Why I Cloth Diaper

Even before I was pregnant, I knew that I wanted to try cloth diapering as an attempt to reduce my carbon footprint. It also helped that my mom had cloth diapered me when I was a baby, so I figured if she could do it, then why not me? I know I had several questions and hesitations around cloth diapering, so I wanted to share my thought process and experience thus far as a new cloth diapering mama.

Let’s start with the benefits of cloth diapering:

• Reduce your carbon footprint. Babies can go through anywhere from 6-12 diapers a day. That’s a lot of diapers. Before we transitioned over to cloth, I was shocked to see how quickly my son would go through a pack of disposables. Did you know that disposable diapers take over 500 years to decompose? Imagine all that landfill that we are creating exponentially as more babies are born!
• Saves you money. Everyone’s favorite thing! The benefit to using cloth diapers is that they are reusable. Parents will spend about $70-$80 a month or roughly $900 a year on diapers. And that’s just the first year! Creating your cloth diaper stash can be well under $300. Apart from gifts, I have only spent $213 on my stash (not to mention there are things that I later realized I did not need, so this could have been less!)
• No blowouts. It’s amazing how cloth diapering can prevent blowouts! We haven’t had a single one ever!
• Easier transition to potty training. We’re obviously not here yet but the logic behind this is that since your baby knows what a wet diaper feels like, it will be easier for them to know when they need to potty. We’ll definitely revisit this topic when we get there!
• Supporting small businesses. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most diaper brands actually are small business owned. Some even make everything by hand! Small businesses help stimulate the local economy and provide jobs for the community!
• Cloth is way cuter. Ok you might not think that this counts as a benefit but it’s true! There are so many prints and designs to choose from. There are even businesses that can help create custom designs.

All of these reasons resonated with my personal values and gave me more than enough motivation to go for it and I’m so glad I did! We are 8 weeks into our cloth diapering journey and it feels amazing to do our part in reducing waste and while saving money! Not to mention how relaxing and therapeutic it is to prep freshly laundered cloth diapers 😊.

What were your reasons to start cloth diapering?