Cloth Diapering Your Baby

Rumparooz newborn sized cloth diaper

For three weeks, we've been buying disposable newborn diapers because the all in one cloth diapers we bought for baby girl were too small.

In total, I think we've used over 200 diapers in three weeks. Dang. That's a lot of diapers going to the landfill. That's also a lot of money spent. I think we've spent about $60 on disposables.

So with baby girl taking her time regaining her weight, we decided it would be more cost effective to purchase some newborn sized cloth diapers. As we already had liners, we just bought 4 newborn cloth diaper covers made by Rumparooz. They had some fancy designs and solid colours. I picked out four solid colours that were gender neutral in case we decide to have another child in the future.

So what if we decided not to use cloth diapers? How much would diapering with disposables cost?

Well, first off, only three weeks of disposables and we've had more trash in three weeks than we've had in the previous three months. Like, just bags and bags of dirty and wet diapers. Yeesh. Diapers, as far as I know, are not biodegradable. So baby girl's legacy will be left for generations.

Aside from that, the cost will be slightly unbearable. Three weeks and we spent $60. Or $20 a week. Assuming we diaper for 2 and a half years, that's 130 weeks. Or $2,600. While that may not sound like much, that's money that could be better spent elsewhere. Like baby's RESP. Or some baby goodies.

How much did the cloth diapers cost?

Well, we have 30 all in ones and 4 newborns. Totaling approximately $400. Not only that, but we can reuse these diapers for any future children. Alternatively, if these diapers are kept in good shape, we can resell them on Kijiji or to friends or to family.

Well, isn't it hard to clean cloth diapers?

Not really. Sure, before you use them, you need to strip them and prepare the diaper liners. Just wash them in the washer and either hang dry or use the dryer. After they get dirty, you just need to rinse the solids into the toilet first. Seems like a hassle? Well, you need to do that with disposables as well. Really. It's written on the instructions. Then you do need to use two cycles to wash diapers. One on regular and the other on hot.

Well, what about water costs?

Kids will require additional costs in terms of using utilities. It was something that we expected, so not a big deal. We'll keep an eye out and figure out how much more it will cost. But it shouldn't break the bank or anything.

Overall, the choice to cloth diapers was made because we didn't want to spend a lot of money on disposables. Even three weeks of diapering a newborn was surprisingly pricey.