Once a week I get my hands dirty, I mean really dirty- filthy in fact. I dig deep into my diaper pail and pull out a load of 50 soiled diapers and pop them in the washer. They’re pissed right through, they’re stained yellow green and brown and the smell makes you want to vomit in your mouth. And I love it. I mean I truly love it. I love knowing that my baby’s butt is touching soft cotton and not chemical plastic. I love knowing that I’m saving a ton of cash and I love knowing that they’ll never sit in a landfill and rot for all eternity.

The common misconception is that cloth diapers are nasty, but the truth is disposables are nasty. I’m tired of the weird stares, dirty looks and comments when I change my girl in public and people see me rinse the diaper, bag the diaper and take it home with me. I’m coming out of the closet: Cloth diapers rock and I use them with pride!

Top reasons for going cloth:

Disposables are brutal. They’re nasty—they sit in the garbage and fester. Shit and piss goes to the dumps and not in our sewer and sanitation system where it belongs.

Disposables encourage babies to stay in diapers longer. With the wetness being wicked away baby doesn’t have a sense of when they’ve gone pee. I was shocked to learn that at 19 months my baby was the youngest potty-trained baby at school—many twice her age are still sitting in their piss and shit all day long.

Since cloth diapers don’t wick away the moisture (it all stays on the surface), parents who use cloth usually change baby more often. I change my 3 month old 12-14 times per day. This would not be cost effective using disposables and some parents leave their children in one or two diapers the entire day. And because I change constantly both my babies have been diaper rash free the entire time. No rash ever.

Disposables do not biodegrade. They sit in the landfill for 500 years or more. The research is not extensive enough to know the true environmental impact of disposable diapers.

The average baby goes through between 8000 to 9000 diapers in their lifetime. This is per child and it can cost a load. If you buy bulk (think Costco in the burbs) you’ll pay $50 for 200 of them in a bulk pack. I spent $250 on my cloth diapers. Do the math.

They’re made of toxic chemicals that release volatile organic compounds (VOCs). With names like toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene and dipentene and dioxin who wants to put that on baby’s bum?

Yes, with cloth you use the washer and sometimes the dryer (in summer I hang them on the line), but if you use a front loading energy efficient washer the environmental impact is not nearly as brutal as that of 8000 diapers shitting in a landfill for over 500 years.

When I’m done with my cloth diapers I can re-use them again as wash rags to clean floors and windows with. I can use them even as hand towels (they’re spotlessly white when they come out of the wash). I can even pass them on to a friend for her babies to use. Now that I’m on baby number two they’ve been used twice over and I’m not spending a penny.

Cloth diapers are cute. There are so many colour and texture options. Long gone are the days of pinning and leaky messes. It’s the new millennium, folks, and an array of wicked companies have popped up to make it super easy to go cloth. Velcro tabs, liners, adorable prints—they’ve got it all. I’ve heard from friends who have used both that their disposables actually leaked more than their cloth diapers. So it’s actually cleaner than you think.

Recently I was shocked to learn that there are 6 year olds in diapers. Overnights, Pull-Ups, Huggies, whatever you call them, they’re all crutches –there’s no reason a toddler who can walk and talk is unable to tell their parents they have to go to the washroom. Disposables make the potty training process that much harder because the child gets used to comfortably going in their pants. Cloth diapers let baby know, “Damn I’m wet and this is gross. Maybe I should speak up about it next time.”

It’s a no brainer yet we’re bombarded with pro disposables propaganda offering, ‘freedom and convenience’. Mothers everywhere have scoffed at my cloth diapers, not hiding their disgust, but to me there’s nothing dirtier than corporate bloodsucking companies pushing plastic cancerous products on innocent bums and parents allowing their children to sit in their own shit and piss while the diaper does all the work. For a little sacrifice your baby’s bottom could be diaper free and dry sooner than you thought was possible.

I could preach like this for days but the bottom line is this: cloth is better for baby, it’s better for earth, it takes a few minutes of your time a week and it’s better for your pocket book. Do the right thing and ditch disposables—trust me, it’s worth getting your hands dirty.

Cloth diapering resources:

http://www.parentingbynature.com/

http://www.bumgenius.com/

http://www.fuzzibunz.com/

http://www.bummis.com/ca/en/why-cloth.php