Since Marion Donovan first invented disposable diapers in 1950 (and sold her company for $1 million a few years later), they have become the standard form of diapering in the Western world. Back when my first child was born in 2002 I was one of only a few women I knew using tradition terry cloth diapers. By the time my third child came along in 2010, I was one of – well, zero actually. Because I’d made the switch to modern cloth diapers, and never looked back.
Sustainable fabrics
Disposable diapers are bad for the environment. There’s really no two ways about that (unless you talk to Kimberly-Clark or some other manufacturer of them!). Even if there was some question about this back when cloth diapers were made from cotton and washed with harsh chemicals, there isn’t anymore.
Modern cloth diapers (or nappies) are now often made from more sustainable fabrics than cotton, namely, bamboo or hemp (though see our article on bamboo diapers for the low down on bamboo). Cotton requires an awful lot of water to grow and, unless you buy organic cotton, has also usually been grown with a load of pesticides. Hemp and bamboo do not. Disposable diapers, of course, are made largely from materials which are even less sustainable than cotton, and which take hundreds of years to break down.
As a bonus (both for the tired parent who doesn’t need any extra washing, and for the our tired water reserves), hemp and bamboo are also both far more absorbent than cotton, so the diapers need to be changed less often, and there are less of them to wash.
Easy to use
But are even modern cloth diapers as easy to use as disposables? Well, no. I won’t lie to you, of course they aren’t. You can’t just take them off and put them in the bin when you’re done, so – no, they aren’t quite as easy. But they are a lot easier than the old fashioned diapers our parents (or grandparents) used.
Whether you use fitted cloth diapers, all-in-ones (AIOs), or pocket diapers they are shaped to fit your baby, just like disposables, and are easy to put on, usually fastening with velcro or snaps. Pocket diapers and especially pre-fold cloth diapers are a little more fiddly than AIOs and fitted diapers, but still pretty easy to use, as long as you have a good quality cover.
Easy to wash
The three month old daughter of the author sporting a Starbunz 'lion' pocket diaper (photo credit: K. McCulloch)
Gone are the days of diaper buckets (nappy pails I remember my mother calling them) filled with water and bleach. In fact, you shouldn’t use bleach at all with modern cloth diapers, as it damages the elastic. “Dry pailing” is now the recommended practice, which means just dumping it in the bucket and leaving it dry until you wash it. If you are fully breastfeeding you won’t need to clean the diaper before washing at all. If you are bottle feeding or your baby has started solid food, you’ll want to scrap as much of the solids out of the diaper as you can (into the toilet) before dropping it in the bucket. Then, when you do your wash, if there was much left on the diaper you can do a pre-wash to rinse the diapers before the wash, but then just wash as usual.
You don’t need to use extra washing powder either, in fact the recommendation is that you use about half what you would for a normal wash, as excess washing powder collects in the diapers and can cause them to retain smells. And you don’t need to use extra hot water – warm or cold is fine – but ideally do dry your diapers in the sun, which is the best sterilising and bleaching substance there is (in the video below The Nappy Lady does recommend using hot water for washing newborn cloth diapers).
NB: In the video The Nappy Lady demonstrates with disposable liners – this obviates the need for scraping out the diaper, but it is also possible to use cloth liners. The liner not only keeps all the solids together making it easier to clean, a good cloth liner will work much like a disposable diaper to stay (relatively) dry next to the baby’s skin.
Attractive
You can kind some awfully cute cloth diapers these days too. In fact “baby legs”
(Note: the baby photographed above is three months old in a size medium Starbunz diaper – it was a little big for her really.)
[Note, this article was updated March 2011 to correct a paragraph which implied disposable diapers were made from cotton]
