Breastfeeding? Why you should cloth diaper for at least the first 6 months…

If you are choosing to diaper your child in disposables, that is fine. If you are at all hoping to breastfeed, I would like to share with you why you may want to consider cloth diapering for the first 6 months of your child’s life. 

 

Essentially breast fed (EBF) baby’s poop is water soluble. That’s right, WATER SOLUBLE! That means, you will do the same thing with a disposable diaper as a cloth diaper (toss in a trash can, generally known as a wet bag), except you will throw the cloth diapers in the laundry every couple (2-3) days. In terms of cloth diapering, this is as easy as it gets. No scraping the poop, rinsing the diapers, dealing with examining the dipes, you just toss and wash!

Let’s crunch some numbers, considering one would only cloth diaper for 6 months. Why 6 months? Well, at 6 months, you may be starting solid foods and then cloth diapering becomes a whole new ball ground. It isn’t as bad as I am making it sound, but the poop isn’t as easy to deal with.

COSTS for 6 MONTHS

Going by the Oh Katy website (my diapers are not Oh Katy), they recommend 12-24 diapers for a newborn. Since I am on the Oh Katy website, I will stick with their brand for examining the costs. I will consider using pockets (there are many kinds of cloth diapers out there, read more about my personal experiences here). The cheapest way to cloth diaper is to buy used (check Craigslist, Facebook cloth diapering groups, etc.) or at the very least on sale (most brands have frequent sales). I would recommend buying used.

Oh Katy set of 24 diapers (with inserts): $16 each for a total of: $384

Using disposables for 6 months: estimated cost here is $60-85/month, depending on the brand you use and how often you change (we changed much more frequently in the beginning than we do now, once your little one regulates it gets easier). We will go half-way at $67.50/month. 

Grand total for disposables for 6 months: $405

**Difference: $21

Wait, wait! Before you say that saving $21 isn’t worth it, let me mention you would save even more! Cloth diapers hold their value very well and, after 6 months, you could then switch to your preferred diapers (either continue with cloth or use disposables) and sell your cloth diapers! Who can say they did that with disposables?!?!?

So let’s say you resell your 24 diapers (with inserts) for 50% what you paid: $192

***Difference: $213 in 6 months

Now, that is a little bigger chunk of change and would be worth it for me!

Is that difference worth it to you?