The Truth About Cloth Diapering: Q & A

It has been a few weeks since we have started CD'ing exclusively, I have had to ask A LOT of questions and to find a lot of answers.  I also noticed from posting about our new experience we had some eyebrow raises...so, why not do a Q & A?  I am happy to say that as of now I am one hundred percent happy with the switch that we made.  I truly believe I am doing what is right, and loving it in the process.  It is even easier than I have anticipated and I would love to share some of my initial experiences.

First and Foremost:  Let's tackle the germ questions.  Won't there be germs and bacteria sitting around my house with cloth diapers?  Why wouldn't you just want to throw that stuff out?!

For starters, no matter how you look at it, when you change a stinky diaper, you will be exposed to poop.  Many wonder why anyone would ever want to leave it lingering around rather then just throwing it out with the trash.  Well, I think this was part of my husband's concern.  The smell especially.  First of all, poop isn't supposed to be thrown into the trash.  Even with disposables, law requires that you throw the poop down the toilet before discarding of the diaper.  No one does this, or no one I know for that matter.  If you have a diaper genie, or even just throw your diapers into the trash...you WILL have poop and urine sitting around.  it will smell, and it's going to be in your house.  With cloth you actually are forced to throw the poop down the toilet!  You flush, and voila.  It is literally gone.  This is actually a plus for me.  Sure, you will have to throw the dirty diaper in a pail, but the poop will not invade your house with odor.  I can honestly say, we haven't had one odor issue yet.  The pail we use, simply a garbage can with a lid, has kept any, if any, odors inside.  I have yet to be exposed to, or touch poop!

What's the point?  Weren't disposables working just fine?

Sure they were.  I wasn't struggling with them, it was simple.  The amount of garbage that was leaving our house on a daily basis was beginning to get to me.   We definitely have less now, and with the new baby coming...I could not fathom how much trash we would have to take out in a day.  On top of that, we have had a few diaper explosions in the past, and to see what is inside of those disposables, I began to think.

There are definite health risks with using disposables.  If you would like to read more about this, check out The truth about Cloth.  I was astonished to find out that an ingredient in cloth diapers is actually something that has been linked to toxic shock syndrome in tampons.  It's not okay for us, but it is okay for our children?  I don't think so.

Isn't it a pain in the butt to do so much extra laundry?

This was also a concern of mine.  Once I got our whole diaper stash though, I am only doing 2-3 extra loads a week. I really don't mind it.  It really is so simple.  I'll take you through the process.  I change a diaper, if it is a number two, it goes in the toilet, the insert comes out, and both the outer part of the diaper and the insert go into a diaper pail that we have with a liner.  Once diaper wash day comes around, I dump everything, including the liner, into the wash.  I do one cold rinse, then a hot wash, and possibly another rinse.  I then either throw everything into the dryer, or line dry.  I use pocket diapers, so when everything is dry, it takes about three minutes to stuff the diapers and then we are ready to go for 2-3 more days!  The water bill may be a little higher, but very very little..and in the long run the savings will be worth it.

I hope this has given you a little of an insight and that I can come back and answer more questions next time!