I'll also add that I'm an independent mum, with no affiliation to any political or activist group, and no ties to any company that sells nappies or any baby products. My opinions are my own, independent opinions, having used both cloth and disposable.
Photo: What to look for in a cloth nappy. I think this one is pretty darn good! [Source]
Saving the environment
A lot of mothers choose cloth nappies for environmental reasons. The claim is that cloth uses fewer trees in their creation, has a lower carbon footprint, uses less water, and does not contibute as much to landfill.
The studies are confusing. You can read studies that say cloth is much better, that disposables are better, or that there is no difference.
I think the studies are flawed that suggest there is no difference, or that disposables are better.
The studies that reach these conclusions often assume such ridiculous assumptions as the cloth only being used once, the cloth being washed in hot water in peak electricity period (coal instead of, say, wind energy), and even one nappy being washed per wash, rather than them being bundled and washed together. I mean - who does that? Dumb!
My view is that Blind Freddy can see that a product which is used over and over again is going to be better for the environment than one which is used once, contains all sorts of bleaches and chemicals as well as plastics, does not break down well, and is thrown away after a single use.
Green claims: Some disposable nappies make "green" claims. They are made from post-consumer content and suchlike. Nappes such as these are available in Australia and New Zealand - having been flown halfway around the world from their manufacturing point in Ireland. The carbon miles in specialist products such as these can be enormous.
Disposable options: If you're going to use disposables, try to use a locally-made product to save carbon miles, not something from the other side of the planet. To save the number of disposables you use (and cut resource use) you can try using cheaper, thinner, home brand nappies in the daytime, saving the premium nappies for night time. A lot of mums I know do this, and it works well for them, using the least nappies (and resources) for the disposable option.
Grown where?: While cloth nappies are usually made from non-organic cotton and other fibres grown in such far-off places as Pakistan, as they are a one-off purchase used many times over, the carbon miles per use are of course significantly reduced as to be virtually insignificant. And if local, organic fibres are used, this is not an issue at all.
Personally, I believe that "green" and "disposable" are not words that usually go together, unless you're talking apple cores and banana skins.
The clear winner for the environment: cloth.
Saving money
Cloth is much cheaper. No doubt about it. However, the up-front costs of cloth can be scary, especially when looking at fancy pocket nappies and suchlike, which can retail at $30 per nappy or more.
Sew your own - maybe: This is where (I think) the cloth nappy sorority let themselves down in their PR. Not every woman is a sewer, knows how to sew, or has ambitions to become the next Little House On The Prairie do-it-yerself-Ma-about-the-house. Certainly I don't.
The thought of sewing nappies to me is noxious. I can't think of anything worse (although root canal springs to mind!), yet again and again on the cloth nappy websites you see these homebody types force-feeding mums-to-be nappy patterns and photographs of supposedly cute cloth items to soak up baby poo. Ick! I know they're trying to be helpful, but for a lot of women the whole mumsy hausfrau I-live-to-make-doilies image is very off-putting.
These are not the 1940s, and maybe cloth nappies would be more popular with more mums if the women who make nappy designs their life's joy remembered that. I'd prefer a more practical, this is how you do it, no mess, no fuss presentation of facts. A lot of women I've talked to on this issue feel the same, so I'm clearly not alone on this.
Cloth nappies are presented poorly on the net: If cloth nappies are to become more common, they need to be presented in a less confusing, more mainstream manner. A lot of mums-to-be simply want something easy, fast, cheap - and that works. They don't want to make nappies their life, and will be quite happy to get this part of having children over as fast as possible. This is how I felt about it, and I've talked to a lot of mums who have felt the same way. They, like me, got very much put-off by the whole "nappies are our life" attitude of the Nappycino set.
'Nuff said. I'm bound to get lynched for saying it like it is. I guess the Etsy mafia will be out to get me again! ;-) But I'm trying to help by presenting my point of view, the facts on nappies as honestly and fairly as I can.
I think cloth is the better of the two options overall - this post is clearly stating that, and why I think that. But the truth is that nappies are not a joyful lifestyle choice for most people - they're simply a way to keep the poo off the floor.
Which type of cloth nappy?
Why I like pocket nappies: Despite the up-front cost, if you can do it, buy or make the pocket nappies (see the image at the top of this post), and get the type that has adjustable snaps and will fit a variety of sizes, so will grow with your child. Then you won't have to replace your fitted nappies as your kid grows.
I think the fitted, adjustable pocket nappies are the best value, and work the best, but they are very expensive. Sew them if you can, to save money. Or buy them secondhand and soak the hell out of them before use with a good stain soaker, grinning at all the money you'll save. It doesn't matter if they're not pretty (honestly!) - no one is going to see them!
To outfit a baby with new cloth nappies of the most expensive variety you're probably looking at quite a few hundred dollars. It is NOT cheap. Having babies is NOT cheap, that's the truth of it.
Disposables will bankrupt you!: However, disposable nappies are consistently one of the most expensive items in the supermarket.
Think I'm joking? Go take a look in the supermarket the moment it opens on a day when bulk nappies are on special, and you'll believe me. Because you'll see all the bleary-eyed Dads grabbing as many bags of disposable nappies as they can carry, trying to save a few bucks. Then watch them go through the checkout, and watch the bill come to a couple of hundred dollars or more.
When we had two kids under the age of three in disposables, nappies were a separate category in our family budget, they were costing us that much. On the weeks that nappies were on special and we were buying them, they would typical cost more than our entire family food and petrol budget put together.
Now that hurts!
The clear winner for your pocket: cloth. Definitely!
Diaper / Nappy services
An exercise in pointlessness: I'll just mention these services briefly. They're really expensive. We worked out that our nappy service, which we used for about 4 months, cost almost exactly the same amount as disposables would have cost. In fact, I think when we switched over to disposables from a nappy service (I told you we'd used everything!), the disposables worked out to be slightly cheaper, because we were buying them in bulk when on special.
If you use a nappy service it is up to you, but you won't save money. It has almost all the disadvantages of cloth, and almost all the disadvantages of disposables. I wouldn't bother.
Babies in cloth toilet train earlier
The BIG secret Huggies and Pampers don't want you to know!: You'll never see this fact on the Huggies website, but kids in cloth toilet train as much as a year and half earlier than those in disposables. Kids in cloth average 1 to 2 years for toilet-training. In disposables? Two to five years. Work out the difference in dollars, and you're talking thousands of dollars difference. And a lot of extra headaches for the parents who went with disposables!
This is also where the research falls down. All the research I came across comparing the impact of cloth versus disposables assumes that kids in cloth and disposables toilet train at the same ages.
This is simply untrue.
And this is the biggest difference between the two systems, I think.
The reason for this that I've heard suggested by a few mums is that the disposables are so effective at drawing wetness away that the kids don't register the signs they need to learn toileting. They don't learn to associate the feeling of weeing and pooing with wetness and stinkiness. So they don't toilet train when they should.
The clear winner in toilet training: cloth.
Saving your sleep
Kids in disposables sleep better.
I noticed this first with my son when he was very young. In cloth at night he was waking half a dozen times - whenever he got the smallest bit wet. But in disposables at night, he started sleeping through very early. Like so many exhausted new parents we started putting him in disposables at night, saving the cloth for the day.
The clear winner for getting better sleep: disposables.
Saving your baby's skin
The companies that make disposable nappies claim that kids get less nappy rash in disposables than in cloth. I've used both types of nappy, and probably every style and brand of nappy there is. My experience is that there is no difference between the two methods.
The key to avoiding nappy rash is simply keeping your baby dry, and changing him/her regularly. If nappy rash happens (and it will happen to every kid at some point), keep the nappy area scrupulously clean, apply a good basic, unscented nappy cream with every change (pile it on!), and change more frequently than usual. It will go away.
The clear winner for avoiding a sore bum: Both systems are the same. Just keep your kid clean!
Saving your sanity
Disposables are easy when you go out. You just dump them in the nearest bin when they're dirty. Easy.
Disposables are also quicker to change. Just a bit, although I've seen (and done) some lightning-fast cloth changes. There might be 5 seconds in the difference between experienced changes, but there is a difference.
When you're travelling or on holidays, disposables are a real winner. I took my four month old daughter on a two week holiday with me, and was real glad I didn't have to wash nappies the whole time. It was hard enough managing the lack of sleep - my daughter was an 8 times a night waker-upper. Yay.
However, a young couple a few rooms away were using cloth with their daughter, and they managed fine. Sure, the washing machine was always going and they seemed exhausted instead of enjoying the holiday, but they did it. So it can be done. But they were welcome to it!
The clear winner on holiday, for speed (small difference only), and on the go: disposables.
Conclusions
I think cloth is the better of the two alternatives, and if I were starting from scratch with a baby, now I have the benefit of hindsight, I would choose cloth - the adjustable pocket nappies.
However, I think we, as parents, need to stop creating the whole "us and them" battleground on the nappy front.
Having kids is hard enough, without feeling guilty for using disposables, or flaunting an assumed virtuousness for using cloth.
Cloth wins on environment, budget, and toilet training earlier, but disposables have clear advantages in other areas.
Maybe a sensible approach is to use both: cloth as your main nappying approach, saving disposables for holidays and special occasions when you need that extra ease, or those nights when you need an extra bit of sleep (like the first two years!).
Yes, disposable nappies are probably shocking for the environment, but red meat and cars probably worse. If you're environmentally that concerned, maybe giving up red meat and your car are things you can do to make even more of a difference than the type of nappy your kid - or someone else's - is in.
And if something someone else is doing offends or upsets you, that's their business, not yours, so mention it ONCE if you must, then butt out. They're a parent, they're doing it tough and need your support, not your holier-than-thou attitude.
After all, we can't change what other people do, but we can continually improve our own habits if we choose.
I think, as parents, we should do whatever we feel is right for us. And I do think, no matter which nappying option is right for us, that caring for the environment by using our resources sparingly in other ways, is a wise and responsible thing to do for our kids.
Because our kids, no matter what nappy they wear, are all terrific.
I'll end this post with some links to research on nappy systems, and some links to various nappy resources around the net.
- Cloth v Disposable Diapers
- The Diaper Debate
- An updated lifecycle assessment study for disposable and reusable nappies
- Womens' Environment Network Media Report: "Environment Agency report is seriously flawed"
- Overview of cloth nappy styles
- Oz Cloth Nappies
- The Little Squirt
- Kittykins (UK site)
- Soft Cloth Bunz (US site)
13 comments:
A good, well balanced discussion of the cloth vs disposable question. Irrelevant to me now, as my youngest is now toilet trained, but I did appreciate reading your arguments & I'm sure this would be useful to new parents who are considering their options.
I liked pocket nappies too (never did sew my own and the thought didnt' do it for me lol). I used only flats and bummi's (intermingled with sposies due to a bad system prior to finding the bummi's and learning about boosters) with my ds and only switched to pockets when dd was about 12mths old (wish I'd known about more of the modern systems earlier). For a NZ nappy resource, have you heard of The Nappy Network?
Hi Daharja, great post. I like it how you always tell it how it is! I have a 12 month old and we have 6 MCNs which we use for night and special outings, and old style cloth which we use the rest of the time. I can't believe there even is a debate over which is better for the environment. It's a no brainer.
Hi Toria - I *wish* mine were toilet trained, but when you throw autism into the mix, things take a bit longer! But we're getting there!
I'd like to see cloth nappies sold in supermarkets, and marketed really well, in a non-confusing manner.
At the moment, I think the cloth products is much better than the way it is presented to the public, while the disposables companies do an awesome job of marketing their product which isn't nearly as good when you take everything into consideration.
Marketing and sales image is the real reason why disposables have taken over - oh, and the biggie: profitability. *sigh*
Thanks for your comments :-)
Hi Nikki - Yes, I should add the Nappy Network to my list of contacts on the blog post. But the lost of links was getting a bit scary as it is! ;-)
Hi Child Of The New Forest - You're so right. The environmental question really isn't one. The whole fact that it IS a question shows how well the disposable companies have done their marketing!
The reason, of course, that they have such a big marketing budget is because they're making massive profits - off young families who would save heaps of money by using cloth instead!
If I could travel back in time, one thing I would definitely do is start with, and stick with, adjustable pocket nappies. My mother switched me on to disposables, telling me how much better they were. But then, she wasn't footing the $50+ a week bill for the nappies!
Why I reckon more people don't use cloth:
a) people have outdated ideas that it means boiling terry flats
b) once someone tells you about modern cloth, there is just so much info and so many choices (pockets, all-in-ones, fitted or flats with covers? Cotton, microfibre, hemp or bamboo?), I'm sure most stressed parents just throw up their hands and say 'all too hard, I'll just use disposables like everyone else'
c) most of the places you can buy modern cloth are entirely online. Particularly when buying something for the first time, many people want to be able to talk to someone face-to-face, and there's the (perhaps illusory!) sense that if there's a problem, a bricks-and-mortar shop where you can complain in person will be more likely to sort it out for you than someone you've never met on the other end of an email address. Which is why I'm really glad to see bricks-and-mortar cloth nappy shops opening in Melbourne :) Publicity to people who might not otherwise think of cloth, and security for those who might otherwise not buy them.
Menstrual cups and cloth pads for women have similar problems. I doubt that either reusable menstrual products or reusable nappies will ever be sold in supermarkets because supermarkets sell consumables - they don't want to be selling things that people don't have to replace.
What I'm actually most surprised about is that more people don't seem to try/know of elimination communication. I assume this is because we were settled mostly by Brits and in the UK it's too cold most of the year for baby bottoms to be uncovered, so it's difficult to learn your baby's poo & wee signals. And maybe residual Victorian-era 'we don't talk about this stuff' attitudes? But it does seem really odd that as a culture we train babies that 'you wee and poo in a nappy' and then after a few years tell them 'actually, you should wee and poo in a toilet. Change something you've been doing the same way every day all your life!' at an age when they are exerting their willpower and challenging boundaries. No wonder toilet training toddlers is such a nightmare!
Hi Pezzae - I think you're right. Certainly cloth (I think) is marketed really poorly, in comparison to the slick advertising you see from disposables.
Saying that, another BIG factor is the up front cost. Setting up with cloth can cost hundreds of dollars for the best type of nappies/most effective nappies, and that's money that is really hard to come by for young families who are expecting babies.
It's hard enough to pay for cots and prams, without the extra hundreds of dollars for nappies! Sometimes the only alternative, if you haven't the upfront cash (and a lot of people are struggling to find the upfront cash) seems to be disposables. Then the Huggies companies and suchlike offer free samples etc - it all looks so much easier and more affordable. It's only in the long run, when you do the maths (and who does?) that you realise you've been conned.
I don't know of anyone who has had any success with elimination communication. I'll be really interested to hear how you go. The only other culture I'm really familiar with is China, where kids just have bare bums and squat outside when they need to go - fine for rustic China, but not really appropriate for suburban streets!
Now that China is becoming urbanized, disposable nappies are taking over. But I'm not sure they ever used elimination communication. The kids just gradually learned where and when was appropriate to wee and poo.
Scary thought - another billion people, all in disposable nappies! Huggies and Pampers must be patting themselves on the backs for a marketing job well done.
Thanks for visiting my blog! I agree, Lush and Aveda are completely greenwashed companies. :)
Wow- what a fantastic post! I have a friend who said that she found the internet a super confusing place when she was trying to decide what kinda of cloth diaper would work best for her infant. Then, our mutual friend just told her to get cloth. no debate on style or type- just to get some.
She LOVES them :)
Hi Eco Yogini - I think the fact that there is any debate at all on the environmental issue shows how well the disposable companies how done their marketing. Sort of like "clean coal" ;-(
There's a lot of greenwash happening. Too many companies are making fraudulent claims about their green-ness, and it is confusing consumers who just want to buy the best thing for the planet and save a few bucks if possible, while getting something that works and will last.
I remember hearing somewhere that the brown bags that McDonalds pack their food in are white paper (bleached) then dyed brown. Classic example, if it is true!
And the Barbie line of toys are now selling plastic dolls in "post consumer cardboard" packaging - but the dolls are still plastic, they're now a "collect them all!" range (when I was a kid, you had A SINGLE Barbie, not dozens! I had a total of three dolls in my whole childhood, and I was pretty spoiled), and the front of the packaging is still disposable plastic! *sigh*
This is an awesome post ... would you consider allowing me to post it on my blog linked to my cloth nappy website?
I am based in OZ and I use and love cloth during the day and use disposables at night. I do sell online but what is far more important to me is seeing people and speaking with them face to face ... with the aim to make the journey far less confusing for them.
I too use disposables overnight and believe that a combination of cloth and disposables is quite a happy medium. Having said that though there are some awesome night nappies coming out on the market so hopefully I can make the switch to full time.
Anyway my website is www.alipants.com.au, and I would love for you to do a guest post with your wonderful and practical views on nappies
Hi Alipants - Feel free to copy and post the article. If you want me to send you a copy of the HTML version in text form, so you don't have to mark it up, email me at daharja at gmail dot com and I'll do so.
All I ask in return is a link back to my blog, with credit for the article :-)
And while I've got you here, do you know of any cloth nappies suitable for nighttime wear for a five year old boy, weighing about 25 kgs?
My son (who has autism) is still toilet training, and though he's increasingly competent during the day, it will probably be a while until he's dry at night. I hate using disposables with him, but cannot find any cloth products (fitted ones) big enough for him. He's outgrown all the fitted ones we had a long time ago.
Your ideas/ tips would be welcome. I'd make some, but don't possess a sewing machine, and as we've just moved countries, it is still way down on the budget list of importance for major things to buy!
Re your website, I'll take a look and would be very happy to do a guest post any time you want me to. Like I think I said, it's all about us parents supporting each other, and working together to help each other get through the nappy stage as best we can. I think cloth is the better choice, but I think just about everyone uses disposables at some stage, and no-one needs to feel guilty for that. We're all just doing the best we can, and parenthood really is the toughest job in the world.
Thanks for dropping by, and let me know if you grab the post for your website :-)
Thank you very much for a very informative and personal post. I am coming from Germany and there are ways more poeple using cloth nappies than I have seen here in Australia.
I have used for my children exactly the same system. Night and on outings I used disposable nappies and at home I used the cloth nappies. My sons got dry during summer, when I decided to let them run through the back yard with bare bottoms.
My daughter grew up in Australia, and I found it even easier to let her make the experience of feeling when she needs a pee or poo in the outdoors. Because my husband stayed the fist 2 years with her at home, she even found a way to have a pee while standing just to be like dad!
I have recently found a very new approach to baby nappies and pads, a big competition to Huggies, Pampers & Co.
The main difference is the patented Anion Strip with real health benefits. The company is operating ethically and the products are environmentally friendly.
Please have a look at my blog and see for yourself. You can get info about the nappies and pads and order online straight from the producer. http://sanitarypads.org
Christine Lindner, Naturopath
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