Eco-friendly poop sacks?
May 30, 2008 10:13 AM Subscribe
Anyone have any experience with gdiapers vs. cloth diapers?
My husband and I are expecting our first little girl in July. I have NO baby experience whatsoever, so the plethora of diapering options out there is quite intimidating.
It's hard to say which is more important to us: eco-friendliness or cost savings. We are not rich as it is, and soon will be living on one salary. That said, the thought of throwing away all those plastic disposables makes my skin crawl. So I had decided early on to go with cloth diapers, but then overwhelming (and adamant!) negative input from my friends and family members made me look for different options. (Their contentions with cloth diapering: the smell, having to wash poop, leakage, more frequent changings, extra work, all that washing wastes water).
I'm planning on being a stay-at-home mom, so the washing and drying don't seem like they'd be that big a deal to me, but I admit that I was swayed by the ick factor of scraping poop and the thought of having to carry around freezer bags full of wet diaper if we ever went out and had to change the baby.
I soon stumbled across the gDiaper and thought all my problems were solved. Flushable or disposable! Ecofriendly! (I've read that the biodegradable diapers such as 7th Generation are really not actually ecofriendly because they still go in a landfill where they can't biodegrade due to the anaerobic environment).
Then questions popped up that I can't find an answer to.
- It looks like they'd clog your toilet, as much as the company swears that they don't.
- Just how expensive are these guys? As I have no idea how often babies need to be changed, I don't know how many I'd need per day as opposed to cloth diapers... and thus no basis for running a cost comparison. How much do you think you ended up paying?
- Are they really as easy to use as they appear to be?
- Do they actually WORK well?
I'd welcome any and all experience with gdiapers as compared to cloth, or other suggestions of kinds of eco-friendly poop solutions.
My husband and I are expecting our first little girl in July. I have NO baby experience whatsoever, so the plethora of diapering options out there is quite intimidating.
It's hard to say which is more important to us: eco-friendliness or cost savings. We are not rich as it is, and soon will be living on one salary. That said, the thought of throwing away all those plastic disposables makes my skin crawl. So I had decided early on to go with cloth diapers, but then overwhelming (and adamant!) negative input from my friends and family members made me look for different options. (Their contentions with cloth diapering: the smell, having to wash poop, leakage, more frequent changings, extra work, all that washing wastes water).
I'm planning on being a stay-at-home mom, so the washing and drying don't seem like they'd be that big a deal to me, but I admit that I was swayed by the ick factor of scraping poop and the thought of having to carry around freezer bags full of wet diaper if we ever went out and had to change the baby.
I soon stumbled across the gDiaper and thought all my problems were solved. Flushable or disposable! Ecofriendly! (I've read that the biodegradable diapers such as 7th Generation are really not actually ecofriendly because they still go in a landfill where they can't biodegrade due to the anaerobic environment).
Then questions popped up that I can't find an answer to.
- It looks like they'd clog your toilet, as much as the company swears that they don't.
- Just how expensive are these guys? As I have no idea how often babies need to be changed, I don't know how many I'd need per day as opposed to cloth diapers... and thus no basis for running a cost comparison. How much do you think you ended up paying?
- Are they really as easy to use as they appear to be?
- Do they actually WORK well?
I'd welcome any and all experience with gdiapers as compared to cloth, or other suggestions of kinds of eco-friendly poop solutions.
I think you can count on 10-12 diapers per day with a newborn. Maybe that will help with your decision-making process?
There's a very long thread that discusses gdiapers on altdotlife.com (in the "Gear" pages), but you'd have to join the forum to read it. It's well-worth joining (free, too) for all the info you can get on all sorts of baby stuff.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 10:38 AM on May 30, 2008
There's a very long thread that discusses gdiapers on altdotlife.com (in the "Gear" pages), but you'd have to join the forum to read it. It's well-worth joining (free, too) for all the info you can get on all sorts of baby stuff.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 10:38 AM on May 30, 2008
I have used disposable, cloth (like, old fashioned need-to-fold-them cloth), pre-folds and AIO ("all in ones"). I haven't used the gDiaper, though I've looked into it. I would probably opt to compost it rather than flush since 1) we have a compost for our garden and 2) I think flushing them just makes it someone else's problem downstream and/or taxes the water purification system. I think keeping the water supply functioning is more important than keeping the landfills clean, so I try to tailor my impact to that.
The best overall advice I can give for diaper buying, though, is to get one or two of each kind and just try them out. Even disposables. Because even if you love one for its environmental footprint, it may not be in a cut/shape that keeps your baby's poop in, or it may be the one whose fastener aggravates you so much that you hate using them. Also, head over to the DiaperPin if you haven't found it already.
As an example of our use, I used disposable by choice for about the first 6 weeks. My thinking: why increase the incredibly steep learning curve of caring for an infant? Focus on what's more important for the first month or two. Plus, the baby grows so quickly that the fitted cloth diapers will be outgrown soon. And at around 10 diapers a day, laundry can get to be a pain in the ass, even for a SAHM, as I am. Then I used cloth for about 3mo-1yo (FuzziBunz). The laundry flow had settled down a bit, I was still breastfeeding so poops weren't horrible, and I wasn't traveling a lot. But I did use disposable when we traveled. After that the ratio of cloth to disposable has fluctuated due to things like travel, day care and potty training.
posted by cocoagirl at 10:47 AM on May 30, 2008
The best overall advice I can give for diaper buying, though, is to get one or two of each kind and just try them out. Even disposables. Because even if you love one for its environmental footprint, it may not be in a cut/shape that keeps your baby's poop in, or it may be the one whose fastener aggravates you so much that you hate using them. Also, head over to the DiaperPin if you haven't found it already.
As an example of our use, I used disposable by choice for about the first 6 weeks. My thinking: why increase the incredibly steep learning curve of caring for an infant? Focus on what's more important for the first month or two. Plus, the baby grows so quickly that the fitted cloth diapers will be outgrown soon. And at around 10 diapers a day, laundry can get to be a pain in the ass, even for a SAHM, as I am. Then I used cloth for about 3mo-1yo (FuzziBunz). The laundry flow had settled down a bit, I was still breastfeeding so poops weren't horrible, and I wasn't traveling a lot. But I did use disposable when we traveled. After that the ratio of cloth to disposable has fluctuated due to things like travel, day care and potty training.
posted by cocoagirl at 10:47 AM on May 30, 2008
There are times and places in life where you just have to compromise. Stressed out, sleep deprived new parenthood would be one of those IMHO. Cloth diapers suck up a lot of water, detergent, and time, diaper services involve trucks driving around doing deliveries, and disposables end up in landfills.
None are really ideal environmentally speaking.
Modern landfills are well designed and pose little short term risk. I'd go with the disposables, you'll have enough to worry about with a new infant to care for.
10-12 diapers a day is not an exaggeration. They really do go that often.
posted by COD at 10:50 AM on May 30, 2008
None are really ideal environmentally speaking.
Modern landfills are well designed and pose little short term risk. I'd go with the disposables, you'll have enough to worry about with a new infant to care for.
10-12 diapers a day is not an exaggeration. They really do go that often.
posted by COD at 10:50 AM on May 30, 2008
You don't have to do all one or the other. A mix of what works at the time is probably best. Diaper services aren't available in my area, or we probably would have used that.
My one year old currently use Bum Genius 3.0 and we are very happy with them, and have about 18 diapers we cycle through, doing a load when we're down to 1 or 2 remaining diapers, and a chlorine-free disposable if we don't get the wash done in time. We also use the disposable at night as it is more absorbent. Our daycare seems to manage using them without issue.
That said, we got a free trial of a gDiaper and I liked the concept. The flushing only works if you tear the insert up quite a bit before putting it in the toilet and they weren't as quickly absorbent as the microfiber washable inserts on the Bum Genius diapers. The gDiaper inserts did eventually hold more, but a wiggly baby could get leaks before the insert could absorb it all.
If you do go with gDiapers, the "g" logo on the diaper cover goes in the back, something I didn't learn until months after we picked Bum Genius, which might have caused some of our leak problems, but I doubt it.
the reusables aren't a big environment difference to the disposables because of the water use, but they do result in a cost savings over time after a fairly large initial commitment.
posted by jrishel at 11:00 AM on May 30, 2008
My one year old currently use Bum Genius 3.0 and we are very happy with them, and have about 18 diapers we cycle through, doing a load when we're down to 1 or 2 remaining diapers, and a chlorine-free disposable if we don't get the wash done in time. We also use the disposable at night as it is more absorbent. Our daycare seems to manage using them without issue.
That said, we got a free trial of a gDiaper and I liked the concept. The flushing only works if you tear the insert up quite a bit before putting it in the toilet and they weren't as quickly absorbent as the microfiber washable inserts on the Bum Genius diapers. The gDiaper inserts did eventually hold more, but a wiggly baby could get leaks before the insert could absorb it all.
If you do go with gDiapers, the "g" logo on the diaper cover goes in the back, something I didn't learn until months after we picked Bum Genius, which might have caused some of our leak problems, but I doubt it.
the reusables aren't a big environment difference to the disposables because of the water use, but they do result in a cost savings over time after a fairly large initial commitment.
posted by jrishel at 11:00 AM on May 30, 2008
I used cloth diapers (regular fold them yourself kind, in a soft velcro-fastened diaper wrap I bought from the service) and occasionally disposables. I found the cloth diapers to be so much more convenient than the disposables that I generally travelled with cloth diapers if I stayed any place with a W/D. Disposables leaked more, couldn't be used for anything other than as diapers, and every single time we travelled with them, we were like three short at the end of the trip and had to buy 25 of the damn things. We ended up with a few dozen of assorted sizes foundering in the back of the closet that we've just now tossed. (Daughter has been out of diapers for three years - finally got around to it.)
I used a service, which is ultra easy. (1) Piles of clean, fluffy white diapers arrive in a big bag. (2) Diapers are used as changing pad (if they get nasty while changing a diaper, no problem!). They're used as burp rags. They're used to wipe spittle off the baby, me, whatever. (I managed to keep my husband from using them to clean his bike only with great effort.) (3) Dirty diapers get tossed into a plastic-bag-lined trash can with a flip-up lid. There's a little anti-smell thing in the lid. (4) At the end of the week, the whole bag is put on the front step, and within a few hours is magically taken away and replaced with piles of clean, fluffy white diapers in a big bag.
Re scraping: I used two different services, and neither one required me to do any scraping or anything. The whole diaper just went straight in the bag. Easy!
Re carrying around nasty diapers: It's not a big deal to take the dirty ones home, surprisingly. Just put a plastic bag, like a Target bag, in the diaper bag and put them in there. It's really nothing, although you'd think it would be. Why? Um, because things in plastic bags don't really smell. Baby poop doesn't really smell. Baby pee is 99% water and doesn't really smell. At home, untie the knot, and let the diaper fall out of the bag into the diaper trash can. Done. Carrying around clean diapers, though, is really nice, and there are an infinite number of uses for them, as mentioned above.
Re leakage: I found disposables to leak much more, and frequently double-diapered my daughter in them.
Re frequent changes: You WANT to do this. Otherwise if there is anything in the waste that's bad, such as, say, uric acid (the main component of pee, after water) it stays glommed onto the precious baby's soft little tush for longer, which leads to diaper rash and an unhappy baby. Frequent changes are a very good thing, for baby's health, and also if you change frequently, it goes really fast because the diaper isn't loaded down and kind of tricky to handle. My daughter got the worst cases of diaper rash when she was in disposables, and after a day or two in cloth diapers, it went away, all other conditions the same.
Re extra work: Babies in cloth diapers from birth potty train 6-12 months sooner on average. That's a lot less extra work in the long run! Plus, cloth diapers aren't extra work. Diaper services are incredibly good about keeping you well stocked, so there aren't any 2 am runs to the 7-11 to get another pack of diapers. Even if you do launder them yourself (which I have done also) it's pretty minimal: stuff all the diapers in the washer before you go to bed, move them to the dryer when you wake up, fold them (which isn't anything like folding clothes or matching socks) whenever you feel like it. Or don't - just dump them all in a big wicker basket, which you can put baby in once in a while for a cute picture. (Speaking from experience here.)
Re wasting water: the production of disposables uses as much water as washing cloth, so that's bunk. Water used in washing returns to the ecosystem; plastic diapers in a plastic-lined pit don't.
Re getting the right fit: I can't speak to what shape your baby's butt will turn out to be, so I agree that if you're going to launder your own diapers, try a few of each kind and find the right ones. If you're going with a service, they'll just give you diapers. I never had a problem fitting them on my kid, and obviously lots of people use services, so they're probably pretty generic.
Re price: The two services I used were cheaper than disposables. I can't speak to G and FuzziBunz and all that. And in the end, I gave away the diaper wraps to a friend, who has used them on two more babies.
posted by Capri at 11:22 AM on May 30, 2008 [3 favorites]
I used a service, which is ultra easy. (1) Piles of clean, fluffy white diapers arrive in a big bag. (2) Diapers are used as changing pad (if they get nasty while changing a diaper, no problem!). They're used as burp rags. They're used to wipe spittle off the baby, me, whatever. (I managed to keep my husband from using them to clean his bike only with great effort.) (3) Dirty diapers get tossed into a plastic-bag-lined trash can with a flip-up lid. There's a little anti-smell thing in the lid. (4) At the end of the week, the whole bag is put on the front step, and within a few hours is magically taken away and replaced with piles of clean, fluffy white diapers in a big bag.
Re scraping: I used two different services, and neither one required me to do any scraping or anything. The whole diaper just went straight in the bag. Easy!
Re carrying around nasty diapers: It's not a big deal to take the dirty ones home, surprisingly. Just put a plastic bag, like a Target bag, in the diaper bag and put them in there. It's really nothing, although you'd think it would be. Why? Um, because things in plastic bags don't really smell. Baby poop doesn't really smell. Baby pee is 99% water and doesn't really smell. At home, untie the knot, and let the diaper fall out of the bag into the diaper trash can. Done. Carrying around clean diapers, though, is really nice, and there are an infinite number of uses for them, as mentioned above.
Re leakage: I found disposables to leak much more, and frequently double-diapered my daughter in them.
Re frequent changes: You WANT to do this. Otherwise if there is anything in the waste that's bad, such as, say, uric acid (the main component of pee, after water) it stays glommed onto the precious baby's soft little tush for longer, which leads to diaper rash and an unhappy baby. Frequent changes are a very good thing, for baby's health, and also if you change frequently, it goes really fast because the diaper isn't loaded down and kind of tricky to handle. My daughter got the worst cases of diaper rash when she was in disposables, and after a day or two in cloth diapers, it went away, all other conditions the same.
Re extra work: Babies in cloth diapers from birth potty train 6-12 months sooner on average. That's a lot less extra work in the long run! Plus, cloth diapers aren't extra work. Diaper services are incredibly good about keeping you well stocked, so there aren't any 2 am runs to the 7-11 to get another pack of diapers. Even if you do launder them yourself (which I have done also) it's pretty minimal: stuff all the diapers in the washer before you go to bed, move them to the dryer when you wake up, fold them (which isn't anything like folding clothes or matching socks) whenever you feel like it. Or don't - just dump them all in a big wicker basket, which you can put baby in once in a while for a cute picture. (Speaking from experience here.)
Re wasting water: the production of disposables uses as much water as washing cloth, so that's bunk. Water used in washing returns to the ecosystem; plastic diapers in a plastic-lined pit don't.
Re getting the right fit: I can't speak to what shape your baby's butt will turn out to be, so I agree that if you're going to launder your own diapers, try a few of each kind and find the right ones. If you're going with a service, they'll just give you diapers. I never had a problem fitting them on my kid, and obviously lots of people use services, so they're probably pretty generic.
Re price: The two services I used were cheaper than disposables. I can't speak to G and FuzziBunz and all that. And in the end, I gave away the diaper wraps to a friend, who has used them on two more babies.
posted by Capri at 11:22 AM on May 30, 2008 [3 favorites]
For my first baby, I had Kushies and Sears brand cloth diapers. They worked pretty well and I was happy. But, for my second baby, I bought Motherease diapers. OMG. What a difference! I love them. Love them, love them, love them! They are very absorbent. I have 24 which means I don't have to do wash every day. I just toss them in the pail and then into the washer and then the dryer. It's not much work. I mean, if you have disposables, you toss them into the garbage and then you have to take the garbage out. So, I guess there is the work of moving these from washer to dryer and remembering to do so. But you're just always doing laundry with a baby anyway. I hardly notice the effort.
Yes, you're going to be changing 12 diapers with an infant -- heck, maybe more. But, even if you used five a day, you'd still be washing diapers every couple of days, since you wouldn't want them to keep sitting there.
I don't soak my diapers. I do shake them out (once baby is on solids) into the toilet BUT you are supposed to do that with disposables too. (Read the instructions. And ask your City about bylaws. Yup.)
I don't fold my diapers. No need. These Motherease ones just stack easily, right from the dryer.
posted by acoutu at 11:25 AM on May 30, 2008
Yes, you're going to be changing 12 diapers with an infant -- heck, maybe more. But, even if you used five a day, you'd still be washing diapers every couple of days, since you wouldn't want them to keep sitting there.
I don't soak my diapers. I do shake them out (once baby is on solids) into the toilet BUT you are supposed to do that with disposables too. (Read the instructions. And ask your City about bylaws. Yup.)
I don't fold my diapers. No need. These Motherease ones just stack easily, right from the dryer.
posted by acoutu at 11:25 AM on May 30, 2008
I'm using disposables, but friends and family using cloth diapers seem to be happy with them.*
I hear great things about Fuzzibunz.
I looked into gdiapers a little, and ultimately, it seems like it's a big messy hassle. All the time-consumingness of cloth diapers combined with the throwing-away-iness of disposables. I mean, the fact that it comes with a special toilet 'swish-stick' is a big red light. It's the worst of both worlds, not the best of them.
I think the best thing would be a diaper service. I hear that it's cheaper than disposables, and you don't have to launder them yourself, which is huge. If I do it all again, I'd definitely look harder than I did this first time around for a local diaper service, at least for the first 6 months.
*My wee nephew, however, is a bit of a tyrant about having wet (cloth) diapers changed right away.
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 11:39 AM on May 30, 2008
I hear great things about Fuzzibunz.
I looked into gdiapers a little, and ultimately, it seems like it's a big messy hassle. All the time-consumingness of cloth diapers combined with the throwing-away-iness of disposables. I mean, the fact that it comes with a special toilet 'swish-stick' is a big red light. It's the worst of both worlds, not the best of them.
I think the best thing would be a diaper service. I hear that it's cheaper than disposables, and you don't have to launder them yourself, which is huge. If I do it all again, I'd definitely look harder than I did this first time around for a local diaper service, at least for the first 6 months.
*My wee nephew, however, is a bit of a tyrant about having wet (cloth) diapers changed right away.
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 11:39 AM on May 30, 2008
We use Bum Genius cloth diapers along with flushable liners. This system works great and we've never had a clog or any other problem.
posted by mattbucher at 11:41 AM on May 30, 2008
posted by mattbucher at 11:41 AM on May 30, 2008
Best answer: We have a three month old son, and wanted to find a more eco-friendly alternative to filling up the garbage with poopy diapers. Like you, I thought laundering at home wouldn't be such a big deal. I started by trying out gDiapers, FuzziBunz, and BumGenius as alternatives to disposables.
One of the things I hadn't considered when starting my experiment is that the poop of a breast-fed baby (which is what we are doing) is not the poop we adults are used to. I read the words "scraping poop" and I smiled to myself- a more accurate verb would be "smear"- the consistency is slimy and oozy and in my experience hopelessly icky to be laundering cloth diapers at home. In fact, I tried the FuzziBunz once, reached that conclusion, and never even got around to trying the BumGenius, which I stored away for when he goes on solid foods and maybe the consistency of the poop will be more manageable.
Because the gDiaper liner gets pulled out and flushed away, it didn't have the same limitations as the other two. So we have moved forward and use a combination of gDiapers and disposables (for when we are going out, traveling, or overnight.) Here's what we've learned so far:
I have found the gDiapers nearly as easy to use as disposables. Once you get the hang of keeping some assembled and ready to go, diaper changes are a snap.
The gDiapers leaked regularly when my son was a newborn. The small size says its from 8-14 pounds but we found that until my son filled out a bit and got those chunky thighs that babies get, the gDiaper tended to leak. Once he crossed the 10 pound mark, leakage is much less of an issue. By the same token, however, the most spectacular poop-splosions my son has had have all been with disposable diapers, and a certain amount of leaking is inevitable IMHO, regardless of diaper system. We just moved into the medium size at 14 pounds, and haven't had a leak yet. YMMV of course, every baby is shaped differently.
I myself have never had the toilet clog. My husband has clogged the toilet three or four times, and freely admits this is due to user error on his part. You have to take the insert and tear along three sides, shaking the absorbent material into the toilet bowl separate from the o insert cover. (My husband tried flushing it whole. Don't do that.) Yes it can be a little icky but you're supposed to wash your hands after changing the baby anyway, so it's really no biggie. My husband has also tried flushing more that one insert at a time. Don't do that either. In my view the ability to flush the nasty stinky part of the diaper down the toilet is a wonderful thing. There is no "diaper pail smell" in our house. I love that.
Normally I find myself changing his diaper with the same frequency whether he's in a gDiaper or a disposable. I've never used the traditional cloth diapers, except for that one time, so I can't compare on that basis. As a rough estimate, I'd say I change his diapers roughly every two hours or so during the daytime. We bought seven gDiaper covers in the small size and that wasn't quite enough- it was a little hard to stay on top of it and always have some ready to go- now that we have moved up to the mediums we bought nine covers and that works a lot better (the covers are cheaper if you buy more that one of the sampler pack, although you don't get to choose the colors that way.) I'm sure you can find some used covers on eBay and save a little bit there. The inserts are more expensive than traditional disposables, but the ability to flush them tips the scale in their favor- if we were to use only disposables, we'd have to get a larger trash can, and pay more to our municipality for garbage service, so the ability to flush the inserts works to bring down their overall cost.
Finally, you can spend a lot of time agonizing over the "correct" environmental choice when it comes to diaper alternatives. There are pros and cons to each, and some choices may work better in different areas, depending upon which resource is more precious in your area- Water? Land? Overall though, the environmental impact if your choice of diaper is tiny in comparison to the overall environmental impact of choosing to bring another person onto this planet.
posted by ambrosia at 11:44 AM on May 30, 2008 [7 favorites]
One of the things I hadn't considered when starting my experiment is that the poop of a breast-fed baby (which is what we are doing) is not the poop we adults are used to. I read the words "scraping poop" and I smiled to myself- a more accurate verb would be "smear"- the consistency is slimy and oozy and in my experience hopelessly icky to be laundering cloth diapers at home. In fact, I tried the FuzziBunz once, reached that conclusion, and never even got around to trying the BumGenius, which I stored away for when he goes on solid foods and maybe the consistency of the poop will be more manageable.
Because the gDiaper liner gets pulled out and flushed away, it didn't have the same limitations as the other two. So we have moved forward and use a combination of gDiapers and disposables (for when we are going out, traveling, or overnight.) Here's what we've learned so far:
I have found the gDiapers nearly as easy to use as disposables. Once you get the hang of keeping some assembled and ready to go, diaper changes are a snap.
The gDiapers leaked regularly when my son was a newborn. The small size says its from 8-14 pounds but we found that until my son filled out a bit and got those chunky thighs that babies get, the gDiaper tended to leak. Once he crossed the 10 pound mark, leakage is much less of an issue. By the same token, however, the most spectacular poop-splosions my son has had have all been with disposable diapers, and a certain amount of leaking is inevitable IMHO, regardless of diaper system. We just moved into the medium size at 14 pounds, and haven't had a leak yet. YMMV of course, every baby is shaped differently.
I myself have never had the toilet clog. My husband has clogged the toilet three or four times, and freely admits this is due to user error on his part. You have to take the insert and tear along three sides, shaking the absorbent material into the toilet bowl separate from the o insert cover. (My husband tried flushing it whole. Don't do that.) Yes it can be a little icky but you're supposed to wash your hands after changing the baby anyway, so it's really no biggie. My husband has also tried flushing more that one insert at a time. Don't do that either. In my view the ability to flush the nasty stinky part of the diaper down the toilet is a wonderful thing. There is no "diaper pail smell" in our house. I love that.
Normally I find myself changing his diaper with the same frequency whether he's in a gDiaper or a disposable. I've never used the traditional cloth diapers, except for that one time, so I can't compare on that basis. As a rough estimate, I'd say I change his diapers roughly every two hours or so during the daytime. We bought seven gDiaper covers in the small size and that wasn't quite enough- it was a little hard to stay on top of it and always have some ready to go- now that we have moved up to the mediums we bought nine covers and that works a lot better (the covers are cheaper if you buy more that one of the sampler pack, although you don't get to choose the colors that way.) I'm sure you can find some used covers on eBay and save a little bit there. The inserts are more expensive than traditional disposables, but the ability to flush them tips the scale in their favor- if we were to use only disposables, we'd have to get a larger trash can, and pay more to our municipality for garbage service, so the ability to flush the inserts works to bring down their overall cost.
Finally, you can spend a lot of time agonizing over the "correct" environmental choice when it comes to diaper alternatives. There are pros and cons to each, and some choices may work better in different areas, depending upon which resource is more precious in your area- Water? Land? Overall though, the environmental impact if your choice of diaper is tiny in comparison to the overall environmental impact of choosing to bring another person onto this planet.
posted by ambrosia at 11:44 AM on May 30, 2008 [7 favorites]
I too have been through it all with diapers. When we used cloth it was only one load of laundry every two or three days, maybe even less. Yeah, you had a big bucket of poopy water that you had to drain into the toilet before you washed the diapers, but meh - it was a bit smelly but no big deal. Honestly, it was less laundry than the kids generate 10 years later when they wear big clothes and change them every day (or more often).
If you're really so pressed for time that you can't do one extra load of laundry per week get a diaper service. The cloth diaper services wash them in bulk and some of the disposable diaper services deliver diapers that can be composted and will compost them instead of sending them to landfill. Either way, about as environment friendly as you can get until you toilet train.
Overall, I found all diaper varieties pretty much the same. The only ones that don't work well as the no-gel disposables. They just don't absorb enough.
I did basically what acoutu described above - a couple dozen diapers, keep dirty ones in a pail with water, borax and tea tree oil to disinfect & kill the smell and wash 'em every few days. Also, FWIW, I'm the dad - if you find it too much work as the mom, make your husband wash them. Seriously. Guys who make a fuss about dealing with poop are, in a word, retards.
posted by GuyZero at 11:48 AM on May 30, 2008
If you're really so pressed for time that you can't do one extra load of laundry per week get a diaper service. The cloth diaper services wash them in bulk and some of the disposable diaper services deliver diapers that can be composted and will compost them instead of sending them to landfill. Either way, about as environment friendly as you can get until you toilet train.
Overall, I found all diaper varieties pretty much the same. The only ones that don't work well as the no-gel disposables. They just don't absorb enough.
I did basically what acoutu described above - a couple dozen diapers, keep dirty ones in a pail with water, borax and tea tree oil to disinfect & kill the smell and wash 'em every few days. Also, FWIW, I'm the dad - if you find it too much work as the mom, make your husband wash them. Seriously. Guys who make a fuss about dealing with poop are, in a word, retards.
posted by GuyZero at 11:48 AM on May 30, 2008
overwhelming (and adamant!) negative input from my friends and family members made me look for different options. (Their contentions with cloth diapering: the smell, having to wash poop, leakage, more frequent changings, extra work, all that washing wastes water).
I don't have a kid myself (though I've known plenty of babies of friends and family members) but am in favor of cloth diapers for all of the reasons outlined above. Also, nthing diaper service. Also:
Your friends and family will have overwhelming and adamant input on everything.
You and your husband will be doing 99% of the diapering, smelling, working, and washing, so you get to be the deciders.
In the overall World Of Parenting, poop is just not that big of a deal.
posted by desuetude at 11:55 AM on May 30, 2008 [1 favorite]
I don't have a kid myself (though I've known plenty of babies of friends and family members) but am in favor of cloth diapers for all of the reasons outlined above. Also, nthing diaper service. Also:
Your friends and family will have overwhelming and adamant input on everything.
You and your husband will be doing 99% of the diapering, smelling, working, and washing, so you get to be the deciders.
In the overall World Of Parenting, poop is just not that big of a deal.
posted by desuetude at 11:55 AM on May 30, 2008 [1 favorite]
I think it boils down to neither choice is "better" for the environment than the other.
I just hate throwing things out, so we used cloth for my son (who's now 5). In my opinion, the ick factor is pretty non-existant after a few days.. you'd be surprised how someone who is normally squeemish about such things, becomes used to it, especially when it's your own baby :-)
My son basically wore cloth diapers until he was too big for them to be comfortable for him to get around in - at that point he went to disposables. He also got diaper rash pretty regularly once the switch happened. Thankfully he wasn't in them long before he potty trained.
As for the cleaning of such, we just had a pail with a cloth/waterproof liner and tossed them into that and washed a load every 2 or 3 days.. obviously, we dumpd the solids inot the toilet before throwing them into the pail, but other than that, they were not that bad...
as a bonus, you'd be surprised how useful those leftover cloth diapers are for rags and such.
I will say that from a cost-0savings point of view, we saved a lot by using cloth most of his babyhood.. I'd also mention to buy the "Good" cloth diapers, and not the ones you occosionaly find at BabiesRUs or similar.. the difference is night and day, and you want the nice thick absorbant ones, not the thin ones!
posted by niteHawk at 12:06 PM on May 30, 2008
I just hate throwing things out, so we used cloth for my son (who's now 5). In my opinion, the ick factor is pretty non-existant after a few days.. you'd be surprised how someone who is normally squeemish about such things, becomes used to it, especially when it's your own baby :-)
My son basically wore cloth diapers until he was too big for them to be comfortable for him to get around in - at that point he went to disposables. He also got diaper rash pretty regularly once the switch happened. Thankfully he wasn't in them long before he potty trained.
As for the cleaning of such, we just had a pail with a cloth/waterproof liner and tossed them into that and washed a load every 2 or 3 days.. obviously, we dumpd the solids inot the toilet before throwing them into the pail, but other than that, they were not that bad...
as a bonus, you'd be surprised how useful those leftover cloth diapers are for rags and such.
I will say that from a cost-0savings point of view, we saved a lot by using cloth most of his babyhood.. I'd also mention to buy the "Good" cloth diapers, and not the ones you occosionaly find at BabiesRUs or similar.. the difference is night and day, and you want the nice thick absorbant ones, not the thin ones!
posted by niteHawk at 12:06 PM on May 30, 2008
Best answer: We use GDiapers for our 2 month old. It took a couple weeks to actually grow into the diaper. At 8.5 lbs we were on the small side and the diaper had some leak issues. But, I joined the mailing list and knew from reading some of the trials that come with the GDiaper system.
We have four cloth outers, 8+ liners and we buy the inserts by the case. Originally, a little boutique near our home was going to source the case for us but they raised their prices and we found Diapers.com has them with free shipping.
I'll try to answer your questions:
- It looks like they'd clog your toilet, as much as the company swears that they don't.
They really don't. You pull the right side of the insert, then the left. Most of the time the pulp just falls out. Sometimes peepee diapers require ripping the top of the insert and after that it just falls in the water. Stir the pulp and you'll see it resemble soggy toilet paper in no time. After that, and depending upon the diaper, we either toss the insert shell in the trash or in the toilet. I don't know why I toss it in the trash other than I'm a little skeptical about how quick that part breaks down. After 1.5 months, we had one clogged toilet and no sewer issues at all. I also bought a compost bin and have just started throwing peepee diapers in the compost bin.
- Just how expensive are these guys? As I have no idea how often babies need to be changed, I don't know how many I'd need per day as opposed to cloth diapers... and thus no basis for running a cost comparison. How much do you think you ended up paying?
We paid $52 at Diapers.com with free shipping. We order a couple days ahead of time and it arrives in 2 days. We must be close to a distro center. You can also order from their site and even set up auto renewal. I think it is said that newbors can go through a dozen diapers in a day and sometimes down to 8 in a day. A case lasts us (per my wife) about a month. So $50something per month isn't bad at all. I don't mind paying a little premium knowing they are sitting in a landfill.
- Are they really as easy to use as they appear to be?
Well, that all depends upon your interest in being eco-friendly. I don't mind it at all and neither does my wife. We make all of the liners in the morning or as needed and just refill as needed. When we go out we have four of the cotton shells loaded and several liners loaded. When a shell is used, we dump the insert and then refill with a loaded liner. Sometimes liners get poop on them so we have to throw them in the laundry for cleaning. We also wash the shells with laundry, as well.
- Do they actually WORK well?
In the beginning, my baby was tall and thin. We had issues with poop "moving forward" which really concerned us. I was almost willing to give up on GDiaper. I pinged their mailing list (which has an unbelievable amount of traffic) and I could have called the company (they love phone calls with questions) and it got sorted out. We waited until our baby filled out and then gave a tug in the front and the back to assure the snugness of the shell/liner/insert. It doesn't happen anymore. As for peepee diapers, they are super absorbent. We haven't had any rash at all and in the summer months when it will be scorching, it will great to cool her off with just the GDiaper and a shirt.
Good luck and shoot me a msg if you need any other help.
posted by timmins at 12:35 PM on May 30, 2008
We have four cloth outers, 8+ liners and we buy the inserts by the case. Originally, a little boutique near our home was going to source the case for us but they raised their prices and we found Diapers.com has them with free shipping.
I'll try to answer your questions:
- It looks like they'd clog your toilet, as much as the company swears that they don't.
They really don't. You pull the right side of the insert, then the left. Most of the time the pulp just falls out. Sometimes peepee diapers require ripping the top of the insert and after that it just falls in the water. Stir the pulp and you'll see it resemble soggy toilet paper in no time. After that, and depending upon the diaper, we either toss the insert shell in the trash or in the toilet. I don't know why I toss it in the trash other than I'm a little skeptical about how quick that part breaks down. After 1.5 months, we had one clogged toilet and no sewer issues at all. I also bought a compost bin and have just started throwing peepee diapers in the compost bin.
- Just how expensive are these guys? As I have no idea how often babies need to be changed, I don't know how many I'd need per day as opposed to cloth diapers... and thus no basis for running a cost comparison. How much do you think you ended up paying?
We paid $52 at Diapers.com with free shipping. We order a couple days ahead of time and it arrives in 2 days. We must be close to a distro center. You can also order from their site and even set up auto renewal. I think it is said that newbors can go through a dozen diapers in a day and sometimes down to 8 in a day. A case lasts us (per my wife) about a month. So $50something per month isn't bad at all. I don't mind paying a little premium knowing they are sitting in a landfill.
- Are they really as easy to use as they appear to be?
Well, that all depends upon your interest in being eco-friendly. I don't mind it at all and neither does my wife. We make all of the liners in the morning or as needed and just refill as needed. When we go out we have four of the cotton shells loaded and several liners loaded. When a shell is used, we dump the insert and then refill with a loaded liner. Sometimes liners get poop on them so we have to throw them in the laundry for cleaning. We also wash the shells with laundry, as well.
- Do they actually WORK well?
In the beginning, my baby was tall and thin. We had issues with poop "moving forward" which really concerned us. I was almost willing to give up on GDiaper. I pinged their mailing list (which has an unbelievable amount of traffic) and I could have called the company (they love phone calls with questions) and it got sorted out. We waited until our baby filled out and then gave a tug in the front and the back to assure the snugness of the shell/liner/insert. It doesn't happen anymore. As for peepee diapers, they are super absorbent. We haven't had any rash at all and in the summer months when it will be scorching, it will great to cool her off with just the GDiaper and a shirt.
Good luck and shoot me a msg if you need any other help.
posted by timmins at 12:35 PM on May 30, 2008
I used gdiapers on my daughter, and they worked alright. Not great, not poorly, just alright. My biggest complaint was that the inserts weren't always easy to find. You may not think that's a problem when you're buying bulk online, but after the fifth or sixth time you run out because of shipping delays or production problems or whatnot you'll get pretty irritated.
As to the question of toilet clogs, I never had a problem.
posted by lekvar at 12:37 PM on May 30, 2008
As to the question of toilet clogs, I never had a problem.
posted by lekvar at 12:37 PM on May 30, 2008
We did disposable on the first kid. Tried a bunch of different cloth diapers on the second. I was extremely skeptical that cloth would be easy. After a few months, we found that Fuzzi Buns were indeed really easy. It's not so much the fit (most of them fit pretty well) is how easy they clean up. Now, at 3 years old, we've spent about a total of $120 on diapering the kid. It's going up now, since the washable cloth wipes aren't doing the job on a lad of this age, and and we've started buying disposable wipes. But between the age of 9 months and 3 years, we were hardly spending anything beyond washing costs.
The major downside was the wear it put on our clothes washer. The repairman said it looked like a 10 year old washer when it was 5. It all but gave our after 2 1/2 years of washing cloth diapers. I wish we could have bought a front loading, high-efficiency earlier, which is doing a better job with much less water- enough that it's noticeable on our water bill. If we'd been able to sell our older washer for some cash, before all the wear and tear, the HE washer would have really lowered our overall diaper investment.
posted by bendybendy at 1:23 PM on May 30, 2008
The major downside was the wear it put on our clothes washer. The repairman said it looked like a 10 year old washer when it was 5. It all but gave our after 2 1/2 years of washing cloth diapers. I wish we could have bought a front loading, high-efficiency earlier, which is doing a better job with much less water- enough that it's noticeable on our water bill. If we'd been able to sell our older washer for some cash, before all the wear and tear, the HE washer would have really lowered our overall diaper investment.
posted by bendybendy at 1:23 PM on May 30, 2008
gdiapers never fit my son right and were the source of spectacular leaks. I would go with the bumgenius one size - they work just like disposables, are really easy to clean and have kept my son diaper rash free. If they get stained all you have to do is dry them in the sun and the stains magically disappear. The only time he leaks in bg is at night because he is a side sleeper (we use 7th gen disposables at night).
And congratulations! Being a mom is so much fun!
posted by a22lamia at 1:42 PM on May 30, 2008
And congratulations! Being a mom is so much fun!
posted by a22lamia at 1:42 PM on May 30, 2008
We haven't tried gDiapers with our 2-month-old, but recently came down on the side of disposables in the Cloth-v-Disposable Rummmmmble. There's a longer version of the decision here, but in short, the choice is an environmental wash (Ha-ha! A pun!) between clogging landfills and sacrificing many gallons of water for washing. For us, conserving water is a more pressing environmental issue than landfill space, so we're using disposables.
posted by brozek at 6:02 PM on May 30, 2008
posted by brozek at 6:02 PM on May 30, 2008
For us, conserving water is a more pressing environmental issue than landfill space, so we're using disposables.
This is a good point and will vary depending on where you live. In Arizona, disposables would be more environmental. In Toronto (where there is no landfill), cloth.
posted by GuyZero at 6:25 PM on May 30, 2008
This is a good point and will vary depending on where you live. In Arizona, disposables would be more environmental. In Toronto (where there is no landfill), cloth.
posted by GuyZero at 6:25 PM on May 30, 2008
Best answer: We've used Fuzzi Bunz on my 1 1/2 yr old daughter since she was 1 mth old.
Poo
"Scraping poo / toilet dunking" is rare, maybe once a month.
For exclusively breastfed babies, the poo is completely water soluble and the soiled diaper needs no pre-rinsing before getting tossed in the diaper pail.
Once she started eating solids, the increased fibre caused poo that simply shook/rolled off the fleece lining into the toilet. Since you'd already have to do this with the gDiapers it's not an added step.
The only toilet swishing we've had to do has been when she's been sick, or something's disagreed with her.
Extra work/Smell
We dump the diaper pail in the wash every evening. There's enough for a small load daily, since we also use cloth wipes, and cotton prefolds as her change mat. It's really not a chore. The lidded diaper pail doesn't smell, and they wash up completely clean, with no smell.
Leakage/Extra changes
Beyond cost/eco-friendly considerations, we've found cloth diapers just seem more comfortable. We've never had to use diaper cream, since the cloth prevents diaper rash. We've also never had poo blowouts with cloth compared to friends using disposables. We change her at the same rate as friends using 'sposies. Fuzzi Bunz won't leak pee unless the insert is super saturated, aka, hasn't been changed in hours.
On the Go
We put soiled diapers in ziploc freezer bags, stash them in the diaper bag, and pop them in the diaper pail when we get home - not a big deal. They don't smell. At other houses, they simply go in a waterproof cloth bag we own.
Plus
She started toilet training recently, which is early.
Con
She's a heavy wetter, so we use more absorbent inserts = a slightly bulkier "bubble butt" compared to 'sposies. Her pants still fit fine though, so it's really not a big deal.
Fuzzi Bunz also take up more room in diaper bags then 'sposies, but since we carry tons of gear around anyways and use a backpack it makes no difference to us.
Negative Family/Friends
Our family was extremely negative about using cloth, especially my wife's mother. She's since done a complete 180, and now sings the praises of Fuzzi Bunz to every parent she meets.
And a final note - we've been happy with Fuzzi Bunz, but there are many great cloth options out there that are cheaper and worth researching.
posted by Vindaloo at 11:34 AM on May 31, 2008
Poo
"Scraping poo / toilet dunking" is rare, maybe once a month.
For exclusively breastfed babies, the poo is completely water soluble and the soiled diaper needs no pre-rinsing before getting tossed in the diaper pail.
Once she started eating solids, the increased fibre caused poo that simply shook/rolled off the fleece lining into the toilet. Since you'd already have to do this with the gDiapers it's not an added step.
The only toilet swishing we've had to do has been when she's been sick, or something's disagreed with her.
Extra work/Smell
We dump the diaper pail in the wash every evening. There's enough for a small load daily, since we also use cloth wipes, and cotton prefolds as her change mat. It's really not a chore. The lidded diaper pail doesn't smell, and they wash up completely clean, with no smell.
Leakage/Extra changes
Beyond cost/eco-friendly considerations, we've found cloth diapers just seem more comfortable. We've never had to use diaper cream, since the cloth prevents diaper rash. We've also never had poo blowouts with cloth compared to friends using disposables. We change her at the same rate as friends using 'sposies. Fuzzi Bunz won't leak pee unless the insert is super saturated, aka, hasn't been changed in hours.
On the Go
We put soiled diapers in ziploc freezer bags, stash them in the diaper bag, and pop them in the diaper pail when we get home - not a big deal. They don't smell. At other houses, they simply go in a waterproof cloth bag we own.
Plus
She started toilet training recently, which is early.
Con
She's a heavy wetter, so we use more absorbent inserts = a slightly bulkier "bubble butt" compared to 'sposies. Her pants still fit fine though, so it's really not a big deal.
Fuzzi Bunz also take up more room in diaper bags then 'sposies, but since we carry tons of gear around anyways and use a backpack it makes no difference to us.
Negative Family/Friends
Our family was extremely negative about using cloth, especially my wife's mother. She's since done a complete 180, and now sings the praises of Fuzzi Bunz to every parent she meets.
And a final note - we've been happy with Fuzzi Bunz, but there are many great cloth options out there that are cheaper and worth researching.
posted by Vindaloo at 11:34 AM on May 31, 2008
Response by poster: Thanks so much for your help, guys, it's been illuminating. I'm really not all *that* squeamish about poop, I promise. -grin- And since my husband swears up and down that he'll never touch a diaper, I guess the decision is all up to me...
Looks like maybe I should try out a few cloth diapers in addition to gDiapers, despite the initial extra cost outlay; you guys make them seem quite feasible.
posted by GardenGal at 6:22 PM on May 31, 2008
Looks like maybe I should try out a few cloth diapers in addition to gDiapers, despite the initial extra cost outlay; you guys make them seem quite feasible.
posted by GardenGal at 6:22 PM on May 31, 2008
My aunt used vinegar in her diaper pail, and there was little to no smell. She also used thin disposable linings with cloth diapers, which meant that she had the convenience of just pulling out the lining (and what stuck to it), but the reusability of cloth.
I think your husband will learn to touch diapers. I dealt with cloth diapers and an exploding breast fed baby (my neice went only once a week - when she went, she WENT) at age 13, so he's no excuse for not handling it, and baby poo is completely different from adult. Checking whether a six year old has wiped properly - that's annoying.
posted by jb at 1:44 AM on June 1, 2008
I think your husband will learn to touch diapers. I dealt with cloth diapers and an exploding breast fed baby (my neice went only once a week - when she went, she WENT) at age 13, so he's no excuse for not handling it, and baby poo is completely different from adult. Checking whether a six year old has wiped properly - that's annoying.
posted by jb at 1:44 AM on June 1, 2008
GardenGal: "...but then overwhelming (and adamant!) negative input from my friends and family members made me look for different options."
I have found that when it comes to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting, most people have very strong, adamant opinions, and most won't hesitate to share said opinions, to the point where it sounds like if you don't listen to them, you're insane. Keep this in mind.
AskMe threads stay open for a year (I believe), so if you do try them, please come back and post your opinion. I, for one, would love to hear it. :)
posted by IndigoRain at 5:56 PM on June 1, 2008
I have found that when it comes to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting, most people have very strong, adamant opinions, and most won't hesitate to share said opinions, to the point where it sounds like if you don't listen to them, you're insane. Keep this in mind.
AskMe threads stay open for a year (I believe), so if you do try them, please come back and post your opinion. I, for one, would love to hear it. :)
posted by IndigoRain at 5:56 PM on June 1, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by metahawk at 10:29 AM on May 30, 2008