A lot of people think that I’m crazy. Not because of the way I dress, not because my home is a total mess (it’s not…ever), not even because of my personality (I’m pretty quiet). Instead, it’s how I choose to diaper my baby that gets to them.
I frequently get the question, “So…what kind of diapers do you use/recommend?”
I reply, “We use cloth diapers and we love them!”
That’s when I get the “you’re crazy” look which only gets stronger when they find out that I have been breastfeeding for 13+ months AND I still use a sling to carry my toddler around. But, for that, I don’t mind being crazy! What I’m doing is what is best for MY child, and I’ll take all the looks people have to give me. It’s worth it.
After realizing that cloth diapering is a lot easier than it was when I when I was a child, I decided it was something that I wanted to do. My husband? That was a different story. Just think, you’re getting ready to have your first bundle of joy and there’s so much that goes along with it– clothing, cribs, bedding, nursery decor, swings, bouncers, NAMES and that’s the fun stuff; let’s not forget the spit-up, the late nights and lack of sleep…the poop. I knew I’d have some serious convincing to do, and I’d like to share my, “honey, this is worth it” list with you.
So, obviously the first thing you want to do when trying to convince your husband to hop on board (with anything, really) is to go and turn on a ball game. Get him a cold drink, hand him the remote, give him a kiss and let him know you won’t complain one bit during the game that he’s not spending time oohing and ahhing over all of the stuff you got at your baby shower- so long as you can have some undivided attention when it’s over. I find that 10 times out of 10 this works. When the game is over, give him 5 minutes to get over his excitement or disappointment and then sit down with him. Start with reason number one (this was the biggest reason for us):
1. “Honey, cloth diapering will save us a lot of money.” No one is ever opposed to saving a good dollar or two….or several hundred in this case. Cloth diapering is a very cost effective way to cover your baby’s (or babies’) bottom(s). While you’ll be putting out a good amount of money up front, you’ll be saving a lot of money in the long run- especially if you’re planning on having more than one child. When we purchased our set of cloth diapers (22 bumGenius One Size 3.0′s) we spent a little over $350. I know… deep breaths. That’s a big number. Ready to keep going?
So, on average, for the first 7 months of your baby’s life, you’re going to go through 7-10 diapers a day. Doing some quick math, that’s close to 1,600 diapers in 7 months! If you spend $7 (the cheap brands) per 32 diapers, then by month 7, your baby has gone through about In the first 7 months you’ve spent $355 on just diapers!
Now, if you invested in the one size cloth diapers, you’d have already broken even! Amazing, isn’t it? By month 9 we were saving money! Interested in finding out how much you’d be saving? Go here and do your own calculations. This doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of your savings if you keep it up with baby number 2, then 3… Imagine if you put the money you’d be using towards diapers into savings–what a great start to a college fund!
You may be able to stop your convincing right here. The money saving may very well be enough of an incentive for your husband to want to go ahead with it (it was for me). If it’s not, well, keep going….
At this point, you’re pretty set on cloth diapering. You’ve gotten past the money reason and while it’s piqued his interest, your husband may not be sold yet. Remember, there are a lot of preconceived notions about cloth diapering that make it less than appealing to most mommies–imagine how the dad’s feel about it. Don’t worry, there are plenty of other reasons to grab him! Onto reason number 2:
2. “Poop is gross.” Stay with me, now. I’m going to tell you what I tell anyone who wonders why I do cloth – poop is gross no matter what. If it’s in a disposable diaper sitting in a trashcan gathering stink or if it’s sitting in a diaper pail waiting to be washed–it’s gross. I highly recommend (if you do decide to cloth diaper) a diaper sprayer. It will save your life…or at the very least your hands from having to spend a lot of time in the toilet cleaning diapers. Definitely worth it.
Obviously, the laundry aspect of it isn’t too fun. In fact, if we’re being honest, those are some of my least favorite moments of the week…I think I’d rather clean toilets in a frat house. If I felt this way about it, I knew when I spoke with my husband that this could be a potential deal breaker. So, I went in also knowing that when he asked, “Who’s going to be doing the laundry?”, if I was serious about it, I needed to suck it up and say, “I will.” You may have to do that, too. The laundry isn’t fun, but when I see my little girl waddling around in her pink bumGenius…it’s worth it.
3. “Cloth diapering has come a long way since we were babies.” And it has! It’s incredible how much like a normal disposable diaper some cloth diapers are. If you’re going for the super money savings, you may want to just go with the prefolds and snappies, BUT if you’re going for the ease and convenience in cloth diapering, the world is at your finger tips! There are all kinds of brands out there, many of them you can find at Mom’s Milk Boutique. You can find all kinds of different things that float your boat- velcro or snaps, one size fits all or all in ones, washable liners and/or disposable liners–the list goes on and on! So, do your research- make sure you do it together because he’ll be changing diapers, too, and you want him to get something that’s going to be comfortable for him. As I mentioned above, we chose to use the bumGenius 3.0 one size diapers and not only is my husband comfortable with using them, so are the grandparents, friends and babysitters who have come over.
At this point, take a deep breath, smile and gauge the reaction. If it looks like he’s convinced then you need not continue, you don’t want it to start to feel like a lecture! If it looks like he may need some more convincing, there are several other great reasons to cloth diaper. It’s much better on the environment (for all you mommas with “green” hubbies); it’s much better for baby’s bottom– less diaper rash = less money spent on diaper creams (again, with the money saving) AND less diaper rash = less tears and pain; it’s easier to potty train a baby who has been cloth diapered because they’re used to having that kind of fabric on their bottoms (the cloth diapers are more like a pull up and less like the bulky disposable diapers) and so it’s not quite as big of a transition.
Will people think you’re crazy? Probably. Would it be easier to buy disposable diapers, throw them away, and not think about it? Definitely. Is it worth it to save the money, do the laundry, and protect your sweet baby’s bottom? Absolutely. Start the conversation with your husband, and hopefully he will see, like mine did, that it’s worth it.
by Christy Kayle, guest contributor
GIVEAWAY!! We are giving away one GroBaby Smart Package – since GroBaby is a super smart way to save money!! In order to enter, please comment below and tell us how you convinced your husband – or how your husband convinced you! Entries close at midnight on 4/30/10. Winner will be posted here and on Facebook. Contest void where prohibited by law. It is the winner’s responsibility to contact us to claim their prize.
GroBaby Smart Package winner….thanks to random.org we have a winner!! Rachael who commented @ April 23, 2010 at 8:45 pm. Please contact abbie@momsmilkboutique.com to claim your package!
My husband was convinced AFTER I bought the diapers! Once my little girl was in them, her diaper rashes stopped, and she started sleeping better! Once he saw a happy, sleeping baby- he was all for it!
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i didnt really convince him or ask for that matter.. i kinda just ordered them & when the arrived i kinda just said this is what were using for now on & that was that. bahah hes a really good sport with all of the “things” that i do.
What are you all saying to your husbands about cost savings that seems to be so convincing? I thought I tried that tactic… “It will only cost us a couple hundred initially and we won’t need any more diapers. Compare that to 2+ years of disposables and it’s a huge savings.” His response, “Why are you assuming our kid will be in diapers for 2 years? Yeah, I know that’s normal, but why do you assume our kid will be normal?”
There were many reasons my husband agreed to cloth diaper. But first, let me say that I didn’t need to convince him. I didn’t “talk him into it”. He actually wanted to and I was the one hesitant and saying “will you really participate in changing our baby if we did use cloth?”.
1) We live in an area where there is no garbage pickup so we have to burn our garbage ourselves or haul it to the dump.
2) We have a limited budget.
3) We don’t have to pay utilities where we rent.
4) We have many friends who could give us advice and even sell us some used cloth diapers.
5) They’re almost like disposibles in the ease of putting them on and taking them off, so it would be simple for both of us, friends, relatives and babysitters to use.
My husband’s favorite diapers are GroBaby… above 3 other brands we have. He love that you can reuse the shell. And the new colors/prints are FANTASTIC!
Our twin boys were about 8 months old before I decided I was sick of buying diapers all the time. i realized I was spending $18 every 5 days. So I started looking into cloth diapers. I knew I had to have all my information together before approaching him. I decided to go with the bumgenius one size pockets. They seemed to be the most like disposables and the twins would fit into them until potty trained. I needed something he would be willing and able to use. Then I showed him how much we were spending a month, and then how much the cloth would be. I told him any poop diaper could be left for me on top of the pail and I would spray it out, plus I would do all the diaper laundry. My final way to convince him was that if it didn’t work out we could recoup much of our costs because used cloth diapers actually sell! I went and bought 24 BG for them right away! He was skeptical I’d keep up with it, but 20 months later we are still using cds!
I didn’t really have to convince my husband to cloth diaper, I told him I wanted to do it for the environment and that I felt it would be easy. That’s it!
My hubs is pretty easy going but he dis sneer at first, but after explaining to him that our babe will probably have SUPER sensitive skin like us and cloth would be better and of course the cost didnt hurt!
I told my hubby we would save a TON of $$$$. That was enough for him.
I didn’t really discuss it too much with my husband other than to tell him about the money saving benefit. I work from home so I do almost all of the diaper duty anyway. I now wish I had started sooner and put my older 3 in cloth when they were babies! It is so easy to use cloth, not a hassle at all and plus fluffy butts are super cute
I have 2 babies in cloth now and wouldn’t have it any other way!
My husband was not at all thrilled with cloth diapering. He of course thought disposable was the best way until I showed him one of the Gro baby’s that I purchased. When I said cloth diapers he instantly thought prefolds and pins, what his mother used on him when he was a baby. My macho husband was then thrilled. Gro baby’s are awesome and the ease of use is amazing. When we are out and about we use them with the bio liners. I am very happy with these diapers and how easy the transition was.
My husband was not keen on the idea at first so I eased him in with showing him the Hybrid diapers where you could throw away the liner. From there I just kept showing him different types at the store and how much money we would save and that it is great for the earth. Since I do the laundry anyway he thought it was a good idea. Plus we both agreed at how cute they are!!
I’m generally into more natural things for babies so as we were expecting our first baby I started to drop the topic of cloth diapers into conversation. My husband initially was not too thrilled because he still pictured the prefold days but once he saw pictures of what cloth diapers look like today he was much more interested. The pros really do sell the cloth diapers (cost, environment, less chemicals near baby, so soft materials). And as a man, he now gets more excited about gadgets – like our diaper sprayer! But whatever it takes to keep him on board!I really was committed to cloth with or without his support but it definitely helps to have it! And our GroBaby diapers are the only ones that currently fit our 4 week old & they are truly amazing in absorbency, fit, ease of use & laundering. we LOVE them!
Surprisingly, my SO was very supportive of cloth diapering. He’d known I wanted to do it from birth but we couldn’t afford the start up costs until tax return time. Then he drove me over 2 hours to the nearest store so I could buy in person!! It was pretty much, I change the diapers, it costs A LOT less in the long run, she’s allergic to everything, and constantly has a rash – cloth diapering will stop it. Lol, now my daycare was a whole other matter. I had to show her how easy it was – almost like a disposable because the only extra step for her was rinsing and/or putting it in the wetbag. Which really isn’t an extra step when you think about it since you have to walk a sposie to the trash can.
I didn’t tell my husband that I had decided to start cloth diapering at first. I just ordered them and when they showed up he got a big surprise! I used to do most of the diaper changes, but now he actually helps which is great! I ordered a bunch of GroBaby seconds when they had their sale going on earlier this year, and since then, it is ALL my husband will use!
My husband took a little bit of convincing. We ended up discussing it when we began thinking about adding to our family, our son was already over a year old. He wasn’t interested in extra work and with a wiggling squirmy bum diaper changes were hard enough. We did some research and figured we could try a couple of pocket diapers and a couple of AIO rather than the prefolds that I think he was having the biggest worries about. When we did get a few diapers and found out how similar to disposables they were it was a lot easier to talk him into making a switch. The initial cost was a big issue but with getting OS diapers that we will be able to use for baby #2 and more … he was a lot more comfortable with spending the money. We’ve also come to the agreement that if we had to be sitting in a diaper all day, we’d much rather be sitting on a soft cloth than paper and poylmers!
My husby is good with agreeing to whatever I have researched. The less cost & waste on the planet is just a plus along with having super cute bums!
It didn’t take much convincing to get my husband on board with cloth diapers. We already had friends using BumGenius, in fact we babysat for them one night and he was on diaper duty. He didn’t blink an eye. When he took a look at the cost of disposables at the store, he began to do some mental math and realized how much an average baby costs to keep in ‘sposies all the way through potty training. That was it! He was totally ready for fluff. We are really excited for our first baby to arrive ANY DAY NOW (due date May 1st).
It didn’t take much convincing, once I told him how much we waste on disposable diapers he was in. I do more changing than him and he doesn’t “know” what to do with them once they are used, but he’s learning!! I’d love to win this!!
After showing him a cost savings calculator online I went & bought the cloth diapers and stopped buying disposables. So when they were gone he had no other choice!
When my hubby was teaching at a local university, he allowed me to tag along on a field trip where they took the students to a land fill. When I saw the literal mountains of trash there, it really changed me. When I became pregnant, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do sposies for that reason and equally important was to avoid putting my baby in contact with the chemicals in the sposies. I explained all of the above (in much greater detail of course!) to my hubby, and he was on board!! I’m so lucky to have him…he has even cleaned off the poop a few times!
The $$$ we could save convinced him immediately. We had a 6mo daughter, just found out we were pregnant with #2 and were a little nervous about the cost of diapering two at once. My mom suggested cloth (not even knowing about all of the newer options) and I started to look into it. It made so much sense and since I’m a SAHM, I’m the one who does the majority of the diaper changes. One week of it and we were both hooked. Our parents all think its great too. Definitely one of the best decisions we’ve made!
We came to the decision together. We both saw the major pros in cloth diaper…better for the environment, cost effective and better for our baby. We really didn’t realize how easy cloth diapering was though until our baby was born. We love a variety of diapers, but Grobaby’s are some of our favourites!
My husband is an economist, so for me it was first all about money! I had to find great deals and then he calculated all the savings, etc. to see for himself that it was worth it. I also had to chose diapers that he felt would be “easy” and not too much work. For us we chose the Bum Genius and after 18mos of cloth diapering neither one of us will EVER go back. He in fact now encourages other parents to CD b/c of the bonus of being out & about and OH NO…A LEAK…except with CD we have had NO LEAKS! That probably is his favorite part of the cloth diapers!
We are getting ready to add another baby to the mix and I am excited to use them for two and not buy any disposable diapers just stock up on a few more cloth ones. 
I researched tons of information on cloth diapering. I started with how much money it would save us and then slowly added in the environmental impact. I think deep down my husband knew that we had to give it a chance since my daughter was so allergic to disposables. He said that he would go along with my latest hobby and we would see how it worked out. As i found out new information i shared it with him. I picked out a very user friendly diaper and still to this day do all of the laundry. I now have all of my daughters caregivers who swore they would never cloth diaper, cloth diapering! Now my husband and I can not imagine how anyone uses disposables. I still don’t think dispoables should be legal but that is a different topic in itself.
I didn’t have to do any convincing. He just agreed that it would be the best thing for our son’s bum and the environment. The cost savings were a bonus for us. Now that our son is on solids, it’s taking a little more effort to get him to dunk and swish
Even if he does pile up the poopies for when I get home, he’s still been totally awesome at trying my eclectic, ever growing, stash of dipes. He loves to tell people we use cloth; I think it makes him proud. So cute.
I convinced my husband by showing him a cost comparison– we’d get all the cloth we’d need for LESS than we had spent on disposables in our son’s first three months! Then I mentioned how it would help get rid of diaper rash. My husband said OK, and we both love our cloth diapers! Oh! And no more diaper rash.
My husband seriously balked at the idea of cloth…but I told all of the pluses (cost savings, environmental, and healthier for baby) and pointed out that since he had only changed enough diapers in our son’s 6 months of life to be counted on one hand that it really wasn’t going to affect him much.
He worried about the smell…so I told him to go smell the diaper genie in our son’s room.
He gagged pretty hard…
I promised him that if our home even remotely started smelling like that then I would stop.
He has yet to complain 2 years later…
And now our daughter is wearing what our son started out in so we are REALLY saving some money now!
Convincing my husband was a lot easier than I thought. The biggest thing for him was how much money we’d be saving in the long run and after hearing how a single diaper stash from newborn to toddler was only going to cost us a few hundred dollars and that it could be reused for future children, he was ALMOST sold. I added in the health benefits for our son and the environmental factors, but the money thing ultimately got him.
He liked knowing that EBF poo was water soluble and wouldn’t end up on his clothes and knowing that I got some “daddy-friendly” diapers (pockets and AIOs) made it so he didn’t have to worry about learning anything new which took away a lot of his fears. It was a bit of work but ultimately the work that went into convincing him was absolutely worth it and now we wouldn’t go back!