Cloth diapers or disposable diapers? This may be the question every new parents ask themselves before they welcome their babies. Or some people may already have their mind made up that they don’t even think twice about it.

I have to admit that I didn’t think twice of going for disposables when it came to preparing for baby stuff. As a new mom who was anxious about the upcoming new life which could be full of craziness and uncertainty, convenience was my top priority when I considered the features of any product. Imagine you will have your hands full of baby and milk all day long, you don’t want to have anything to do with this kind of sh!tty stuff.

The environment also played a big role at my decision making. Here I’m referring to the social environment, not the mother planet environment. I wish I considered her more even I was going to become a mom myself. Almost every single person I know (I don’t know many) are using disposable diapers. Some of them even strongly suggested me not to think twice about it because it’s oh so convenient. Plus you can always buy them on sale at Costco, so money wasn’t a big issue to us.

So we bought boxes after boxes of difference sizes of them during my daughter’s first year. I have to say, they were SO CONVENIENT. I don’t have to worry about washing them after every change, which could be 7-8 times a day. I always had a few in my diaper bag so I can change her anytime and anywhere. The best thing it has ever served us was when we were traveling to Vancouver for 14 days. We just filled them into the empty space inside our huge car seat carrier bag. Viola! It didn’t have to take any extra space. Plus travelling with a baby is already a huge headache. We barely had time to eat! So you can imagine the last thing I wanted to do is to wash a poopy diaper.

So far it sounds like disposable diapers are the perfect choice right? No they are not. THEY STINK!

DISPOSABLE DIAPERS STINK!

I mean literally, THEY STINK! We had the changing station in our ensuite bathroom because it has more space so the air circulates well so the smell won’t be trapped. We used a diaper pail that has a mechanism which is supposed to have the odor locked inside. It’s when my baby has started solids, the smell became noticeable. At the beginning, we just change the bin more often even when it’s not full. We keep telling ourselves that it’s our own baby’s poop, it’s her smell it’s no big deal. But it became a big deal when the smell traveled to our bedroom! I mean, it’s the place where I can finally relax and not have to worry anything about the baby at the end of the day. It’s like my final peaceful harbor. I don’t want that place to be contaminated! Sorry baby… but it really stinks… That’s when I started to look for solutions for odor eliminating.

I could try to invest in a better diaper pail which locks the odor better and longer. But it costs almost $100. I could try to use odor eliminating method like putting grind coffee at the bottom of the pail. Or just to cover it up with air freshers, which I have already tried and it just made me couldn’t breath.

Cloth diapers are so CUTE!!!

After many researches, my eyes were pinned onto those adorable and colorful cloth diapers that google ads has brought me to. At first, my suspicious mind was telling me that this is just their marketing strategy. Who doesn’t love adorable prints on their babies’ cute little bum? Who would trade the convenience just for some prints that would never show under the pants? I was wrong. They won. I am their marketing target. For many days I couldn’t forget those adorable prints and I kept imaging how cute my baby would be if she’s wearing one and how I could dress her to compliment those pretty undies. Then I started to do more research trying to convince myself to make the switch.

They are environmental friendly

It really hit my heart when I read that it takes 500 years for our aging mother planet to decompose a disposable diaper. Just U.S. alone, over 200,000 trees are cut for the manufactures per year. I just wish these numbers will be hugely printed onto the bags of disposable diapers just like how lung disease pictures are printed on cigar boxes. We should care more about our living environment that produces oxygen for us, just like our lungs.

They are wallet friendly

I bought 20 cloth diapers which cost me less than $300. It also depends on where you buy them. I can’t believe there are some websites selling them for $50 each! Maybe because they are brand name. But still! with $50 I could buy 5 quality ones when they are on sale. It also depends on how often you want to wash them. With 20 diapers, it could last me 2 – 3 days. Some babies need to be changed more often or some people like to wait longer to wash them. For me, Odor was the initial problem of this, so I don’t like to leave them for too long. What’s even better that I wish I knew earlier is that CLOTH DIAPERS ARE ONE SIZE FOR ALL! You don’t have to buy a new collection every 2-3 months. So let’s say on average a baby needs 30 diapers for her entire first 2 years before potty train. It would only cost less than $800, including accessories and laundry bills. Whereas for disposable diapers, it would easily cost over $2000.

They are easy to wash

No you don’t have to get your hands full of poop to wash a dirty diaper, nor running them under ice cold water and rub really hard until you got the stain off. Those are the impressions I got from my parents generation of how to wash a cloth diaper where washer machines and hot water were either non-existent or luxury.

The best thing I learned after tons of researches was that you can actually collect the dirty diapers and wash them all together in a washer after a few days. You may wonder how would this not worsen the odor problem I had with disposable diapers? Of course, you need to rinse the poop off before throwing them into your pile. This step actually scared me the most that I even bought a diaper sprayer that you can attach to your toilet to spray the poop off hoping to make the process less of a headache. After watching many Youtube videos of other moms rinsing the poop with the sprayer, it didn’t help my anxiety at all. However, after using them for a while myself, it actually surprised me! The type of diapers we are using is called pocket diapers. Because of the fabric they are using as the liner, the layer that is the closest to baby’s skin, the poop doesn’t stick to it at all! Most of the time, as long as the poop isn’t too watery, we just roll the diaper out and the poop will come off itself. Then we just rinse it under the utility sink and spray the residual off and leave it in the pile. We didn’t even have to install the toilet sprayer which could bring a potential leaking problem. I also learned that if you leave the diaper pail or wet bag open, it will have a much better air circulation so the smell won’t easily build and thus help with the stinky problem. We put our dirty diapers in a huge bin and leave it in the laundry room. We barely could smell anything. What if there’s an ugly yellow stain? All you need to do is to line dry it under the sun and the UV light will bring you back a newly bright white diaper with sun bathed fragrance.

You don’t have to make the commitment

Yes we love our mother earth. But that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the flexibility, or pee your own bed. For us, we are still using disposable diapers for the night shift simply because it has a better absorption over a straight 12 hrs period. We also keep them as a backup for travelling as it will definitely save our lives. For the days when we run out of the clean ones and the used ones are still in the dryer, the disposable diapers are always there to fill up the role. It doesn’t have to be All or Nothing. It’s your own diaper, you choose whichever one you want to use today.