Cloth Diaper Comeback
Posted on May 4th, 2009 – 12:07 PMBy Kay Krhin
I was a cloth diaper baby. Tydee Dydeee Diaper Service was a regular visitor at our house back in Illinois.
My siblings still tell me to this day about that stinky diaper pail and those pokey diaper pins.
Well - these days cloth diapers have vastly improved.
We were just discussing cloth diapers and day care last week.
In today’s Star Tribune you’ll find this article by Sarah Moran about the resurgence in the popularity of cloth diapers.
May and I both were/are “disposable” parents and learned how prevalent cloth diapers were becoming last year when we visited the Parenting Oasis in South Minneapolis.
One woman showing us around told us “We have regular diaper swaps.”
May and I asked “Oh you mean, like when you just buy a new jumbo case of size 3 diapers and your kid starts blowing out of them and you need to start buying size 4 and you have all of these leftovers?”
“No. We have a cloth diaper swap.”
“Oh.” and we instantly knew our kids would probably be in the minority for having Sesame Street characters on their diapers.
Are you are a cloth diaper user? - Which ones do you recommend? Pros? Cons?
Take the StarTribune.com Poll: Which diaper is best?
8 Responses to "Cloth Diaper Comeback"
We used disposables with both of our boys, and I won’t switch now as we are potty training very soon. The initial expense wouldn’t end up bringing us any financial gain.
However, if we do have a 3rd someday, I will strongly consider using cloth, both for the financial and environmental benefits.
Daycare options for cloth are so limited, that despite what I wanted to do, I couldn’t justify paying for both. If daycares would be willing to do cloth, it would be great, but there are so many things that would prevent that, like space, and different kids having different systems.
So, I will do disposable, and feel guilty every time.
I have done cloth with both of my girls. With both in the begining I would use disposables at night or on errands and once they were about 6 months I switched to all cloth. Which is a really great feeling. It is a bit of a adjustment but so easy once you get use to it and we never have to go and get diapers. Now we are working on cloth wipes and we will never have to buy diapers or wipes agian. Freedom!
I use to babysit and the Mom would bring her own cloth diapers for the week with breastmilk and she had her own bag that I stored the dirty ones in and it was super easy. I know that this wouldn’t work for every daycare but for us it wasn’t a problem at all. One last plug is that it was super easy to potty train because they feel when they are wet.
We do/did both. We’ve always used disposables at night, but try to use cloth during the day. While I was on maternity leave, Zoe was in cloth, except for nights. Once she went in to daycare, she was in disposables at daycare 4 days a week, and cloth 3 days a week.
Since the cloth diapers we used - Kissaluvs - were so adjustable and fit for such a long time, it wasn’t too much of an expense. She was in size 2s for over a year, and we only bought 13 of them to last the 3 days a week that she was in cloth.
I live in the Bay Area and use a diaper service, which costs about the same as disposables. We love cloth diapers! It’s interesting that some of the commenters above say they use disposables at night. When traveling we use disposables, but at night the baby tends to soak through them. This doesn’t happen with cloth because at night we use 2. I’m bummed we have to move away soon and our new location won’t have a service available — but it’s probably worth investing in our own set (baby is 10 months old now).
I should add that the cloth diapers we use are very simple (I think they’re called pre-folds), with LiteWrap covers and snappis clips. This probably takes slightly longer than the fancier options, but it’s still very easy. We enjoy diapering time and play with the baby — if it takes 30 extra seconds, we don’t mind! We never have leaks, either, unless baby’s pants somehow get tucked into the diaper cover.
Is the Minneapolis area still without any diaper service?
ok, I can barely get violet to sit still long enough to pull two tapes closed, I can’t imagine getting her to relax long enough for a cloth diaper.
We use both, but only because daycare won’t use cloth. If they did, I’d never buy another disposable diaper. Started out with prefolds (Green Mountain Diapers has the best) and Thirsties covers (LOVE Thirsties covers!), am starting to move on to fitteds and covers. Found a local mom that makes fitteds super-cheap, and got some hemp fleece ones from Crickett’s for nighttime. It’s an addiction, really. Someone please stop me.
Robin, they make all-in-ones - one step, same as a sposie 
