Monday, January 21, 2013

cloth diapers: not as gross as you think

i have heard from a lot of people that cloth diapers are gross. i have used them for over a year and here's my opinion: if they were really that gross, people wouldn't use them. 

it wouldn't be worth it. sure, sometimes it's a little gross. but you know what? diapers are gross.

cloth diapers gross some people out. here's my secret -- disposable diapers gross me out!

when a baby poops in a cloth diaper, it's pretty similar to a disposable. i take the diaper off, i wipe her, and i put the diaper in a can. with cloth, we use a trash can with a cloth pail liner in it. (the cloth pail liner helps the diapers "breathe" so they don't gather stink, and we wash it when we wash the diapers.) on wash day (usually about every 3 days) i pick up the whole bag, dump it into the washing machine (without touching any diapers) and wash. 

if the diaper is poopy, you have a few options. a exclusively breastfed baby's poop can go straight into the washing machine as it is water soluble. once baby starts eating solids, poop will start to solidify. sometimes, it can be dumped straight into the toilet. other times, we use our diaper sprayer (aka a hand bidet) that is attached to our toilet. once the poop has been removed, we put the diaper in the pail and continue on with our day! not too difficult at all!

we have never had issues with our cloth diaper pail stinking because there is no poop in it!

we have had issues with our trash can stinking when there is a poopy disposable diaper in it! the poop just sits in a trash can and then a landfill for who knows how long. (no one really knows how long it takes a disposable diaper to decompose because no diaper ever has.) disposable diapers also smell immediately after a child poops in them, which i suppose is convenient because you can change them right away, but they smell horrible! cloth doesn't smell at all!

we also have never had issues with blowouts while using cloth, and we've never had staining or stinking issues. (stains can easily be eliminated by sunning diapers.) 

so there you go -- why i believe that disposables are more disgusting than cloth! :)