New parents have heard the argument time and again from their own parents or grandparents. “You young people don’t know how good you have it with those disposable diapers for your babies! When you were a baby I had to use cloth diapers on you and they smelled terribly, I had tons of laundry to do, I stuck myself with pins, and I walked uphill in the snow both ways to get to the diaper service…” and so on. The fact is that, less than thirty years ago, disposable diapers were considered something of a luxury while today they are the norm and people using cloth diapers for their babies are considered to be strange. There are several reasons that modern parents may choose to utilize cloth diapers instead of disposables, however, and in some circles cloth diapers are making a bit of a comeback.

Affordability

The biggest personal reason that a parent may choose to clothe her baby’s bottom in cloth diapers as opposed to Pampers or Huggies is financial. Cloth diapers are simply cheaper than disposables, even if the parents are paying a diaper service to haul away the soiled nappies and bring fresh ones each week. In most cases the makers of disposables would win over a number of holdout customers if they could figure out a way to make their products cheaper.

Environmental Concerns

Disposable diapers are made primarily of plastic surrounding a pad of absorbent cotton. It is well known that plastic doesn’t biodegrade very well at all, which means that our landfills are stacked with diapers that are going to be with us for centuries to come. While many people believe that the convenience offered by disposable diapers outweighs this fact, environmentalists believe that by using cloth diapers they are just doing one more thing to “do their part” to protect and preserve the Earth for future generations.

Modern Developments

Those argumentative parents and grandparents may still have a thing or two to say to the modern parents who do choose to use cloth diapers because the cloth diapers of today are very different from the ones that they were using on their kids and grandkids way back when. Gone are the days of complicated folding methods and misplaced safety pins. Today’s cloth diapers are pre cut and shaped to cover baby’s nether regions quickly and easily. They also come with Velcro fasteners or snaps for ease in fastening. Best of all, many now have available a flushable, biodegradable paper lining that will catch solid waste, allowing it to be easily disposed of in the toilet so soiled and smelly diapers don’t sit around and there is no messy job of rinsing the solids away.

Cloth diapers are, in many ways, a thing of the past, but they are by no means gone forever. For the parent with financial or environmental concerns they are still a very viable option for clothing the bottoms of their babies.

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Way back when in the days of Home Ec, one favorite class was ‘how to
diaper baby’. Turning a flat piece of absorbent cotton into a
comfortable, well-fitting nappy was a trick that seemed to require the dexterity
and legerdemain of a trained magician. Worse, diapering the baby
clumsily came with the very real fear of jabbing a squirming infant with a
diaper pin. Generations of mommies suffered pinpricked fingers rather than
risk a scratch to baby’s delicate skin.

All that changed with the advent of disposable diapers. Even the
unfitted, flat, uncomfortable first generation disposables were worlds above
typical cloth diapers for convenience and ease of use. Just unfold the
back, pull the plastic up between the baby’s legs and smooth it against
his belly, and tape the back to the front. Voila! Instant diaper. Even
better – no need for washing. No dirty diapers soaking in a pail of
borax. No smell, no fuss, no laundry service – just un-tape, wrap the
diaper up and toss it in the trash.

For mothers of my generation, Pampers was the dividing line between ‘back
then’ and now. I can’t count the number of mothers, grandmothers, aunts
and older female relatives who started off a tale with ‘Of course, we
never had Pampers, WE had to…”

The advantages were obvious: disposables were cleaner, more sanitary,
more convenient. They did away with hours and hours of laundering and
drying, making time for lots of other things. If you were the least bit
conscious of disposal, you could completely eliminate the dirty-diaper
smell – just wrap it up tight in a plastic bag in put it in the OUTSIDE
trash. And no more wrestling with a squirming baby while you tried to
pin his nappy closed, nor having the whole thing slip off his adorable
little butt because you missed a layer of cloth when pinning.

The disadvantages were not so readily apparent, but they were
nonetheless real. The major point against disposable diapers is a potent one:
disposable diapers may be great for mother, but they put an enormous
strain on Mother Earth. Some facts:

* Over 19 billion disposable diapers annually end up in landfills –
where they do not degrade.
* Disposable diaper makers use more than a million tons of wood pulp
every year.
* The manufacturing process creates waste that contains dioxins, heavy
metals and industrial solvents.

In a world with limited resources, disposable diapers consume resources
and create pollutants and hazardous chemicals. Is the convenience worth
the damage to the Earth?

On the face of it, the debate does seem to be one more instance of man
- in this case mommies – putting their own convenience above what’s
best for the world.

But there’s yet another side to the debate – disposable diaper
manufacturers have countered with arguments that cloth diapers aren’t all that
kind to Mother Earth either. They cite the use of harsh chemicals in
cleaning – bleach, borax and other detergents, the consumption of water,
and the energy (and fuels) needed to heat water to temperatures that
can disinfect diapers as being just as harmful to the Earth as
disposables.

In the end, the choice to use disposables or cloth diapers is a
judgment call. Which is better for baby? Which is better for mom? Which is
least harmful to our planet? The only real answer is to read what you can,
and make your own decision as to what works best for you – physically
and philosophically.

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Let’s skip right past the great diaper debate and assume that you’ve
read what there is to read, done your soul-searching, and made your
decision – and for your baby, it’s nothing but natural against that tender skin. Whether your decision is ecological, economical, or based on something else entirely, you’ve decided on cloth diapers for baby. Now it’s time for Diapering 101 – how do you turn a rectangle of cloth into a comfy cover for the little cherub?

Wash the diapers first

First things first. Never diaper your baby in a brand new cloth diaper
straight from the plastic wrapping. Between the natural cotton and the
manufacturing process, new diapers have a ‘waxy’ coating that cuts down
on their absorbency and can irritate baby’s skin. Toss all your new
diapers into the washer and run them through five or six cycles with
detergent, bleach and the hottest water you can muster. If you’ve got a
clothesline and a sunny day, that’s the best way to dry them.

Folding Diapers

You thought you had made your last choice when you picked cloth, did
you? Think again. There are even more choices in 100% natural cloth
diapers than there are in the disposable diapers aisle at the supermarket. Pre-folded, padded, flat-folded, nappy-style, all-in-ones, all-in-twos – it’s enough to make your head spin just trying to absorb it all. Add to that the choices in diaper covers – plastic pants? Nappy covers? Wool covers? Velcro, pin or one of the novelty diaper fasteners? For the purposes of this Diapering Baby class, we’ll assume that you’re using plain old flat-folds – a simple rectangle of absorbent cotton that may have a quilted layer running down the middle for extra absorbency. Here are several different methods of folding diapers, courtesy of moms, grandmas and the DyDee Company.

The Angel-Wing Fold

1. Lay the diaper lengthwise on the changing table. Fold the sides of
the diaper in to the middle to form an absorbent pad.

2. Fold a few inches down at the front.

3. Unfold the sides at the back of the diaper, fanning them out.

4. Place the baby on the diaper, and pull the front up between his or
her legs.

5. Holding the front against his belly, bring both sides of the back
around to the front, and pin in place, pushing the pin through a few
layers of diaper. You don’t have to go all the way through the diaper so that the pin is against baby’s skin.

Bikini Twist High-Cut Fold

1. Lay the diaper flat on the table.

2. Turn ONE END of the diaper completely over, twisting the diaper at
the midpoint to form an absorbent pad.

3. Put the baby on the diaper (or the diaper under the baby, whichever
is easier).

4. Pull the front of the diaper up between baby’s legs.

5. Pull back corners of the diaper around the baby, over the front
corners and pin securely.

Double-Diaper For Heavy Wetters

1. Use one regular diaper and one infant size diaper. Lay regular
diaper on table. Place infant size diaper in center.

2. Fold sides of infant diaper in, then fold sides of regular diaper in
to cover the infant diaper.

3. Fold a few inches of the diaper front up, then fan the back of the
diaper out to form angel wings.

4. Plop the baby in the middle of the diaper, and proceed as for the
angel wing fold.

Whichever fold you choose to use, cover the whole thing with a diaper
cover, smooch the little tyke and send him back off to play with a warm, dry bottom.

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