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BR: diapering vent
Yes, it's me again. I promise I'll get a life soon and stop spamming the board. Anyway, I just had a conversation with someone that really annoyed me...well, it's like the fifteenth of these conversations, so by now I've started to get kind of irked.
It starts out pretty simply, with someone asking me idly if we're going to use cloth or disposable diapers. I cheerfully reply cloth, and expect the conversation to end. But nooooooo. Instead, I'm treated to a lecture about how much easier and cleaner disposables are (I usually interrupt to tell people about modern cloth diapers, but that just seems to go over their head), and then this happens: "Well, you know you won't really save any money by using cloth since you have to wash them all."
Um, yes, actually, I will. This is me, remember? The anal retentive tightwad control freak? You really think I made this decision without crunching the numbers? Disposables would cost us approximately $3,000 for the first year. Even if we buy all brand new of the most expensive cloth diapers out there, we're only looking at a $1500 outlay, tops. Water and electricity for one extra load of washing a day is about $1 (closer to $0.50 in the USA, but of course it's more expensive here), so that's only $365 extra a year. We'll still be saving around $1150.
I guess I'm just frustrated. I mean freaking hell, do I rag on them for choosing disposables? Nope. That's your choice, and I'm not going to get all judgy about it (in fact, when I say we're using cloth, I'm very careful to not come across as holier-than-thou). You don't want to do cloth, that's OK - it's a personal choice. So why isn't it OK the other way around???
Vent over.
Re: BR: diapering vent
How weird! I've never even had that come up in a conversation, bf'ing yes, but cd'ing? Crazy.
Cerclage placed @ 21w6d due to CI (IC)
How funny! I haven't had a single person ask me about breastfeeding (maybe they don't want to venture into the odd, "So.....how DO you breastfeed two babies at once?" conversation lol), but tons of people have asked about our diapering choices, which I really didn't expect!
"
(maybe they don't want to venture into the odd, "So.....how DO you breastfeed two babies at once?" conversation lol),
"
Ha! You can say "Easy! Two Behbehs..Two Boobies!"
Cerclage placed @ 21w6d due to CI (IC)
we didn't have a lot of people ask us, but we did have some... and I was super annoyed by the comments like "well, we'll see how long that actually lasts!" or "you'll be so sick of doing laundry you'll switch to disposables in no time!" I don't think I had too many people question if it was truly cheaper, just a lot of people doubting that CD'ing can be enjoyable/better than sposies for some.
FWIW, i am glad that you are sticking to CD'ing b/c i remember when you first found out you were having twins, you started to re-think that choice. it's totally do-able and makes so much more sense economically speaking.
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
My Food Blog - Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats
Cerclage placed @ 21w6d due to CI (IC)
Oh trust me, I get plenty of these too.
I get really annoyed when people give me The Smirk and say, "Sure, we'll see how long you do that for. I bet you won't last more than a week!" But it's really surprised me at how many people have tried to argue that we'll end up spending just as much money on cloth - I thought that out of all the pros and cons of cloth vs disposables, the lower cost of cloth was a pretty well accepted fact, but for some reason people seem to jump all over that part. *shrug*
When I first started seriously researching cloth vs disposables, I did the math and for the number of diapers a pair of twins would use over the course of a year (mid-range prices, not the super cheapies or the most expensive brand), it would be a little over $3,000 here. Obviously, this number would change with fewer kids and where you live (like everything else, disposables cost more here).
Initially I wasn't sure if cloth really would save us that much money, since we'd have to buy different sizes as the babies grew, and since we'd have two to buy for - however, with the new one-size-fits-all cloth designs, we'll literally save thousands even though they cost more to begin with.
I don't know exactly how the numbers stack up for single babies in the USA, although I'm sure someone else will.
What's strange to me is I get a lot of... "how long do you plan to BF Brooke?," to which I respond "a year" . . .then I get silence... or "oh, wow..."
I thought it was a well known fact that "breast is best?"
& I would LOVE to CD. . . but hubs won't even consider it.
Maybe next bebeh?
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Cerclage placed @ 21w6d due to CI (IC)
Alyson & Phil | Planning Bio | Married Bio!
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Right there with you. It's SO annoying. WTF do they care? They're not at my house doing the laundry or "dealing" with CDs...but yet the response is so negative. Honestly? I think people just have to be right, especially when it comes to raising a child. Because if you're right and they don't agree, then they must be wrong. It never occurs to them that there can be many right ways to raise a baby...whatever works for you is what's best for you and vice versa.
As for sposies...am I the only one who's grossed out about encasing poop in plastic (the diaper) and then throwing that away in more plastic (the garbage bag)? Grosses me out more than having to wash dirty diapers.
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
LOL this is funny! I mean not funny that people argued with you, but it's just proof that no matter what you do, SOMEONE will disagree with you, you know? I'd bet a million dollars that if we were doing disposables, people would be saying, "Oh but you know how bad that is for the environment, right?" or something along those lines. You just can't win! Like Lori said, maybe it's because people just have to be right when it comes to child raising, no matter what the issue. .
Lori, I think you hit the nail on the head as to why this annoys me so much. I mean, what DO they care? It's not their money. It's not their time or their laundry. It's not like I'm asking them to come over to my house and wash the diapers!
About the poop thing, I didn't know until recently that it's actually illegal in Australia to throw away poo. Even if you use disposables, you're supposed to scrape the poo chunks off into the toilet before chucking the diaper out. I'd bet anything that 99% of people don't do this (and probably don't even know that you're supposed to), but technically that's how it should work. So really, the only difference between cloth diapering and disposables here is whether you put the diaper in your washing machine or in the trash. I wonder if it's the same in the USA?
exactly. ppl are weird!
interesting... how did you even find out about that? honestly, there haven't been chunks or anything I could really scoop off - except for the occassional diaper w/ large volume! - so i wonder that works
Reading an Aussie forum about cloth diapering - there was a discussion about scraping poo (ahh, the things I read about these days!) and someone had posted a link to it - wish I'd bookmarked it! I think it's probably only really do-able once they get a little older and the poos get a bit chunkier...I don't think you're supposed to rinse them if the poos are all runny and soaked in?
according to Jillian's Drawers, the average parent will spend about $2838 on diapers for their baby before potty learning if the baby is out of diapers after 3 years. their site states:
Disposable Diaper Details: Number of diapers needed based off of 12 diapers per day for the first 3 months, then 8 diapers per day until 3 years old. This gives 9,000 total disposable diapers for one baby. Average cost of a disposable according to Consumer Reports is 26.5 cents, giving $2,385. Diaper genie inserts cost 3 cents/diaper, adding $226.80. 1 disposable wipe/diaper at 3 cents/wipe adds another $226.80. Total cost, excluding gas, extra diaper rash cream, washing baby's clothes more often due to poop leaking, extra trash collection fees, etc.: $2,838.60. We have excluded sales tax in both our disposable and cloth diaper calculations.
I should tell you that from birth to 6 weeks, A was going through 20-24 diapers per day, then about 14-16 per day from 6-8 weeks and now she is finally going through something closer to the 12/day figure that they mention above. So it definitely varies depending on the baby!!
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
My Food Blog - Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats
Please tell me that most newborns don't go through 20-24 changes a day. Please. Please please please. Please!!!!!
yep, I think I vented about this in one of the recent check ins. None of my family thinks it's strange - my mom used cloth on both my sister and I at home and they all know I'm pretty environmentally conscious and I think cloth is pretty common in my town/region.
It's mostly MH's family that makes comments and none of them have probably even seen a "new" cloth diaper (in case that matters). Changing diapers is gross not matter what kind you use IMO. Poop gets in your washer no matter what (blowouts w/ disposables) so I really don't see what the big deal is, but I really don't see why they care when they are thousands of miles away and only want to tell me how difficult it will be.
Besides them the only people that have said anything are co-workers and since I'm not really close to my co-workers I find it strange and annoying that they even want to offer commentary on my personal/home life choices.
I agree with pp - I think people just like to be opinionated and pretend they know it all.
We're CDing AND breastfeeding so we're saving tons of $$
I think I should get a vacation or jewelry since I did all the research for DH and I 
However, Bella is almost 6 months old and we CD the cheapest (and easiest IMO) way possible. We use PF's, covers and snappis. We've spent close to $300 and she's 6 months old!! $300!!! That's so cheap!! Ok factor in a little for electricity but not that much. I'm happy we're doing it, it's cheap, it's easy, she's never (knock on wood) had a diaper rash and we both love it.
People did say "that won't last" or "you'll make it a week with ALL of the extra laundry you'll be doing" and other crappy stuff. Honestly it's one extra load every couple of days and we've lasted 6 months. What do they have to say now?!
I'm too lazy to go pull the papers we got from BF class but the averages for diaper changes are much more in line with Christine's numbers (maybe 12/day (every 2 hours)??). So I guess just hope the babies are a little more in line with the average
(and the BF instructor was "crunchy," so I'm sure she was taking into account cloth over disposables (which don't absorb the wetness like disposables).
Oh thank god! I'd read the newborn average was 10-12, and I thought OK, I can still handle that with two...if it was 20+ per baby each day, I think I'd die lol!
oh yeah... little miss A is "special" i like to think
not typical at all. the problem was she'd poop ALL.THE.TIME. (i've read in BFing resources that they should poop at least 3-4 times per day in the beginning after week 1 but this was not the case w/her) plus she was a "sleepy newborn" so it was impossible to BF her w/o changing her diaper first to wake her up. so she'd wet a diaper while sleeping and i would change it to start off our nursing session. then she'd poop while BFing on the first boob and fall back asleep by the time she was done...so we'd have to change her again to wake her up in order for her to BF on the other boob. then, often times she'd poop again either while BFing on the 2nd boob or a few minutes after she was done BFing. so that was 12-18 poops a day!! it was no fun, but i just kept reminding myself of how mad i would have been if those were sposies and i was going through them so quickly!!
oh and i am pretty sure the reason why babies really like poop while they eat or shortly thereafter is the same reason that most adults do - the gastrocolic reflex - eating makes your body poop
Jaime & Brent
Oahu, Hawaii | Sept. 9, 2005
My Food Blog - Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats
Ugh, that sounds frustrating.
In general, I think people feel quite strongly about babies (their own or other people's) and have no problem letting it be known. It's dangerous to even go there with the baby talk.
Even online, moms and moms-to-be can sometimes get so maternal with each other -- "sharing" advice and giving "helpful" FYIs. So I hear ya that it's even more irritating in person!
I agree, to each her own. Women should be more supportive of each other and the individual choices we've likely debated long and hard over. We really don't need to one up each other on who knows more about what!
Here's more info about CDing:
http://www.thenewparentsguide.com/diapers.htm
Yep! You're supposed to do that here too. In fact, it's illegal to dispose of human waster (i.e. poop) in the trash because it ends up in the landfills and leaches into our ground water, which is not sanitized (like it is when it is flushed down the drain/toilet)...so ew! All those poopy disposable diapers are infecting our water systems and soil. So gross. Then the fact that people use diaper genies, etc. so now you have poop, inside a plastic disposable diaper, encased in MORE plastic from the diaper genie and then put in their trash cans (probably another trash bag)...triple plastic encased poop. YUCK!
In 1975, the World Health Organization called for an end of urine and fecal matter in solid waste. I looked for this on the WHO website, but found it in an article in Mothering.
The American Public Health Association made a policy statement in 1989.
From Pampers? Website (though I can?t actually find the instructions on the Pampers bag itself): ?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.?
http://sonyasf.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/even-with-disposable-diapers-poop-in-the-potty/
"Dumping human waste into landfills violates the World Health Organization guidelines and is technically illegal. Depositing feces laden disposable diapers into landfills creates a potential biohazard. There is the risk leakage which could cause the contamination of our drinking water with bacteria and live viruses. Fortunately, Landfills are fairly well constructed in North America and the risk of contamination is more of an issue in developing countries.
Disposable diaper packaging contains instructions on the proper disposal of the feces. The inner liner is supposed to be removed and flushed away."
http://www.mylilmiracle.com/articles.htm
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
Sorry that people are being so negative Lisa, that sucks. We use disposables and honestly don't care what anyone else does with their kid. You need to do whatever is the best for your family
And we totally did not get the memo about scraping the poop out of the diapers. We don't do that.
Hm, that's odd. I haven't ran into your situation before. Don't get me wrong...lots of people have asked me whether I'm CDing or not. But they seemed like they were just asking because they're curious, not to lecture me one way or another. So I haven't really ran into anyone that felt like they needed to tell me that disposables were the way to go, but of course, as I mentioned before, I also barely know anyone IRL that is pregnant or have babies so maybe that's why I haven't faced this kind of thing? It's still odd (and not to mention, none of their business) that they feel the need to rag on you like that =( Sorry you're facing all this..I'd avoid running into them in the future if you can help it =P