The underlined bit is what causes the squick factor for me. I actually worked with a guy who had a kid about the age of mine and he liked to use only TWO diapers a day. Poor kid.
I don’t think that is a problem. Most of the disposables I have seen have been rated from 12 - 15 lbs at least.
Why?
Poor kid if it was a cloth diaper, sure. But today’s super-absorbent disposables keep the liquid locked up away from the skin. (Holy sh!t, that sounded just like a commercial! But it’s true.) And the bulk is insignificant, so I don’t change more than I need to.
My 2 year old is down to three diapers most days, occasionally 4. She asks for a diaper change if she’s uncomfortable, otherwise I change her when she gets up, when she poops and when she goes to bed. Her skin is just fine, and she doesn’t smell in the slightest. In fact, she’s so comfortable in a “wet” diaper, that soon I’m going to put her in a pair of underpants and then the diaper, so she’s motivated to toilet train. (Homemade “feel wet liners”, y’know.)
I’ll be the slightly dissenting voice regarding disposable diapers. I wanted to use them, but my older son’s skin just broke down like crazy when I did, diaper rash does not begin to describe what was going on with his butt.
So for me, it was cloth and there was no diaper service (no money for it for one thing). I will say I sure got my pre-baby shape back fast what with hauling the diaper pail up and down four flights of steps to our apartment building’s laundry facility.
Which is part of the “you can never get your heart set on a plan with kids” logic. My son broke out terribly from one brand, was fine with another - my daughter broke out with a different brand. Some find rashes clear up with cloth, others move to disposables when the wet cloth causes the rash (the whole “lock the urine away from the skin” thing - if you baby will nap through a wet diaper - so you don’t know they’ve been wet for an hour - a disposable might help with the rash. If they break out from every disposable known to man, they might like cloth.
Preach it sister.
I lived in Germany then and we used a cream called Penaten that was AMAZING. Using that plus the cloth diapers (and using Dreft or some such ultra mild detergent) helped his butt heal.
Oh and I really did get amazingly strong arms carrying all that stuff.
I live in an apartment. Where the damn hell do you want me to put the stinky diapers? I can’t exactly toss them on the curb every day…
Besides, no daycare wants to deal with cloth diapers… Decision made!
Calm down. Really, each situation is different. A care-giver who keeps a few kids in her home (rather than a daycare) might take an infant who is in cloth diapers. However, in your case, seems to make sense to use disposables. shrug. You get no value judgements from me.
I keep wanting to type ‘paper’ diapers. Heh. Showin’ my age, I am.
Well, we lived in an apartment and used cloth diapers. We stored them in a convenient device called a “diaper pail”. But yeah, no value judgments here, either. Do whatever works.
We use cloth diapers basically because I feel like it. I mean, originally with Whatsit Jr. (now age 5) we used them because it was economical, but now I’m just used to it and, well, I like them. Having a diaper pail full of dirty diapers icks me out less than having a garbage can full of dirty diapers. Just my idiosyncrasy.
Funny as I find the OP about pondering the diaper option when you have no plans to have kids, I must say that as a father of two, my vote goes for disposables. Just think of the part where you remove the pooped diapers. You can’t just throw them like that in the washer. I cannot imagine a pleasant way to scrape poop from cloth. Daily. Often, if they are sick. No way.
Well, since you mentioned it, you’re not supposed to throw away disposables with all the poop in them, either. You’re supposed to put the feces in the toilet and throw away the rest of the diaper.
Getting rid of the poop really isn’t a big deal with cloth diapers. I have a little sprayer that I use to spray it into the toilet. Usually, though, I can just shake it a little and it all falls off. The cloth on the diapers I have doesn’t hold onto it very much. I mean, I wouldn’t characterize it as “pleasant”, but it’s really not that bad.
I’m sorry, what?! I just wrap those bad puppies (with the wipies included) as fast as I can and they are out of my life forever.
Can we have a quick show of hands from disposable users to see how many are wiping the poop from them before throwing them away?
Am I being whooshed?
Baby poops, no…I never thought about cleaning that from the disposable. Once they are on real solid foods, though, and the poops are like, well, like adult poops, I often dump them out in the toilet before putting the diaper in the pail…cuts way way down on the odor.
No hands here. A brilliant part of the design of modern disposable diapers is that the straps also form a type little package even when dirty. Combine that with a Diaper Genie and there is little to worry about. I have never heard of scraping or emptying them.
From the Pampers website:
***Waste removal **
As the Pampers bag recommends, you’ll want to dump bowel movements in the toilet. Then just roll the diaper into its backsheet, using the tape or fasteners to keep it closed, and dispose of it in the trash.*
I believe some other brands of disposables include these directions on the package, also. You’re really not supposed to put human feces in the trash…it should go through the sewage system.
Now, whether or not anyone follows the instructions, I don’t know.
As cleanliness focused (not quite obsessed but close) as I am, there wasn’t enough hot water or bleach in the world to make me use cloth diapers.
Their poop eventually becomes solid enough that you can flush it down the toilet but the last thing I wanted to do was have to scrape the yellowy, pudding-like consistency shit out of cloth. Let it soak? Still have to deal with the water. Wash soiled diapers in the same washer that my own clothes go in? Over my dead body. The thought of having to carry around soiled diapers in a Ziploc if I was out was nauseating.
I happily, enthusiastically used disposables.
I also never had a Diaper Genie. The last thing I wanted were festering diapers in the house. Do you crap and wait a day to flush the toilet? Our diapers went straight to the bin that the garbage men take, the bin stored outside.
I’ve never even *looked *for instructions, to be honest. I don’t have any bags in the house right now, but you can be sure I’ll be the nerd in the baby care aisle reading diaper packaging tomorrow!
Well, the kid I mentioned did not smell good. And his parents were going on about how there was no smell. Fact: that baby smelled.
But like I said, people can diaper their babies however they want. I’m not getting that close to somebody else’s baby anyhow.
I can’t recall seeing instructions either. I know on the boxes that we get it’s not listed on the bags. I will have to look and see if they have it on the side of the box.
I didn’t say I have no plans to have kids. I said I’m not pregnant.