One mother proudly admits she uses disposable diapers

Can't we compromise and use biogradable disposable diapers? 'Seventh Generation' is a great company whose diapers are chlorine-free which results in less diaper rashes. They are a bit more expensive but if you do your research, you can buy them in bulk at a cheaper price (Amazon is one source).

There's also the 'G' flushable diapers. I haven't tried them so I don't know if they are as good as 'Seventh Generation.'

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I respectfully disagree! We have been using Motherease cloth diapers and love them. They are the only diapers that contain those poop blow-outs in those early months. Yes, cloth diapers are a tiny bit more work than disposables, but to me it was worth it--both for my daughter's skin and for the environment. And nothing beats clean, sun-bleached diapers fresh off the clothes-line!

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All I can think of is my father scrapping crap off my brother's diaper into the toilet and accidently dropping the whole thing in. If that were the end of it, if Dad had pulled the poopy, wet diaper out of the toilet that would be fine. No, Dad, being tired and grossed out by the diaper did what a lot of dads do, he flushed the thing down. Okay, poop and grossness are taken care of, right? Nope.

Couple days later the septic tank overflowed and Dad had to rent out a backhoe and dig it up. I am not sure what my family used meanwhile (probably the bushes), but Dad paid with sweat and extreme grossness of dealing with a household's poop and other niceties that plumbing usually removes.

And we are still using old diapers to oil and buff the furniture....

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We started out using disposables and around 5 months found a new world of cloth diapers that I never knew exsisted. I thought cloth was all rubber pants and pins and was blown away to find out how in the dark I was.

We switched over and I swear the only more work laundry wise was 2 extra loads a week. As for shaking the poop out into the potty, well, yeah, it wasn't my favorite, but it was also usually no big deal. I never once had a blow out with a cloth diaper and had had tons with disposables.

My biggest reason for the switch was I was cost and chemicals. Even though we could afford disposable diapers no problem, one night I got mad that I had to run to the store at 1:00 am because my hubby and I forgot to pick up a new pack and was pissed that Iw as spending 20 bucks on something that my kid was going to crap in and then get tossed.

Also, when I did some research I found the link between male sterility, asthma, and possible testicular cancer and disposables and then also freaked when I saw that Dioxin, the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals, is a byproduct of bleaching that is used in disposable diapers.

For us it was a no brainer. It was just as easy in public as a disposble. It was super easy at home and it was also cool to never have to remember to pick up a pack of diapers or wipes.

To each his own. In a perfect world, we would all put the environment and our kids health and future first instead of convienience, but the world isn't perfect. Are we not putting our kids first if we use disposables? Some say yes and some say no. It's a decisions that we all make. I just wish it was one the people would look at a little bit more closely.

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Ahhhh. Well, there are a few brave soul's out here that potty their infants. I miss a lot of pee, but I get most every poo. Every time I rinse out that potty in to the toilet I sigh with relief that I didn't have to clean that off my daughters bum.

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I respectfully disagree as well.
My oldest was in disposables (born 2001) and my littlest has always been in cloth. There is far less "gross" poop mess with the cloth. Yeah we had a couple blowouts in the breastfed-only infant stage, but we had those with disposables too (some poops just CANNOT be contained by any diaper known to man!). For the most part, poops are much easier to clean. The newborn ones just wash out in the machine. The older ones plop easily into the toilet. We put poop in the toilet with our eldest as well (you do realize that you shouldn't throw poop in the trash, right?) and I find that lining a cloth diaper with fleece is not only super-soft, but releases poop like nothing else. There are so many different styles of cloth diapers out there. Most diaper services only use the more basic prefolds, but if you wash them yourself (better for the environment) you can customize your style. Using fitteds gives you soft encased elastic at the legs which really holds things in. Surf around the internet a bit and discover what all the new types are. You'll be amazed!

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I also use Seventh Generation's biodegradeable disposable diapers. It's a great alternative. My family doesn't have the time to deal with one more load of laundry or have the money for a diaper service to use cloth diapers. I would love to cloth diaper my youngest, but it just doesn't fit our lifestyle.

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Ok, I am not going to say that cloth diapers aren't great, because I don't know. I was going to do cloth buy my grandma was so horrified at the thought she buys my disposables. Also the first 3 months she did almost all my laundry and dishes and whatnot, so really I wasn't about to go against her (yes I know I am lucky)

However here the disposables go in the "green bin" which is taken off to be composted by the city. I like to pretend that the whole diaper is compostable ;-) Maybe I will look into the the biodegradable ones listed above because they would definitely get broken down in the composting process, unlike what happens if you throw the biodegradables into a plastic bag in a landfill.

There are also flushable, biodegradable liners for cloth diapers that are good for the solid food poops. (Not so much for liquid poop, but those you can just toss in the wash the way they are I hear). You just pop the liner and poop off into the toilet and voila you are done. (And FWIW if you do not live in an area with compost pickup you are supposed to remove as much poop from the diaper before you throw it in the garbage, read the package)

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Hello! You're not supposed to throw away a sposie with poop in it! It's supposed to go in the toilet! READ THE PACKAGE, PEOPLE!

Cloth is so not hard. And what's that about super heated water? I just wash mine on hot. At home. IT'S NO TROUBLE.

Seriously, I just don't get why people think it's so hard to be responsible.

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I enjoyed using cloth diapers for my daughter, she never had diaper rash and potty trained early. I had a reasonably priced diaper service so it was cheaper than most disposables. I find it really disgusting when parents leave a disposable on until it weighs as much as the baby. Just because it doesn't have poo doesn't mean it isn't dirty! Plus those machines that wind dirty disposables into a giant stinky sausage are horrid. I would totally use cloth again, and now that I have the confidence I would wash them myself too.

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Um, Elaine - your hot water is really not hot enough to get rid of the fecal coliforms - super hot is (we are having problems with cooler temperatures in our heaters, like increases in bacterial pneumonias directly related to lower temps besides) with bleach. Please, there is a reason why bleach is available, it does a wonderful job of sterilizing fabric and surfaces. I don't expect an autoclave (but that would be nice!), but bleach is critical in the absence of actually hot water.

In fact it is a pretty good idea to clean your washing machine with bleach about once a month besides.

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Ethel - I've been cloth diapering for over three years (2 kids) and have never had an issue with health. We don't eat off the diapers, they go on butts. The vast majority of people I know who cloth diaper don't use super hot or bleach (which is not only damaging to the diaper but to the environment) and have NO health issues. I guess if you had an immuno-compromised person hanging around you might worry about this, but with strong healthy kids, it's a non-issue.

Seriously, I don’t see why people are so freaked out about cloth. It doesn’t have to be as hard as some seem to think and has so many benefits, there is no way I’d go with any other method.

And those of you who use biodegradable, there is one major flaw with that method: darkness. Those diapers need sun exposure to biodegrade. They can’t get that mounded up in a landfill. It’s a nice idea, but sadly, it doesn’t work.

Please know I say all of this with respect, it’s just that I get so frustrated with people going on and on about how horrid cloth diapering is when they either haven’t done it or don’t understand the environmental impact that all those sposies cause. I know there are plenty of reasons on both sides of the argument, but when it comes right down to it, I find that cloth is best for my family. Period. I have yet to hear a truly convincing argument otherwise.

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I agree with Elaine on this topic. We use our regular hot wash cycle and no-one has ever gotten sick from the diapers. We don't use bleach in our home at all, I consider bleach much more dangerous than diapers washed in the hot cycle and I'd never place something that was bleached on my childs bottom! That's just one of the reasons why we don't use disposables.

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I mostly used disposible diapers for logistical reasons. At 5 months we took baby number one to England where it was easier to use disposable than to find a new place to clean the cloth diapers. We had baby number two during a period of transition with a bad washing machine. But....I did use cloth diapers enough to know that they are much much better at containing early poop explosions than the disposible. I suspect the cloth just absorbs the stuff faster. We never had an explosion with cloth. Never!! We had tons of explosions with the disposible diapers. We used Kushies diapers.

http://babybungalow.com/kudiliandac.html

But I have to say that I did prefer the disposible diapers later on, when the poop became more smelly and solid.

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I'm going to have to agree with Elaine. It's just not that hard. I don't worry about the germs, and I also have an antibacterial setting on my dryer(though I didn't always have it and still didn't worry about it). I REALLY don't think an autoclave is necessary.

As far as scraping out poop, you don't have to when it's breastfed poop, just throw it into the washer. Really not that gross. And then when you have the solid food poop, you just use a rice paper liner and the poop falls out into the toilet. The rice paper is flushable, biodegradable, etc. No muss, no fuss. IT'S JUST POOP, PEOPLE! We all deal with it on a regular basis, it's not that big a deal.

I have used everything: regular disposables, seventh generation, g-diapers, and cloth (mostly all-in-ones, very much like a disposable). Hands down, cloth is my favorite, though in a pinch I will use a seventh generation and I really like the g-diapers, which when poop-free you can put into your compost pile.

I am really invested in leaving a beautiful world for my daughter to live, love, and laugh in. I guess everyone else's kids will benefit from my commitment, too.

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7th Generation diaper does not claim to be biodegradable...As Elaine pointed out, that would be near impossible for a disposable diaper. It does claim to be chlorine-free, which is great because it's safer for baby's bum and doesn't release toxic dioxin in the air when it's tossed.

That being said, it's still a disposable and still doesn't help with our landfill problem. It also still contains polymer gel. These are the main reasons we use cloth. I get lots of flack from my friends that don't use cloth because they thing it's "so much extra work". It isn't. It's maybe 1 or 2 extra loads a week. Small sacrifice, in my opinion.

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We use cloth diapers when we're at home, and disposables sometimes when we're going to be away from home for a while, and overnight. We had a diaper service for the first three months or so, and then we got a washing machine (woo-hoo!) and we've done it ourselves since then. Not much trouble and SO much cheaper than disposables. I use bleach and it's true it really does tear up the diapers. An alternative I like in good weather is sun bleaching, which kills germs and leaves the diapers very nice and fresh and warm.

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There is a compromise! Gdiapers.com! Check it out - FLUSHABLE DIAPERS.

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Okay I just read through the comments and I am actually really surprised. I have NEVER heard of throwing poop in the toilet from a disposable diaper. Not until this day. Call me sheltered, but I haven't ever seen one of my mommy (or daddy) friends do it. Who reads the package, anyway?

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Yeah, no one reads the package, but it's actually illegal to put human feces in landfills. It leeches into drinking water. Yum!!

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