26. The most common comment that I’ve received is “I don’t have time .” Or, “They’re too much work”. I am a homeschooling Mama. I own and manage multiple properties. I ferment, can, preserve,dehydrate, and make or bake everything from scratch. I used disposables part time with my first son and had much more laundry. In my experience, disposables never held enough for naps or overnight.So disposables for my son meant I had to wash all of his bedding after every nap and every morning.I also had way too many changes of clothing due to blowouts.I use 100% cloth with my second and we always have dry sheets.The only exception would be when we had some worn out covers that were purchased as seconds or second hand.I did have a couple of poop leaks because of user error, nothing compared to 6 outfit changes a day with my first during the 6 month? stage.

  27. Oh my gosh! I thought I was the only one who recieved these kind of comments lol thankfully I found some friends that are all about that cloth and we can chat diapers all day!

  28. I used disposables for my first bee and have switched to cloth for my second. Loving the decision!! There is so much truth in this article!

  29. It is humorous to read these as a new to cloth mom. I still get a lot if these comments when I tell friends and family we switched to cloth!

  30. To this day my family had the assumptions that cloth diapering still meant pins near my baby and leaky cloths. While they are amazed how far modern cloth has come they still have their reservations. My husband and I have fallen in love with cloth and wouldn’t have it any other way for our fourth child. Plus the fact that they are cute and adorable does make it an added bonus, especially having our first baby girl after three boys.

  31. I love cloth diapering and don’t hesitate to encourage everyone I know to try it! This is a great post to direct people to if they are unsure about it. My biggest argument for trying it is the lack of poop explosions. We literally had zero blowouts with my daughter the entire time we cloth diapered with her (2 years)!

  32. Can totally relate to all these comments people make when finding out I switched to cloth.

  33. I love cloth diapering! I’ll admit that a few years ago I would have given you a look of horror if you would have told me you cloth diapered. In fact I gave it to the friend who told me about them. I like most people I assumed that she was talking about prefolds, pins and rubber pants. I’m so glad she told me about modern cloth diapering! I even got my sister to cloth diaper 🙂

  34. I love this post!! So familiar with “the look of horror” when I tell people I’m going to cloth. They assume because I’m a FTM that I have no idea what I’m in for, and I don’t, really, but I know it’s not rubber pants, diaper pins, and wet pails!! 😛

  35. I get so many of these comments all the time when people find out I switched to cloth at 10 months. I loved this blog post and can’t wait to read more!

  36. Great article! Dispelling myths with truth & humour – I love it!!

  37. I’ve actually been very fortunate to have friends and family totally support my decision to cloth diaper. My MIL has a hard time working the AIO diaper so she buys disposables for when my kids are at her house. At first it annoyed me but then I figured it’s what works for her and it’s not that often anyway.

  38. Great article, Thank You. I always hear people talk about number 1.

  39. I’m still laughing at “poopsplosion”!!! And it’s true! My master poopers had wayyyy more messes with disposables than the littlest poop master does with cloth.

    I so wish I had started cloth with the older six kiddos. I let the myths and visions of old fashioned cloth diapering deter me.

  40. I still find it funny when new people find out I cloth diaper. They think it takes so much time when the only extra thing to do is wash them and stuff. My husband had bets going that I wouldn’t last 2 months and here I am 5 years later still cloth diapering.

  41. I love using tide detergent on my diapers! They always come out clean!

  42. So true! I’ve frequently heard the “but you’ll be touching poop!” comment so many times. We did disposables for the first 3 months, and boy, did I touch a lot more poop with disposables than with cloth! All of the poop blow outs is disposables led to needing to bathe our baby pretty much every time it happened, because it got everywhereeeeee. Dealing with poop in cloth is SO much easy. And better in every aspect if you ask me 🙂

  43. The one I hate the most is that my husband won’t be able to do it. Hello, I married him and I didn’t pick an idiot.

  44. Lol! Have heard a lot of these comments when I started cloth diapering. Put them aside and I love what I do

  45. Yes! I have received that look! I’m almost reluctant to even say it sometimes! Thanks for this post! It’s reassuring to a momma who gets cold feet sometimes about cloth diapering!

  46. I definitely get this look a lot but the people who matter have grown to accept it ♡♡♡
    Thanks for great article I will definitely be sharing this.

  47. I use modern pocket style cloth diapers with snaps. I typically have to pull a clean one out of my bag to show and explain because I get that look every time! Maybe one day I can convert someone else 🙂

  48. I an having my first baby in August & I will be exclusively cloth diapering. Thanks for the great tips on detergents & washing routines!

    P.S. Funniest/stupidest advice I’ve gotten so far: someone tried to convince me that my baby would walk later in cloth diapers because he wouldn’t feel comfortable moving with so much extra padding! 😛

  49. Many people have told us that we are brave and “Vaillant” (french for hard working) in demeaning ways.

    My husband even got a look of disgust when a lady asked where we got the cute Giraffe print underwear to go over the diaper. When he said it WAS the diaper she looked at him as if he had 3 heads.

  50. My daughter is expecting and I have to admit I am educating myself all over again. This topic has come up cloth vs disposable. I’ll show her this post.

  51. I was actually worried about cloth diapers for many of the reasons! I am SO glad I took the plunge! Now trying to convince my sister to take do it to! Sadly, I know some people that have made cloth diapering look bad because they had a poor wash routine and detergent, they had bad stink. I’m trying to convince her, it’s not all that way!

  52. Love this! I started calling them washable diapers instead of cloth diapers and people don’t look at me so strangely lol.

  53. First I can definitely say that Inwas one of those cloth sceptics when I was having my very first baby, so she didn’t get to wear super cute cloth diapers and struggled with diaper rash and blowouts on the regular because of my lack of knowledge and listening to the naysayers. Since then, I’ve had two more babies and started cloth diapering the second at 5 months old after reoccurring skin burning and bleeding rashes on her. I immediately bought a stash of cloth pockets and inserts and stay dry liners and never again needed to use another diaper cream or barrier and never again had another poopsploshion. The initial reaction of my in laws was hilarious but I just didn’t care or take any of their negativity or doubt to heart because my babies bottom was covered in cuteness and comfort 24/7. When I am around people that I don’t know, especially the older generation who think of cloth diapers as they were were our parents were babies, they give the funniest look as if they are wondering (and some even ask) why on earth I would be crazy enough to do that when things have come so far with disposables. I simply show them just how cute my baby’s fluff butt is and show them a stuffed and ready to go clean diaper that I have in my diaper bag and watch that awkward look turn into a look of thrill from them being proud and jealous that they weren’t like this when they used them. There’s always a mixture of reaction to me about my choice to go completely cloth but I love it and so do my babies. Homemade cloth wipes, homemade wipes solution in fine misting plastic spray bottles, mini zippered wet sacs for storing the wipes and larger ones to store the soiled diapers on the go. I’m so pleased with my cloth experience and the only regret that I have is not doing better research at the beginning so I could have had all three of my littles in cloth full time.

  54. Lol I have to agree with everything you said. However, for my daughter we actually have to change less frequently when using cloth because we use pockets with the stay dry liner and change every 2-3 hours. With sposies she has to be changed so frequently because she doesn’t like feeling wet. Thanks for the chuckle, it’s always great to see what non-cloth diapering people think it’s like.

  55. So true it’s really so easy. I think people would do cloth if they only realized how easy it is.

  56. Very informative and convincing article in favor of cloth diapers.
    Definitely opened my eyes and changed my mind about this option.

    • After reading this, I feel so educated about this baby/earth friendly option and am definitely open minded about using cloth diapers with my next baby!

  57. I’ve used disposables on 3 and cloth on 2 – i touch way less poop, smell less diapers, and enjoy changing diapers with cloth!
    And I think I encountered that same Westjet stewardess, lol.

  58. Tried with my son, diapers were given to me. After 3 days of pee leaks everytime I quit. They were cheap diapers and some have come delaminated. I’ve ordered new ones and waiting on baby #2 to arrive (9 days to due date). I’m so excited to try these again, have newborn samplers and some all in one liners I’ll buy bigger inserts for. I’ll try the hand me downs and if they leak they will become shop rags!

  59. I love the “eww poop” reaction! But news flash you deal with just as much poop in disposables lol 🙂

  60. Great post! We’ve got to show more people what modern cloth diapering is like!

  61. I did get a lot of this from the older women in my church but once I showed them my daughter’s cloth diapers they were like I wish they’d been this nice and easy when our children were young and my mum every expressed that she didn’t think I could do it very long as she had tried the Gerber pre-folds with the pins and plastic diaper covers with me and it didn’t last long at

  62. Our families were pretty accepting of us using cloth, but under no uncertain terms would they use them. I think they would further buy a box of disposables than use the cloth… But for some reason they couldn’t figure out the buckles on the car seats either. It’s literally easier to get the 14 year old babysitter on board than our parents, who I know for a fact had to use pre folds when we were babies. Figure that one out…

  63. I havemt had many troubles at all! Some people scoff at the price for each diaper up front, but then I remind them I buy disposable diapers once every 6 months or so. (I use disposables at night, I don’t feel like messing with the cloth potential leaks and stink from 12+ hours at night ) but really, I LOVE my cloth and I LOVE applecheeks even more!!!

  64. Oh my goodness, I love this article! People were giving me such a hard time about using cloth and I heard all of these assumptions. Luckily I stuck with it,and I am so happy I did!

  65. After using disposables for 2 days in the hospital, one of my husbands first comments was “we can finally use the cloth diapers”. Here I thought he would need convincing.

  66. Thanks for all the great information! I am new to cloth diapering and sometimes feel so lost and question if I’m doing things right.

  67. Love this!! So many people have so many opinions about things they know nothing about!! This is a great breakdown!! Thank you for taking the time for doing this!! <3

  68. I’ll admit it. I was one of those people. I swore I’d never use cloth diapers. I thought it was so gross. I used disposables with my first. Then when I was pregnant with my second, a lady gave me her cloth diaper stash. I was panicking making the decision to switch. But saving money was why I ultimately decided to use cloth diapers. I used the prefolds and covers she gave me. And then I realized, it wasn’t that bad! Why was I making such big fuss about cloth?? I love my cloth diapers! Easy to wash, there really isn’t a smell (I ebf) and they look sooo cute on!

  69. I’ve been cloth diapering since my oldest (now 5 year old) was about a month old and now my third is 10 months old. It’s much easier to wash cloth than deal with trying to get all my kids to the store and then haul a big box of diapers up to the third floor. I’ve gotten new covers for each child and got a new stash of medium prefolds for #3 and it’s still saved a lot of money.

  70. Thank you so much for your post. I am forever grateful. I’m a new (and pretty inexperienced) mom-to-be expecting a baby boy soon. As an environmentally-conscious individual (I try to be!), I have chosen to cloth diaper the baby. My husband fully supports it, and one of his closest friends was a stay-at-home dad who cloth diapered their son and would also recommend it. That’s it on the support, though. I can’t even tell you how many judgy expressions, laughs in my face, the whole “have fun touching poop” statements from everyone else I’ve confessed my plan to. I just sent out my baby shower invites, and so many people replied asking “Why aren’t you doing a diaper raffle?” It started giving me a panic attack. Am I doing the right thing? I don’t know what the hell I am doing. How much money could I have saved by doing a stupid diaper raffle? Am I making the wrong choice? And then I read your blog post. Thank you! I bookmarked it, and might even shove it in a few people’s faces the next time they ask.

  71. Wow !!! This is by far one of the best post about cloth diapers!!!! I’m learning about cloth diapers and finally I feel relieve to get more cloth diapers. I’m saving this post on my social medias for every one to read about cloth diapers. It will be my one item that I will buy for baby showers. Not one but few I will buy for my friends or family members.

  72. greatly written, so easy to share and convert a mama to cloth.

  73. A great list of information to combat the look of horror when people learn you are cloth diapering. When my grandson was 2 weeks old a person from my church point blank asked how the cloth diapering was going & was disappointed when my response was ‘It’s great’! But when we showed a modern cloth diaper to people at a baby shower they were amazed how it’s changed.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *