Cloth Diapers – Are They Better?

The most important thing when raising a child is to make sure he or she is healthy. It is also very important that the baby should be comfortable, safe, and happy at all times. A way to ensure the baby’s comfort is to keep him or her clean. A cloth diaper can help you do the job.

Less than thirty years ago, disposable diapers were considered a luxury, so the only option was cotton diapers, which require a ton of laundry work. Nowadays, an increasing number of people use cotton diapers, and people that use these diapers for their babies are considered to be odd. There are several reasons that the parents of today might want to use cotton diapers instead of disposables, and, believe it or not, cloth diapers are starting to make a bit of a comeback.

The biggest personal reason that a parent may opt to clothe her baby’s bottom in cotton diapers as opposed to disposable diapers is financial. Cloth diapers are simply cheaper than disposable nappies.

Cloth nappies made from natural fibers are a welcome change from disposable diapers as they are soft and soothing to the skin. Disposable nappies are made of chemicals that can harm your baby’s sensitive skin. Furthermore, with its synthetic texture, disposable nappies are not comfortable, and babies are more prone to develop rashes or allergies.

It is estimated that cloth nappies only take around six months to degrade in landfill site, while disposable diapers are the third most common consumer product in landfills today, and they may take up to 500 years to decompose.

Gone are the days of complicated folding methods and misplaced safety pins because today’s cloth diapers are pre cut and shaped to cover baby’s nether regions quickly and easily. Now, they also come with Velcro fasteners or snaps for ease in fastening. The best feature of all is that many now have 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.

The cloth diaper-wearing children tend to be toilet trained earlier because the cloth retains moisture, allowing the child to feel when he or she is wet or dirty, and associate the feeling with elimination.

Diapers made of cloth 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 cloth diapers are still a very viable option for clothing the bottoms of their babies.

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