It's a very common question, but it almost seems rhetorical these days: will you put your baby in cloth or disposable nappies (aka diapers)? We live in a disposable culture, so it's hardly surprising that the vast majority of people (well, Americans and Australians anyway) choose to use disposable nappies without a second thought. The question also implies that one must use one or the other, ignoring the possibility that it might make sense to use cloth during the day and disposables at night.
The strange thing is that when you choose to use cloth nappies for your baby, even when you don't do it full time, you seem to be joining a bit of a fraternity (well, more likely a sorority). Since there are about 45,000 different cloth nappy products to choose from, none of which are carried in your local supermarket for examination, if you aren't careful you can end up spending hours reading about them on-line, where you will also end up reading a list of reasons why cloth nappies are better than disposable. And the list will inevitably argue that the time spent cleaning cloth nappies is marginal and actually not as much as having to go to the store to purchase disposables all the time.
Sure, if you're disorganized, you may find yourself making an occasional trip to the store to get an emergency supply, but most people would buy the nappies at the supermarket when they do their weekly shop. How can the 60 seconds it takes me to walk down the nappy aisle while I'm at the supermarket once a month possibly compare to the time spent on three extra loads of washing, drying, and folding I do each week to keep my 1 year old in cloth nappies during his waking hours.
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If cloth is what you want, then the path of cloth will unfold. Ease, usability, and opportunity will unfold, unwind, and entwine with your life. Same with disposable. When the abundance of disposable is so available, why do we fight it/them.
ReplyDeleteKevin said: "If cloth is what you want, then the path of cloth will unfold."
ReplyDeleteI suppose that if you are dead set on disposable nappies, this may be the case.
We used cloth nappies almost exclusively for the first few months of our son's life and added disposable nappies in at night only because of a persistent nappy rash.
We still use cloth nappies when he is awake. It's no longer really about the environment, but what is good for him, and somehow we concluded that being in cloth part of the time was a good thing. But I'd like to state unequivically, using cloth nappies IS more work than using disposable nappies.
That is truly a perfect answer! As it were, cloth did unfold for you. I would love to have a recollection of the path that it came to you.
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