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The Diaper Drama - Scene 1
:: Costs
The Online Drama of Disposable versus Cloth
Diapers (Nappies)
By: Heather L. Sanders
Until I challenged myself to put the numbers
together, I was 'in the dark' about the amount of money our family's budget
'threw away' to diaper our first child in disposables. It is an undeniable
FACT that disposable diapers (and commercial baby wipes) are one of the highest and
perpetual expenses hidden away in the monthly expenditures of families
with diaper-age children.
Something to Consider:
When arriving at your own figure
for the cost of disposables, remember that your baby will spend around
22,000 hours in diapers (based on Newborn to 30 Months usage). This
will call for about 6500 to 7000 diapers!
I figured what we would spend on disposable
diapers (my totals here are based on year 2000-2001 costs -the year of
my 2nd daughters' birth and first year) to help estimate whether or not it was an advantage
economically to 'go' with cloth diapers. I usually purchased the
store brand for the price difference, but would buy Huggies® or Pampers®
if I had a coupon that 'matched' it to my store brand cost. My totals
showed an average expenditure of $81.73/month (including wipes). OUCH!!!
That would come to $2451.90 over a 30 month period. Assessing the costs of different diapering
systems and the costs to wash and dry
them, I estimated an average savings of $47 to $52 per month! FOLKS,
THAT IS AN AVERAGE SAVINGS OF $1410 to $1560 IN ONLY A 30 MONTH PERIOD!
For our three kids this savings has QUANTITATIVE VALUE when it's considered
that those savings could add to their college savings! Whew! Puts the 'inconvenience' of washing into perspective!
From a different angle (and KNOW THIS, it took several 'angles' to
convince my husband to switch to cloth), we would recoup our family's initial
costs, depending on the diapering system chosen, in anywhere from 2 to 6 months!
HELLO . . . did you catch that?! That was an enormous 'wake-up' call!
After a maximum of 6 months, we would essentially be cloth diapering with the
minimal costs of washing and drying. To an extent, these are costs already
figured into our budget and would represent little difference. As an added bonus ~ it was considered an 'investment'
for subsequent children born into our family. Without this 'investment'
we would, once again, THROW AWAY another $2450.00 to disposable diapers for
each next child.
It was crystal clear that the COST COMPARISONS
of cloth-v-disposable diapers truly was a NON-ISSUE.
CLOTH WON - HANDS DOWN!
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ARE WE BEING PROGRAMMED?
"Disposable diaper manufacturers,
just like formula companies, give away their products to hospitals to gain
new customers . . . [it is estimated] that 75% of the hospitals in the
country use disposable diapers."
Source: The Diaper Debate:
Ten Years Later by Jane McConnell .
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Go To Next Scene of 'The Diaper Drama'
Introduction to 'The Diaper Drama'
Scene 2: Dryness and
Rashes
Scene 3: Health Issues
Scene 4: Environment
Back to Top
Content Copyright © Heather L Sanders.
May not be reprinted without permission.
About the author ::
Heather Sanders lives in Huntsville, TX with her husband and 3 kids. Heather has started and sold two successful online cloth diapering businesses, including The Diaper Hyena. In addition to those two businesses, she has written exclusively for Diaper Pin in the Cut of Cloth section. Shortly thereafter, she wrote a few articles for Natural Family Online and in 2004, served as one of the Moderators for the Cloth Diapering Forums at Mothering.com. Later, she worked as the Assistant Administrator for the entire forum and served on the Expert Panel at Mothering.com for Cloth Diapering.
Heather was one of the founders of Real Diaper Association, owns and manages Clothdiapersale.com and blogs personally at www.ohmystinkinheck.com.
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