Cloth Diapers: The Big Change

Could the child-free idealist who had never changed a diaper in her life transform herself into a real earth mother and help ease the burden on B.C.'s landfills?

Or would I be pleading for a Huggie in no time?

I had always been appalled by those disposable diaper stats: around 90 per cent end up in landfill and four million diapers are discarded in Canada every day. Plastics in the diapers may take up to 500 years to decompose, by some reports.

More math: A newborn can go can through a dozen diapers a day and the average infant soils up to 7,000 before being successfully potty trained. Some opponents of disposable diapers fret about ground water contamination and virus outbreaks from hepatitis B and polio vaccines passing from baby to diaper to landfill.

All very interesting, and abstract, until your own first baby is about to enter the world. As my due date approached I began to dread the smelly drudgery of the cloth diaper regime.

The more I looked into it, the more I realized I'd entered some alternative eco-universe with its own issues, choices and terminology.

The workload

The re-usable option may save money in the long-term, but you have to stump-up for a set of diapers in advance and that's not cheap. You can buy old-style terry diapers, or all in ones with plastic cover, or pre-folded ones with separate plastic pants, or if you want to be truly virtuous, organic diapers that cost up to $38 a pop. EEEK!

I was told that even before the baby arrived I'd have to put the diapers through the washing machine three times. I couldn't use the usual detergent or conditioner as they have residues that reduce absorbency. I'd have to buy a couple of buckets with lids to store the dirty diapers until I'd have enough for a load. And I'd have to buy baking soda in bulk for odour neutralizing.

And what about people who argue that cloth nappies are not the green alternative they first appear? All that cotton growing and washing and drying uses up extra energy and water, right? If you add a diaper service you can throw in gas consumption too. In 2005, the U.K. government's environmental agency produced an infamous survey that suggested there was very little difference in the environmental impact of cloth or disposable diapers.

I gave that some thought, but when I looked at the figures, cloth diapers still have the edge in terms of green credentials. According to the survey, a cloth-diapered baby produces 559kg of CO2 equivalent compared to 626kg for disposable wearing babies.

And for me, the argument that all the washing and drying makes cloth a waste of time is a bit lame. No one is suggesting I dress my baby in disposable clothes to cut down on washing costs and as far as I know environmentalists haven't started wearing disposable knickers to reduce their carbon footprint.

A brief honeymoon

So, I decided to take an honest shot at the cloth diaper lifestyle. And here's my report.

When my baby was a few days old and he did his tiddly poos, I really wondered what the fuss was about. My idealistic haze lasted for about two weeks. As he grew so did his poos. And when he blasted through three diapers and three sets of clothes with his mustard-coloured baby gumbo just as I was about to leave the house, I began to see the merits of the disposable option.

I do however have my limits and I'm short on righteousness at three in the morning. From the time my boy started waking up just once a night, I started using disposables for nighttime.

I've yet to find a cloth diaper that can last more than three hours without getting soaked through. I got sick of getting wet when I fed him at night. I'd then have to change all his clothes and there was just more screaming and general upset and I got even less sleep.

With the disposable, we both spend the minimal time awake; the diaper keeps him dry until morning. He now sleeps through the night and absolutely nothing would persuade me to do a nighttime change with cloth. That's seven disposables a week but it's still better than four or five a day. Disposable are also used for holidays, and long hiking trips.

Peasant woman syndrome

The first time I used disposable I thought they'd be so fantastic that I would weep when I had to go back to cloth, but a year on, I'm still committed to using cloth diapers. K is still using the same cloth diapers he did a year ago and I'm only on my third pack of disposables so it has been a real money saver. I don't really bother with the special detergent anymore. When I was sleep deprived, I'd often forget to use it anyway, and I didn't notice any difference in diaper performance.

For a while I even thought I would have to buy specially designed "real nappy" pants to accommodate the extra junk in the trunk but that turned out not to be a real issue. However, in the early days the cloth diapers made it look as if K had a baboon's bottom.

I did try line drying a few times in the summer but it was a hassle too far and I was beginning to feel like an Albanian peasant woman. Trying to match up sunny days with the wash cycle was a nuisance and it took a whole day for the damn things to dry. Not something I shall be repeating this July. For a month I used vinegar instead of conditioner but now I stick those plastic spiky balls in the dryer and that does the job.

Most importantly, the changing regime gets easier and less messy as the diet changes from milk to solids. If the last eight months were anything like the first four months, I'm not sure how long my resolve would have lasted. I used to do diaper washes three times a week. Now it's down to once a week. And do I ever look forward to that joyous day in 2009 when I can put the cloth diapers away for good!

Related Tyee stories:

• So You Want Me to Breed?
  Fertility crisis fretting misses how lots of women really think.
• Raising a Brand-Free Kid
  From day one, you've got to fight Winnie the Pooh.
• Fear of Parenting
  Let's see. How have I screwed up today?