As a follow-up to my Stroller Madness post, I got this message and picture from Eric in an email:Hey man. I see you photoshop'd the stroller of the car seat on the luggage carrier. Thats great. Here is one I thought would be handy. You could save on diapers every time you go for a walk.
Not only was it pretty funny, it also brought up a really good point, which hit home for the first time during our prenatal class on Monday: what are we going to do about diapers?
After I did my presentation on strollers, someone else talked about diapers. Apparently, you can do cloth diapers for as much or cheaper than disposables without too much fuss. The diapers themselves aren't even that bad. Until Monday, whenever I thought of cloth diapers I pictured something like a white handkerchief held on by safety pins -- the sort of things you see in cartoons. The cloth diapers she had on display were quite impressive.
Someone else in our class quoted some figures they had that buying a set of cloth diapers costs you about the same as 7 months worth of disposables. People who have several children could save quite a bundle (not to mention obvious environmental benefits). You would just have to be organized and motivated enough to wash the diapers every two days or so. I don't think our washer could handle it. I think it's the original model put in our house when it was built in 1976.
We also learned that you can have a diaper service provide you with cloth diapers on a weekly basis. For example, a truck drops off a fresh set every Thursday, and collects a big barrel of soiled diapers for laundering. Around here that costs something like $21/week, so it's comparable with disposables... for convenience AND for cost.
These are interesting options that I haven't even considered before. Of course, I've been too busy dreaming about strollers.
4 comments:
I know that disposable diapers are nasty for the earth, but cloth diapers are nasty for its inhabitants. For being so small and cute, babies have an amazing capacity for messes, if you follow my meaning, and I think cloth diapers in that situation would be - well - nasty. I spend about $15-20/month on disposable diapers.
Hey, cloth diapers were OKAY in my ancient days. I think young families spend far too much on disposale diapers. I even made my own cloth diapers, not hard to do and I don't remember sticking too many of our kids too many times. They all survived. And it does not have to be "messy or nasty" if you plan!!!
We considered and opted out of the re-usable diaper method. A diapering service is more expensive than disposables; you would have to have a very messy child to go through $21 worth of diapers in a week considering a pack of 100 infant size is about $17 maybe $20 if you go with ultra fancy. Now that would be a supper pooper!! Having to do the laundry your self was not a good alternative either. Kids really throw your life for a loop, spare time to clean decreases substantially. We also got the lecture about how back in the day it was good enough for them and it should be good enough for us. If those making the comments are honest with themselves and put themselves back then when they had to do all that laundry, I think they would probably make the same choice we did. Considering $1.00 today is like $0.15 in 1960 a pack of disposables would have been $2.80. I think most people would have gladly spend $4-5 a month for the convenience, don’t you? Also as the kids get older they tend to mess less and so it can get cheaper. On average we have spent $25/month so far on little H.
D you really should consider some type of internet business which sells your ideas on baby gear.
My wife is going bonkers reading all the stuff you write about your incoming. Were clear for arrival in May... were anticapating an early landing as per our previous flight, definitly a small carrier, but from the first trip we banking on design and look.
Tower out!
Marc
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