Cloth diapering is a dangerous endeavor. Dangerous because cloth diapers will feed your need for materialism and web surfing soooo much more than disposables. Disposable diapers are usually white (although now they come in a “denim” style – yuck). You throw them away which avoids any emotional attachment to the diaper. You may get away with buying fancy chlorine free diapers, but for the most part, disposables are really boring.
Cloth diapers, on the other hand, come in a number of different systems and hundreds of colors, patterns, styles, and brands. So when someone says they are saving money by cloth diapering – maintain your skepticism. I am using one of the more economical diapering systems (prefolds+covers) and I am definitely not saving money (though perhaps I will have by the time Elsa is potty trained?).
Why? Well, I am a fairly typical American with a small black hole in my soul that I try and fill with “stuff.” Starting at about 35 weeks pregnant, I became totally obsessed with researching cloth diapers. I started out by choosing a system. I was committed to saving money, so I chose Prefolds+Covers.
Well, I recently became curious just how much money I was saving by cloth diapering.
If I was using disposables: I figure that the average baby goes through about 8 disposable diapers/day. 8 disposables x 7days/wk x 19 (# of weeks Elsa has been hanging out with us) =1,064 diapers. Let’s say I was buying Pampers. 150 diapers/box and about $41/box. So I would have spent about $290 on diapers thus far. And just to get even more specific: let’s say I used 2-3 wipes/diaper change. That’s 2,128 – 3192 wipes in Elsa’s life thus far. So a box of 512 wipes is about $16. Now we are looking at a total of about $100 for wipes. Total estimated cost for disposables over 4 months: $390. Ok. Fair.
We are using cloth instead: both cloth wipes and diapers. I have a small “stash” . . . and let me pause for a moment here. The lingo associated with cloth diapering is EXTENSIVE. Moms love referring to their “stash.”
So – my “stash” is modest: a total of 24 infant prefolds, 24 small prefolds, 5 newborn covers, 6 small covers, 10 pocket diapers and about 32 wipes (20 of which are actually baby washcloths that I got from my baby showers). While this may seem like a lot of diapers, I still do a load of diapers every other day. And if you want to see A LOT, go to Diaperswappers.com and look at the sheer volume of diapers that women are trading. It’s NUTS.
So, I got together all my reciepts. And I got intimate with Excel (as I am wont to do). And here is what I came up with:
I’d like to pause again for a moment. I can’t even believe that I am devoting this much time to writing about my child’s diapers. I can’t believe I am publishing it on the internet! Who does this kind of stuff? I’ll tell you who: Stay at home moms do this kind of stuff. Stay at home moms who are cloth diapering.
Ok. So, as you can see, we have spent $750 on all of Elsa’s diapering supplies (which includes a number of items beyond just diapers and wipes PLUS the laundering cost. I factored in how many of those items were gifts (baby shower – score!) and we, ourselves, only spent $345. Which is great – but had we not had awesome family and friends, we would be out $750. And that is only after 4 months. Now – granted – many of these items we will use for the duration of Elsa’s diaper career: the wetbags, the wipes, the diaper sprayer (which we haven’t even used yet!), and the one-size diapers. But, as you can see in the chart, she has already grown out of $141 worth of prefolds and covers. And she is quickly working on growing out of everything else as well.
Which leaves me back at the beginning. Back to the internet spending hours upon hours obsessed with researching cloth diapers. Brands. Colors. Styles. Gussets. PUL. Elastic. NONSENSE. It’s all nonsense. Does that mean I am going to stop? Probably not. Does that mean I’m going to spend more money? Probably.
All this being said. I am so happy we are cloth diapering. But not because we are saving money. I can’t kid myself anymore. In the end, we will probably spend just as much on cloth as we would have disposables. But there are many, many other reasons why I’m glad we are cloth diapering – but that is another post.
