How to Choose the Best Cloth Diaper
The best cloth diaper lives in the eye of the beholder.
You quickly will discover choosing the best cloth diaper requires more calculation, negotiation, and reconciliation than buying a car, applying for a mortgage, or atoning for the sins of your misspent youth. . Determining which among your several possibilities will emerge as the best cloth diaper requires you balance conscientious concern for the planet’s future against your budget, the baby’s comfort, and your convenience.
The “Best Cloth Diaper Technology”? Are Your Serious?
Did you ever imagine you would use the phrase “diaper technology” in a serious conversation? Could you have conceived the possibility of spending sleepless nights weighing alternative “diaper systems’” pro’s and con’s? Would it ever have occurred to you that the cloth-versus-disposable debate would become as impassioned and divisive as discussion of American health-care reform? And, growing up believing comfortable cotton is “the fabric our lives,” could you ever have foreseen the day when cotton would become Mother Earth’s sworn mortal enemy? And what about your mother’s best friend Clorox? Who ever might have anticipated that Clorox, too, would join the list of bio-hazardous domestic insurgents?
Cotton Comes Nowhere Close to the Best Cloth Diaper.
Any New Age earth-friendly diaper will cost considerably more than a pile of old-fashioned cotton nappies, and you will not get a perfect pile of rags for the garage when baby finally dominates the potty chair. Almost all “advanced diaper systems” require laundry, so you must anticipate spikes in your water and electric bills. Although common sense suggests you buy more diapers to stretch out time between laundries, organic cloth diapers are rare enough and expensive enough that you may realize very little savings from the old strategy. Some pocket diapers use “disposable” or recyclable liners, reducing laundry demand by about 90% but still adding to your cost and inconvenience.
The Best Cloth Diapers Come from Hemp? Are You Kidding?
Among cloth diapers, hemp-cotton blends feel best to your baby: Soft from the beginning, they grow softer with repeated washing. Frankly, however, your baby’s comfort comes last among your priorities and concerns, because she does not want to wear diapers at all. She has spent most of her life blissfully naked and buoyant, and if she had her choice, she would continue that way. Focusing on your own needs, then, you must accept that any cloth diaper will take a toll on your time and energy. No matter how slick and sophisticated your pocket diaper system, it still is more awkward than the little tapes on disposable diapers, and all cloth diapers—single or in a system—require laundry.
As you compare and contrast all your options, you may ultimately agree with the baby, declaring “Let her go naked.”
Tags: best cloth diaper, best diapers, diaper systems, hemp diapers, pocket diapers
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