As indicated in our previous post, we will be featuring interviews with 3 different moms. This interview was with Sacha Knorr, a friend that I met by both taking our children to the same library program here in town. Sacha has been exclusively using disposable diapers with her children. Please read with an open mind - and feel free to comment!
Tell us a bit about yourself:
I am a mother of twin almost 4 year old girls, and an almost 2 year old girl. With 3 girls we are not trying for a boy! It would be just our luck that it would be twins again or more! I am a stay at home mom and have the pleasure to combine a passion of mine with a home based business in Photography (SACHA Photographics - www.sachaphotographics.com).
1. Why are disposable diapers the right choice for your family?
I started using disposable diapers because that is what the hospital used on my twins when they were born. That was all I knew for the first 5 weeks of their lives, so I just continued. It was easy and available at any local pharmacy or grocery store. The busyness of my life having twins meant anything that required no thinking, no work, and was readily available was what I liked about using disposable diapers. My brother and sister also used disposables with their kids, so I just followed suit. I also thought that you needed a diaper service to pick up your week’s worth of cloth diapers and take them to clean them. This just seemed gross, and like a big pain to store these dirty diapers for a week, and then I thought the cost of this cleaning service would be a lot. I continue to use disposable diapers because they are easy and what I know.
2. What do you see as the "cons" of your diaper choice?
I have used disposable diapers through all my kids, but still have some concerns with them. Disposable diapers do not breathe, so when your little one gets a diaper rash, it can get out of hand really fast. My youngest has had some really bad diaper rashes when she was younger, and has had some yeast infections. I am not saying disposable diapers are the cause, I am just saying that because they do not breath, the rash can become really bad at times. In order to get rid of the rash or yeast infection I did have to let my little one wear nothing so the air could get at her skin. I did eventually use some training panties of my older girls to keep the mess to a minimum. I also think that disposable diapers are really expensive! Seems like I am always at the store buying more. The smell of the disposable diapers is a concern to me, they must have a perfume in them, and I do not like to put any fragrances/chemicals on my baby’s skin.
3. What is your favourite diaper and why?
The disposable diaper of my choice is Pampers Swaddlers when they were little and I move into Crusiers as they get older. I started using this diaper because this is the brand they used on my twins in the hospital, and my brother uses this brand as well. The diaper seemed to be a good fit, and I have seen other diapers, even other pampers, and the Swaddlers and Cruisers material is the most cloth-like being softest, thinnest and most flexible.
4. How much do you estimate that you have spent on diapers? Could you have done a similar style of diapers for less?
To wear disposable diapers on my all three of children from birth to 2 years has cost me $4,986 or just over $100/month. This has cost the environment 12,558 diapers in the garbage. This might seem unbelievable, but all I did to calculate this was took 8 diapers/day from birth to 6 months + 5 diapers/day from 6 months to 2 years X 3 for my three children / 68 for the number of diapers in the average box of diapers I buy X $27 for the cost of each box of diapers. Most disposable diapers are very comparable in price, I might have been able to save a couple hundred by using a different brand, but that hardly puts a dent into the $4,986 I spent on diapers in the last 4 years!! I have never really put much thought into this, but looking at it now I can’t believe how much I have spent, or how harmful my actions have been.
I use disposable diapers and am just starting to use cloth, only as honestly I think they are cute. I use the pampers swaddlers and NEVER pay that much for them. Paying 38 cents a diaper is a little ridiculous. Without using a coupon you can easily get them for under 20 cents a diaper just by watching when they go on sale. With the environment issue, you really have to debate it. The city of edmonton actually composts 90% of garbage, including diapers and is working on using the final 10% to make some sort of biofuel. http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/12/why-toronto-should-be-more-like-edmonton/
ReplyDeleteAs for the cloth, I like them as they are cute and honestly they are so soft inside, who wouldn't want that on their booty! But I still use disposable at night and when we go out.
I exclusively use cloth on my daughter, and it is the right decision for us. I am concerned that this interview does not give a true picture of disposable diapering, however. With a little effort, disposable diapering does not have to be THAT expensive. My sister-in-law exclusively uses disposables, and I know that she often manages to get her diapers very cheap, or even FREE by clipping coupons. They are not nearly as cute as my daughter's Blueberry minkies, for sure, but for some people it is a reasonable option.
ReplyDeleteI definitely understand feeling like you should go for the easier option. I can't imagine what twins would be like. Busy, busy, busy. But then I think about the cost of diapering twins using disposables. Yikes! After the research about cloth diapering, I found it to be very easy, they work well, and have saved me a ton, not to mention the environmental impact of disposables and the chemicals in them. Plus, they are just adorable. Cloth just seems like the only option for our family now and we intend to use them on any children we have in the future.
ReplyDeleteLaura, I just wanted to mention that I think it's great that your city composts and that certainly helps with the environmental impact, but I think we often fail to account for the toll it takes on the environment when you use new resources to produce these products again and again. The water from production, the plastic, wood pulp, fuel to ship the diapers, etc.
ReplyDeleteIn response to some of the posts, I thought I would provide a better break down of the diaper usage and cost, as I just used estimates and averages to come up with my cost to using disposable diapers.
ReplyDeleteSize NB used for 2 weeks, 14 diapers/day = 196 diapers @ $0.39/diaper = $76.84; Size 1 used for 10 weeks, 11 diapers/day = 770 diapers @ $0.21/diaper = $161.14; Size 2 used for 12 weeks, 11 diapers/day = 924 diapers @ $0.24/diaper = $220.37; Size 3 used for 16 weeks, 9 diapers / day = 1008 diapers @ $0.26/diaper = $265.39; Size 4 used for 28 weeks, 7 diapers/day = 1764 diapers @ $0.31/ diaper = $539.89; Size 5 used for 36 weeks, 5 diapers/day = 1260 diapers @ $0.35 / diaper = $440.73. Total Cost from birth to 2 years for 1 child = $1704.36. For 3 children = $5113.08. Total diapers used from birth to 2 years for 1 child = 5922. For 3 children = 17766 diapers.
This is in much more detail and anyone wanting to actually calculate out how much it costs to diaper a baby can use these numbers to come up with a better understanding. Keeping in mind this does not take into account any sales or coupons you may be able to find, which could lower your costs for sure.
True about the production tolls on the environment. Since less cloth diapers are made they do require less of that but really they cause it too. The fact that PUL is made of cloth and polyurethane essentially glued together is chemicals in cloth diapers. Cotton is considered one of the worlds dirtiest crops due to the amount of insecticides sprayed on it, so unless you are buying organic, thats a problem as well. The water usage to clean the cloth diapers every 2-3 days should be considered including the power to not only run your machines plus to run the water treatment facility where all the water from the wash goes to afterwards and the processing involved there with it. Then you have the chemicals in the laundry soap that is used to clean the diapers. So really neither are 'fabulous' options but to each their own. I just dislike when people seem to think that disposables are so terrible for the environment when there are detriments to both sides. And I use both, so I'm not arguing against either.
ReplyDeleteThe cost of disposable diapers is crazy, I've switched between cloth and disposables a couple times. We've mainly used cloth, but we were using disposables when I went back to work between babies and then when our daughter was born, I seem...ed so busy with my first baby after he was born that I couldn't imagine finding the time to wash diapers with my second (I hardly had time to eat or shower!). This worked for me at the time, but now we're back in cloth and we love them. When we were using disposables it was costing us on average $200 a month for 2 babies in diapers for all of their diapers, creams and wipes (we were buying on sale and with coupons!). My son got rashes like crazy and we had to slather him in creams and at some points let him go without a diaper, even my newborn got rashes from disposables. With both cloth and disposables I change my kids before and after every nap and every 2-3 hours (and right after a poop fo course!), even though disposables can hold a lot more pee than cloth diapers, I didn't want my babies sitting in that for hours. We were emptying our disposable diaper pail every 1 to 2 days (and it was packed FULL!) and it reaked! We had to have it in the hallway far away from all bedrooms!! Our cloth diapers don't smell very bad and I'm washing every second day, so they're sitting for about the same amount of time. I've also found that trying out different styles of cloth diapers is helpful, rather than buying all of one brand (like I did with my son), I've bought a few different brands for my daughter. I have my favourites and have found that some are more bulky and some are so trim they are only slightly bigger than a disposable. They don't look uncomfortable at all and are nothing like what our parents used to use on us when we were babies, those cloth diapers were big and bulky (and didn't come in cute patterns and colors!).
ReplyDeleteWe are a CD family however it wasnt always that way. we started out using sposies while babe was in the NICU and then again for the first few weeks when we got home. Being the first of our friends (and acquaintances) to use cloth, I spent a great deal of time researching everything CD related & the main reasons behind us choosing cloth were financial & environmental. The cost of sposies is beyond insane & I just could NOT wrap my mind around spending thousands of dollars on One more thing that went directly to the landfill (toilet paper being the other, and that I'm not giving up!). Second to that is the environmental angle. We made the decision to do right by our babe and that meant being as green and natural as possible. I was appalled by the long list of chemicals that fill sposies and then sit in direct contact w/ babies' skin. I mean, bleach??!! Heck no!! Yes, sposies can hold a lot more urine but there's a reason why they can do that and I for one am not interested in anything like that touching my child if I can avoid it. When we chose cloth we decided to go with PFs & covers in the beginning & then switch to OS diapers whereby our PFs could do double duty as inserts in said pockets (cost effective). What we struggled with was deciding which pockets to purchase and to avoid buyers remorse. our solution was a CD rental program that allows you to try out as many different types of dipes as possible and then make a final decision on what works best. The idea was good in theory (great really & something that I highly recommend to anyone hesitant about which dipes to try) however, most CD manufacturers make their OS diapers ready to fit from 10lbs+ and if your little bean is like ours that could take months to happen. And those months equated to dollars wasted on landfill bound sposies. Ultimately, we threw our plan out the window, jumped in feet first, & decided to purchase preloved PFs & covers & got to work! We figured that in the event that we didn't love the PFs they were an investment that could be sold down the road. That is one BIG reason to choose cloth! Not only do we buy 90% of our diapers preloved (cost effective!) but these diapers have a value and when you are finished with them you can easily turn them back into cash! When was the last time anyone turned a sposies into cash? As for the argument about increased laundry, it truly is not that much of a burden. Yes, it may take time to figure out the best wash routine for your house, but it's one extra load every 2-3 days - simply throw it on at night before bed & poof, clean diapers when you wake up! I also hear complaints about the size of the diapers. With the hundreds (at least!) of brands (WAHMs included) and styles on the market, there are diapers to suit every bum (another reason why a trial program can be so advantageous!) and sometimes I am even amazed at how trim the diapers can be when compared to a sposied bum! Not to mention the various disposable, chemical free inserts available. At the end of the day it would take a lot more than a few loads of laundry and a fluffy bum to make me even think about exposing my babe to those chemical ridden sposies. Besides, what could be cuter than a fluffy bum? :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments to Sacha's guest post! Laura, thanks for posting the link to the information on Edmonton's Waste to Biofuels Facility. It will be a step in the right direction when the facility opens next year (provided construction stays on track!): http://www.edmonton.ca/for_residents/garbage_recycling/biofuels-facility.aspx We actually sent the waste management department at the City of Edmonton an email inquiring about what is currently done with disposable diapers, and how that will change once the new facility opens. It's tough to understand how they would claim to compost an item that is not compostable and contains human waste, so we are looking forward to their response and will post it to the blog once we receive it. Janis
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued how they do it as well. Apparently Toronto composts diapers as well and have a green bin program for it. The bbc in 2005 published an article based on a study by the British government that said environmentally cloth and disposable diapers have the same environmental impact. I'm a fan of arguing sides and controversy do I always find this debate interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting when governments put research into the matter and take a stance on the issue. For example, in 2004 Environment Canada released an article of pros and cons of both disposable and cloth diapers. They then stated that "cloth diapers are a superior choice". However, they have since produced a new document that only provides the pros and cons, and then removes their conclusion/summary. Something to also consider is what types of diapers are being used in these studies. For example, choosing an organic cotton, Canadian made diaper would be a prime environmental choice for many Canadians. No pesticides used in production of the crop, supports the local economy, and a smaller carbon footprint as it is shipped within the country rather than imported. It's not always apples to apples in studies.
ReplyDelete