I have been converted

Yep, converted. We are now a fully cloth family.

A cloth family? What is that?

We only use cloth diapers.

Yes, I know your response. "EWWWW"

I felt the same before my beautiful bundle of joy arrived. Why would you want to TOUCH and CLEAN poop. That is disgusting.

Then my world changed when my angel arrived. See what non-parent me did not realize is that even when you use disposables you will be touching poop (gasp!) and cleaning poop (the horror!).

I have quickly realized that babies are evil geniuses. They will hold that poop in until the most inconvenient time and then it is an explosion and they are silently chuckling at our frantic cleaning.

No matter how hard you try if you have a newborn you will get poop on your hands, on your clothes, and under your nails. Just hope you are lucky and you never get it in the car seat or your hair.

Once I was past this I was able to see the benefits of cloth diapering. There are many but the one that really drew me was the expense. Most babies are potty trained between 2.5 and 3 yrs. And even then some heavy sleepers need to use pull ups at night, about 40% of children use night protection up to age 4.

The average cost per diaper when bought in bulk is $0.23- $0.31. This is name brand and for sensitive skin (less chemicals). The price per diaper goes up as your child grows. The average baby uses 8-10 diapers a day once they hit 3 months. Newborn to 3 months averages closer to 12-15 per day.

So doing the math and estimating at the higher end of the averages. That would be $0.31 per diaper, 15 per day for 90 days then 10 per day up to age 3 (1005 days). That is a total of 11400 diapers totaling $3534. You also have to remember this is an average. If you child gets sick or has diaper rash on a regular basis you will be changing diapers more often.

Cloth diapers have a higher up front cost and you can obviously pay more for higher end styles but in the long run they are way more affordable. I was able to cloth diaper my daughter for $200 and if I take care of my diapers I can use them for multiple children.

There are other reasons to cloth. The second biggest for us is that my daughter has very sensitive skin. Once she started wearing cloth she has not had one diaper rash (or blow out). The third main reason people cloth is the fact that it is more eco-friendly. Studies have shown that one disposable diaper may take up to 500 years to decompose. That is nuts!

Before I jumped into cloth diapering I did a ton of research and I have tried 4 different types of diapers so I will soon be doing a Cloth 101 post to help you guys who are interested in how this works. There will also be cute cotton bottom pics on that one :)