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A Real Poopie Problem – Cloth versus Disposable Diapers

It is funny the reactions we get when we tell folks that we us cloth diapers. What immediately comes to mind is the image of ’70s with the baby in a big massive cloth diaper with huge pins holding it together. They also think of “what a mess!” and “What do you do with all the poop?!” That is not case with cloth diapers today. Thank God for good ole’ American Capitalism and Invention cloth diapers have a come a long way baby!

With the  birth of our baby boy a few years ago we looked into what to do for diapers. After a little research it was relatively easy to look into choosing some form of cloth diapers for him. There are a number of advantages that we saw for both our children, family and the environment.

What We Like About Cloth Diapers:

-Less impact on the environment

-Long term savings of cloth versus disposable

-The advantage of getting the kiddos out of diapers sooner

What is a Modern Cloth Diaper?

First, they are not the diapers you think of from the ’70s. They are not held together with monster sized safety pins. They do exist but I am sure not in use by many. There are a number of great cloth diaper companies out there. Out brand of choice is FuzziBunz. They are simple to use, easy to get on and off. They wear very well, and have lasted for over two years with changing a very hungry boy about five times a day. We have about 20 pairs of Fuzzibunz. The other component is the liners for the diapers. Modern cloth diapers have a liner that is absorbent of the pee and poop. These liners are designed to fit in the diaper but in reality and being lazy we usually just put them in the appropriate area. And also in reality we also double up the liners. The liner can vary in size and material. We have both a hemp and polipropeline/fleece type. The great thing about the cloth diapers is that they will grow with your kids. We have had the same set of diapers from infant to toddler. They have adjustable elastic in the lining that you can expand out as they get bigger.

So lets take a look at each advantage.

First the “Environmental Impact” of diapers. As you know we live in the country but also mindful of the crazy chemicals that are put in to all the cleaning and detergents that we use on a daily basis. The cloth diapers are certainly the way to go. Cloth diapers also force you to take care of the poop in a more sanitary manner. This manner is disposing of it down the toilet. There is debate that this is even the case for disposable but I found inconsistent articles on this. Either way it is better for human waste to go down the toilet.

When it comes to savings, cloth diapers are the biggest bang for your buck. We invested over $500 in reality with the purchase of the diapers and liners. There also is the added cost of electricity and water (perhaps gas too) that you will tack on by cleaning the diapers. And you will have to clean them almost daily if your kids are changes as much as ours. The added cost of the utility bills was pretty nominal and not enough that I even noticed. We do have the advantage of having an Energy Star or high efficiency washer to do the cleaning. We run the diapers on their own wash with extra settings of ‘sanitize’ and ‘heavy soil’ set. We are pretty diligent about running the ‘clean’ cycle on the washer about once a month to make sure the washer is clean. But all that said we have had no issues. Overall compare how much one spends on disposable diapers on a monthly basis and an investment of $500 bucks is pretty cheap.

The last point of getting the kiddos out of diapers quicker has proven to be a myth. The argument is logical in that disposable diapers are so advanced that kids do not feel the sensation of being wet. And, with cloth diapers they will feel wet to a degree and want to stop ‘feeling wet’, thus using the potty. Perhaps it is just him but our son has still yet to transition to using a potty as much as we have tried. We have taken the approach of ‘He will use it when he is ready’. We are about to resort to take the approach of ‘He needs to use it now, and we will bribe him with whatever it takes.’

Overall we are very happy with the cloth diapers. Some of the hemp liners have started to wear badly. Some of the diapers have shown wear and tear. FuzziBunz has been wonderful in replacing their faulty diapers with brand new ones. They have been a wonderful investment and one of the best decisions we have made. People are very pleased and amazed when the witness us breaking them out for a diaper change at a party or with company.

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Thank you for your response. ✨

The New Home

And so it has begun. We have already been working on the new home. It has not quite 14 acres and a large pond on the site.

This is the land we plan to live out the rest of our lives. We will be building it with Green technology (Solar, Geothermal, reclaimed wood, etc). We plan to grow organic and non-GMO foods. We also plan to home school our children. We had the Architect design a home school room into the plans.

Just wanted this to be a simple post about some of the topics we will go into deeper in the days ahead.

The biggest challenge we had was looking for a home plan that fit the bill for a ‘Home School’. We found little out there for as far as designs for homes that suited our needs let alone for a Home School. We did find one Architect that had a number of plans that were on his sight. He had some wonderful designs but ones that just a little too large and costly for our needs.

The additional challenge was that we wanted a wrap around porch and a home not designed for a neighborhood. When I say ‘not designed fora  neighborhood’, we found most home designs on site were made for neighborhoods with smaller lots. Not for one with 14 acres in mind. This also meant that most were designed without window on the sides of the house facing the neighbors. Yes, we could put them in, but again most of these homes were designed on the interiors to have no windows either.

The other dilemma was that hiring an Architect for our needs was costly too. Architects usually charge a percentage of what the house will cost in the end. This bill would have been over $10,000 for our home and just not worth the money. We are not that picky in our needs. We also felt that we were not designing a huge massive custom castle. Just a home with a few specific needs.

The ‘Wants’ for the New Home

Overall our needs besides the porch were we wanted to ideally have the whole living space on a single story. We were tired of going up and down stairs on our last home. We did allow for the Home Schooling room to be on the second story. We also wanted to downsize from the 3500+ square feet in the last home. We felt it was too much room for us currently and in the future. And, too much to keep up with. We do not have a cleaning service or lawn service. Our family is small with just a toddler and perhaps one or more on the way. So the new home is a little over 2500 square feet plus a 500 square foot Home School room. The garage is about  2 1/2 cars in size.  We love to cook and wanted to have an above average kitchen.  Not a kitchen with Wolf or Viking appliances but ones that were practical in cost and could hand serving a number of folks.

So what did we do?

We ended finding some plans that we liked and mostly fit the bill by about 75% and hiring an Architect to adjust the plans. This was a local Architect that had a full time job at a firm and worked on our plans on the side. The cost of changing the plans was $1300. His cost would have moved up if we made some massive changes or made him change after every draft. We only changed our house plans really twice during the process. And even after the final we are making a few changes along the way that I will go into more detail later. But overall a huge savings in money.