clothing

Since we are less than two months away from welcoming a new addition to our family, my focus on sustainability research has expanded to include how to make raising youngins’ a sustainable practice.

Most parents of newborns can point to a single type of item that causes them the most grief -- diapers. A baby typically goes through 8 – 12 diapers per day in the earliest stages of its life, which really starts to add up in time and money. If using disposable diapers or a cloth diaper service, it can cost over $2500 from birth to potty training. Laundering your own cloth diapers costs roughly half that amount when factoring in costs for water, soap, and the diapers themselves.

Aside from being a bane on the environment, disposables can be dangerous to children. Disposable diapers have been shown to cause severe rashes, headaches, choking, and (in extreme cases) fever and vomiting. In addition, disposables are the sole cause for most diaper rash; a Procter & Gamble study showed an increase in incidences of diaper rash from 7.1% with cloth diapers to 61% with disposables.

Of course, Peak Oil changes the perspective of this argument even a bit further. Unless you stockpile enough disposable diapers to last for all current and future children, at some point you will be forced to find another option (also remember you’ll have to throw them away somewhere). So what are the best methods for covering our babies’ bums after Peak Oil?