Dave Matthews digs cloth diapers

As a new, first time parent (our son is less than 3 weeks old as of this post) we've wrestled with this issue for months now. Regardless of our decision, it's not any easier to make up our minds when there is a constant back-and-forth from "experts" on the issue.

"Cloth is better!"

"No no, the washing/transport/etc of cloth diapers is just as bad when it comes to a carbon foot print!"

It always makes me think of my favorite cause of cancer: breathing. As long as you're breathing you might get cancer.

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Didn't I just read a day or so ago that Kevin Bacon was "totally into" cloth diapers? And all of this just after a report comes out saying it doesn't make a bit of difference to the environment whether we go cotton or plastic? Or is it paper or cotton.

Anyway, isn't it amazing that celebrity dads are putting out sound bytes about baby diapers! How wonderful that they take time to care at all! It might matter little what kind of diaper celebrities tuck their little ones into, but what a wonderful difference more caring dads will make in this world!

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It would seem that celebrity dads are becoming VERY involved with all aspects of child care.

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Super, I love cloth diapers!

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My husband works for a long term care facility and made a great point when we were considering disposable vs. cloth. It's not exclusively baby diapers that fill garbage dumps. Think about all of the elderly (and soon the Baby Boom generation) who will require disposable diapers. And it's not like "gramps" would wear them for two years...with good preventative health care, he might be in them for 10-15 years! That's a lot of adult diapers from the biggest generation. And nobody thinks twice about putting "gramps" in a disposable. Can you imagine telling an 80 year old man "we're thinking about putting you in cloth diapers." So it's not just babies that cause the problem. Depends and even maxi pads should be considered when bringing up the "cloth is better" debate. By the way, we went with cloth once our son was eating solids and having predictable bowel movements :).

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Ohhh! I love it. i'm going to blog about them at babychums.com. Where can UK mums get these cloth diapers?

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There's not usually any rinsing required with modern cloth diapers; solids get dumped in the potty (as you're supposed to do with disposables anyway) and then waits with everything else in a dry pail until wash day. Easy peasy!

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Lets be real. By show of virtual hands, how many of us dump the poo-poo in the toilet before tossing the disposable diapers?

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Raised 4 kids in cloth diapers, have 9 grandkids and I'll tell you what I wish that their parents used cloth diapers. Disposable diapers are so damn expensive, cloth you buy once, use for the whole diaper period and then have great rags for washing windows, polishing silver ect. And washing, drying and folding them is probably a bit more work than todays moms want to indulge in. But for any woman who has lain on a paper/plastic pad in the labor bed after her water has broken and the pad is damp knows just how "comfortable" that paper/plastic mess is. Cloth is softer and gentler on the baby's bottom even when wet, the cotton breathes and is a natural fiber. CLOTH DIAPERS if you really LOVE your BABY>....And for Sandy from the UK just get a bolt of lovely flannel and make your own I did, simply cut it in squares and hem two sides.

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Doesn't this poster read their own blog? Did they miss the study posted on this blog just a couple of days ago when they added "but it just must be better than the environment"? Between this and the Kevin Bacon post, it seems that some people think that readers will forget about the results of an ACTUAL STUDY because they post the OPINIONS of a bunch of CELEBRITIES.

See "cloth versus disposables an environmental wash" Posted Jul 7th 2007 9:02AM by Angie Felton

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I am using cloth part time on my third child, and I LOVE them. I feel a bit greener, and I feel like they are healthier. I can't do it all the time, but I think every little bit makes a difference!

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I use cloth most of the time and they are very easy. Rice paper liners make lifting out solid waste easy then the diapers just sit in the dry pail until wash day.

Oh, and that "cloth diapers are just as bad as paper diapers" study was done by the paper diaper industry, which may be a wee bit biased on the matter.

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As a new parent who tries to be environmentally conscious in Hong Kong (not the best place to be for being green), I have struggled with cloth or disposable.. both have downsides. I finally decided that rather than having her diaper-free from birth, which is one extreme, I will start "training" her at about 9 months. Being from Asia, I know most children here are diaper free definitely by 2, if not by 18 months. This has changed in recent decade due to the introduction of super absorbent diapers, but doesn't have to be so. I view this as a happy middle ground...

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