Cloth Diapers - A Thing Of The Past?
New parents have heard the argument time and again from their
own parents or grandparents. "You young people don't know how
good you have it with those disposable diapers for your babies!
When you were a baby I had to use cloth diapers on you and they
smelled terribly, I had tons of laundry to do, I stuck myself
with pins, and I walked uphill in the snow both ways to get to
the diaper service..." and so on. The fact is that, less than
thirty years ago, disposable diapers were considered something
of a luxury while today they are the norm and people using cloth
diapers for their babies are considered to be strange. There are
several reasons that modern parents may choose to utilize cloth
diapers instead of disposables, however, and in some circles
cloth diapers are making a bit of a comeback.
Affordability
The biggest personal reason that a parent may choose to clothe
her baby's bottom in cloth diapers as opposed to Pampers or
Huggies is financial. Cloth diapers are simply cheaper than
disposables, even if the parents are paying a diaper service to
haul away the soiled nappies and bring fresh ones each week. In
most cases the makers of disposables would win over a number of
holdout customers if they could figure out a way to make their
products cheaper.
Environmental Concerns
Disposable diapers are made primarily of plastic surrounding a
pad of absorbent cotton. It is well known that plastic doesn't
biodegrade very well at all, which means that our landfills are
stacked with diapers that are going to be with us for centuries
to come. While many people believe that the convenience offered
by disposable diapers outweighs this fact, environmentalists
believe that by using cloth diapers they are just doing one more
thing to "do their part" to protect and preserve the Earth for
future generations.
Modern Developments
Those argumentative parents and grandparents may still have a
thing or two to say to the modern parents who do choose to use
cloth diapers because the cloth diapers of today are very
different from the ones that they were using on their kids and
grandkids way back when. Gone are the days of complicated
folding methods and misplaced safety pins. Today's cloth diapers
are pre cut and shaped to cover baby's nether regions quickly
and easily. They also come with Velcro fasteners or snaps for
ease in fastening. Best of all, many now have available a
flushable, biodegradable paper lining that will catch solid
waste, allowing it to be easily disposed of in the toilet so
soiled and smelly diapers don't sit around and there is no messy
job of rinsing the solids away.
Cloth diapers are, in many ways, a thing of the past, but they
are by no means gone forever. For the parent with financial or
environmental concerns they are still a very viable option for
clothing the bottoms of their babies.