There are so many decisions parents are faced with. One that often gets overlooked is what kind of diaper baby is going to wear. The hospital hands you your new baby in a disposable and often, that’s that! But why? Cloth diapers have a reputation for being more work and, well, gross. Thankfully they are nothing like they used to be! They are better designed with new fabrics and actually have quite a few benefits!

One benefit is cost savings. A child can be diapered from birth to using a toilet for around $200, and those can be used again on future children or resold. To put that in perspective, disposables and wipes cost around $2500 per child! Cloth diapers are also better for the environment. Disposable diapers do not decompose well especially in a landfill. Yes, you use water to wash cloth diapers, but water is also used to manufacture those disposables, so it’s a wash (see what I did there?). By using cloth you know exactly what is touching baby’s skin, unlike disposables, which are not required to disclose what chemicals the diapers contain. Cloth’s breathability helps decrease diaper rash, too! Lastly, I know you don’t think that sweet, adorable little baby is capable of this, but as any veteran parent or caregiver will tell you, babies can poop with unimaginable velocity. This causes the diaper blowouts you may have heard of. Thankfully these are almost unheard of with cloth!