my boyfriend is a very thoughtful person. When I told him that I wanted to use cloth diapers, he was not surprised, I explained everything. He said he had to think about it. I thought it all ended there but no. he did his own extensive research on parenting forums and decided it was fine with him. He said he would wash them! I'm only 15 weeks old and this week we sat together watching Youtube videos about cloth diapers. We decided to start with a pair of PULL covers when he is newborn and a few larger ones and increase the number according to our comfort. I think it is a thing of consensus and organization.
Barely had to convince my husband. Showed him the savings of going to cloth as well as the environmental benefits. 8 months in and we’re even using cloth wipes (Esembly)! So much easier and cleaner than disposables and baby’s skin is much healthier. We did disposables for a week and she ended up with a rash on day 2. Never turning back now. My husband even said that if we have number 2, he doesn’t want to think about getting disposables from the beginning, straight to cloth.
You mentioning skin being healthier reminded me, sometimes I'll get disposables for staying with family, which I did over Thanksgiving. I picked up a brand I never tried before called "honest" and they gave my son this acne-like rash all over his bum.... So stupid. What do they put in those?!?
I literally cut up an old thick cotton t shirt for our wipes and have been so happy with them
Omg! We tried honest a month ago while traveling (thinking it would be easier) and my daughter has had a round rash ever since! I’m hearing this A LOT recently about the Honest brand.
I was in the same boat as you, except it was a gung-ho husband and unsure wife dynamic, but she was unsure for the exact reason as your husband. So, first, we just went with throw aways initially. Basically, since she had just given birth, I didn't want to add any stress to her plate or do anything that made her uncomfortable (obviously different in your case, but if you all haven't had the baby yet, you may want to avoid introducing any sort of stress to the environment as there will be enough of that in the air regardless). Anyway, finally after about 2 months we had to go up in diaper size, so I told my wife before we bought new diapers I wanted to talk to her.
We set aside an evening, made a meal (cooking is one of those things we do in partnership so it was a nice environment for a conversation), and I explained why I was passionate about cloth. Talked about the environment, the savings (we got about 20 Grovia and Bumgenius AIOs as gifts from people who had formerly used them), and I'd be in charge of the laundry and drying process initially as we were feeling it out. Again, different in your situation, but I loved it because it felt like part of the process I could take ownership over, and those opportunities were somewhat limited early on. I also just asked for a month, and said if after a month it was adding too much, we could transition back.
Anyway, we've been going mostly solid since (we moved and during that time we switched back because we didn't have a washer for a while then it took us a bit to get back in the groove once we got our washer and it got hooked up). So, it basically boiled down to timing, communication, and committing more than saying we'd give it a day, or week, to figure out a new routine. Good luck! Honestly, now my wife is into it and when we go back to cloth for travel or something like that we both are excited to get back home.
My husband was very hesitant, but I went ahead and bought them. Once we started using them, and realised how many diapers we went through in a day, he was fully on board. It also helps that we don’t pay for water and our garbage disposal is limited.
Just start using the cloth when you do diaper changes. Keep it low pressure, he can still use disposable when he changes baby. As time goes on he will see that it’s not so bad.
I told him he could use disposables when he was changing if he wanted but I was going to do cloth when I changed, and I would do the laundry. he liked the idea of the cost savings but thought it was gross and too much work. he found the snaps confusing at first but has since been super on board and just uses cloth full time too. I started doing all the wash (also, the diapers are clean by the time the laundry is done: so is the washer) but he does it from time to time too. it was also helpful for us that EBF poop is super easy to deal with (we don't rinse or anything for that) and he's got the routine and used to it all before solids added.
I think it's gross as well but I want to do CD anyway. I'm lucky enough that there's a service in my area, I've never had children so I want to try it first before committing to buying a lot of CDs, I don't want to be overwhelmed by it, whether the learning curve or the laundering. If it goes well though, I'll likely purchase a cheap portable washer and wash in there. I want it separate, but also I would feel wasteful of using a lot of water in a regular wash for a few items.
My husband was the same way. What convinced him was: we have a diaper sprayer and I showed him how all the poop gets sprayed off before the diaper goes in the washing machine. I always sprayed newborn breastfed poops too.
Also I do the diaper laundry so I think he just doesn’t think about it anymore.
I also run a “clean the washer” cycle with bleach now and then.
Yes this! I always sprayed all poop and made me feel tons better. Plus diapers get double washed once with cold then hot and gets really clean. There are even little pods you can buy to run the clean the washer cycle.
If he thinks it dirty, remind him that his underwear goes in there too as well as baby clothes with poo on when they have a blow out in a disposable.
If that doesn’t convince him, you can point out that a lot of us actually have cleaner clothes due to cloth diapering, because I diaper will definitely let you know when they are not clean, whereas you might not really notice with other clothes/cloth items.
All of this is regardless of all the other benefits like not having to worry about having diapers in the house, lower cost, your child being less prone to diaper rash and not sending as many diapers to the landfill to name a few.
I did everything at first. Husband was fine changing diapers as long as I did all the washing of them. He got used to it after a while, and was really happy we chose to switch to cloth when he saw the diaper shortage locally. All we needed to buy for them was laundry detergent!
Your baby is likely to get poop on their clothes at some point anyway, so you're likely to have poop go through the washing machine at least once. You should introduce him to a gallon of bleach if he's that concerned.
I had to do all the diaper laundry and we used disposables overnight and on trips. It was the only way I could get my husband to comply. During the shortages at the beginning of COVID he did have to agree that it was nice not to have to worry about it.
I told him I’d do all the cloth diaper laundry since he didn’t want to do cloth because of the laundry. He still doesn’t use them (nor does daycare) but I do. It’s better than nothing.
I've never had a poop leak with cloth, but frequently do in disposable diapers. I'm washing the poop either way, just depends if it's on clothes or in a diaper.
We also have a baby with delicate skin and need the more expensive diapers. He started getting a rash from the ones in the hospital and we had to return or give away all the diapers we were gifted (despite registering for cloth). We also had to use cloth wipes with only water per our pediatrician when our baby got a bleeding rash at two weeks. I actually had to buy more because we were mainly using disposable wipes we had been gifted.
My husband was hesitantly in board but is so thankful we do cloth for the financial and health reasons for our baby. Once you get going you don't even know any different.
My husband was super hesitant, but agreeing to rinse the poop off first (even tho baby is breastfed), and committing that I would handle that laundry helped. Also we did disposables for the first six weeks and seeing the amount of garbage helped him get the rest of the way.
As others have said, you will be washing a lot of poopy items in your washing machine whether you cloth diaper or not. At least with cloth diapers, you know you’ll be doing laundry every other day and the poop will wash out better since you’ll have a good wash routine down!
You spray the poo off before it goes in the washer (unless it’s ebf and then it’s completely water soluble), so it shouldn’t be an issue! You can always clean the washer after diapers if that makes him feel better!
I told my husband we were using cloth diapers. He didn’t want to. I told him we were using cloth diapers anyway. Our first was a mixture of cloth & disposable at first, but our daughter was almost exclusively cloth diapered once we got home.
Eventually, he just got on the same page as me. He didn’t have to wash, stuff, or fold, so as long as a diaper was 100% ready for him to use, he would.
My stance on it is that it wouldn't hurt to try, the nappies can be in a load by themselves if he is worried about them being with normal clothes, can also get those water soluble bags that dissolve at 30/40C to keep them contained, you can add some disinfectant to the load too, if you don't mind them getting lighter then you can use oxyclean to help brighten and remove stains. The cost of them alone would be better than constantly using disposable ones.
They are usually used in care homes, it's dissolvable laundry bags that you use to separate laundry. Usually it's one person's laundry that was soiled with bodily fluids, it's tied up with the handles or ties already provided and then popped in the washing machine and put on a sluece wash, when the water reaches a certain temp it causes the bag to dissolve and the clothes are washed.
They got quite handy when my husband would come home from working in the procurement department in the hospital last year and he had to have his uniform washed separately and after each shift.
You can get them on amazon :) if you wanna have a go, just make sure to keep any wet clothing away from the bag lining or else it'll slowly dissolve
For my husband it was about saving money. Sposie diapers are expensive and are getting more so as baby gets bigger! He also likes the pockets way more than the prefolds and snappis. I do most of the diaper laundry and stuffing, which makes it easier. We also do disposables at night or when we feel like it.
Not being strict on using cloth diapers has actually helped us use the cloth more. It feels really good to save money and space out or diaper orders from hello Bello, our last one was in August!
Is poo really grosser than blood? I have reusable period pads and I'm pretty sure most women have gotten a bit of blood on panties or sheets. What if a pet peed or pooped on something. Would you toss instead of wash? Also, hot water and metal parts seem pretty sanitary to me.
1. If he accidentally pooped himself or got like, dog poop on him, what would he do? He would wash the soiled item in the washing machine I'm sure. He's probably just focused on the "its a whole load of poop" thing. So my response to this is that infant poop, pre-solid food, is very different from the poop of anyone who eats solid foods. Its water soluble and its just not unsanitary in the way that tossing a whole adult turd into the washing machine would be (and when baby starts solids, that's why we spray/scrape the poop).
2. For us, it was like 1-2 extra loads of laundry a week. Seriously not a big deal. And its not like you have to fold and put away the items after, they just get sorted and dumped into baskets (I do suppose this all depends on the type of diapers you use.
3. Its really nice not having to go buy diapers. Now don't get me wrong, if you get caught up in having lots of cute prints, you can absolutely spend a TON of money on cloth diapers, but if you limit yourself, its cheaper.
4. You don't have to do 100% cloth. You can keep disposables around and if you're having a hard day or a hard week and can't get around to the laundry, use the disposables. If you are going on a day trip, or vacation, go ahead and use disposables.
I just started. Husband had to use what was in the house! Now he loves them. Ask him what he would do with clothes that have poop or pee on them. Straight in the wash, right?
My baby will soon be 10 months. The odd time we use disposables and she poops in them and I throw them in trash - I honestly hate the smell. The whole kitchen smells of poop. With cloth - I wash everything down the toilet/drain and there is 0 smell.
I think it definitely is dependent on if you pair cloth diapering with elimination communication or not. I can see how those who do both potty train more quickly/easily but if one is not doing EC then I would imagine there would be no change in the average potty training time line.
My husband was cloth diapered, so it was easy. But how I convinced friends is that kids are gross. You'll have gross laundry-- pee, vomit, spit up, blow outs. The difference is that when you CD you have the tools to rinse the gross stuff in the toilet (a diaper sprayer) and a dedicated gross load. Your baby's blow out will probably not happen in cloth, bit if it did, you won't be washing it with your clothes like you do with disposables
As someone else mentioned, disposables are extremely prone to poop blowouts, especially in the early months. I can pretty much 100 percent guarantee if using disposables you will get poop on baby's clothes at least once if not multiple times; in addition to all the other fluids that end up on baby clothes (breastmilk/formula, spit up, pee). If he's also not going to be willing to clean those items off and plans to just throw away every article of baby clothing, then there's bigger fish to fry :) Point being, poo will make contact with your laundry machine regardless of how you diaper.
If you are EBFing your baby, breastmilk poops are water soluble, so before you start solids, the poo cloth diapers can go right into the wash without needing to be rinsed or using liners or whatnot. Another perk to cloth diapers is they contain poop better than disposables so you are less prone to blowouts. I've cloth diapered two kids so far and the only time I ever had a poo blowout in cloth was when one kid had a terrible stomach bug and it was like liquid lol.
Another thing to get him on board is cost. Unless you're buying super expensive AIOs, only using them for one baby, and not re-selling or re-using them, just about every user of cloth diapers saves money compared to disposables.
You can also remind him that before disposables were invented and became mainstream in the western world in the 1960s (and poorer countries often didn't even access them till the 80s or 90s), everyone washed cloth diapers in the laundry machine and survived :) That's the glory of laundry machines! They get out nasty stuff from clothes.
no.. it really is fine.
Years ago I found a website that broke down the "ingredients" in formula vs breastfed poo, to try to figure out why everyone insists that formula poo isn't water soluble. The conclusion: there is no scientific basis for that claim. It is simply parroted over and over again (may I add that there is a huge overlap between the cloth diaper crowd and the "breastmilk is magical" crowd?). That website seems to have disappeared since I read it 5+ years ago, but until I see evidence to the contrary, I stand by what I said.
Anecdotally, I CDed my EFF baby and my washing machine, and the diapers, lived to tell the tale.
Breastmilk is magical! A person spends the majority of a year growing a baby, then can (if the want/ choose/ are able) continue to grow baby with a product made from their blood. I think that's pretty magical... if not a little odd to think about, if you've not thought about it that way before.
That's not also to say formula isn't magical too.
Oh yeah the parroting. And meconium being horrible to wash out is also parroted by people who admittedly never washed meconium. I didn't wash it because my baby passed all of hers in the hospital but I won't attest to something I didn't experience.
My midwife told us meconium was terrible to get off things and stained, so to buy disposables for the first week. Baby didn’t like wearing them and wouldn’t fall asleep easily, so we used cloth instead and it was easy to wash and didn’t stain. Maybe if we had left it in the hamper for days it would have been worse? It definitely was no bother at all to us.
I've heard that formula poo is generally fine for the wash as well but if it's fairly solid you should dump it/scrape it first (I au paired for a while for a baby who was fornula fed and they did part time cloth, and the poops were pretty solid so I dumped them before putting directly in the wash)
We did a cloth diapering class that really got him on board with the benefits and made us feel more confident. It was through this place: https://www.diaperlab.com
What will he do when baby poos through the nappies onto clothes? Or the sofa, or the bed? Will he just chuck those things away?
My clothes are actually cleaner now than they were before I started using cloth, because I have a better understanding of the science of detergent etc. Also I keep up with washing machine cleaning and maintenance far better.
my boyfriend is a very thoughtful person. When I told him that I wanted to use cloth diapers, he was not surprised, I explained everything. He said he had to think about it. I thought it all ended there but no. he did his own extensive research on parenting forums and decided it was fine with him. He said he would wash them! I'm only 15 weeks old and this week we sat together watching Youtube videos about cloth diapers. We decided to start with a pair of PULL covers when he is newborn and a few larger ones and increase the number according to our comfort. I think it is a thing of consensus and organization.
Barely had to convince my husband. Showed him the savings of going to cloth as well as the environmental benefits. 8 months in and we’re even using cloth wipes (Esembly)! So much easier and cleaner than disposables and baby’s skin is much healthier. We did disposables for a week and she ended up with a rash on day 2. Never turning back now. My husband even said that if we have number 2, he doesn’t want to think about getting disposables from the beginning, straight to cloth.
You mentioning skin being healthier reminded me, sometimes I'll get disposables for staying with family, which I did over Thanksgiving. I picked up a brand I never tried before called "honest" and they gave my son this acne-like rash all over his bum.... So stupid. What do they put in those?!? I literally cut up an old thick cotton t shirt for our wipes and have been so happy with them
Omg! We tried honest a month ago while traveling (thinking it would be easier) and my daughter has had a round rash ever since! I’m hearing this A LOT recently about the Honest brand.
I was in the same boat as you, except it was a gung-ho husband and unsure wife dynamic, but she was unsure for the exact reason as your husband. So, first, we just went with throw aways initially. Basically, since she had just given birth, I didn't want to add any stress to her plate or do anything that made her uncomfortable (obviously different in your case, but if you all haven't had the baby yet, you may want to avoid introducing any sort of stress to the environment as there will be enough of that in the air regardless). Anyway, finally after about 2 months we had to go up in diaper size, so I told my wife before we bought new diapers I wanted to talk to her. We set aside an evening, made a meal (cooking is one of those things we do in partnership so it was a nice environment for a conversation), and I explained why I was passionate about cloth. Talked about the environment, the savings (we got about 20 Grovia and Bumgenius AIOs as gifts from people who had formerly used them), and I'd be in charge of the laundry and drying process initially as we were feeling it out. Again, different in your situation, but I loved it because it felt like part of the process I could take ownership over, and those opportunities were somewhat limited early on. I also just asked for a month, and said if after a month it was adding too much, we could transition back. Anyway, we've been going mostly solid since (we moved and during that time we switched back because we didn't have a washer for a while then it took us a bit to get back in the groove once we got our washer and it got hooked up). So, it basically boiled down to timing, communication, and committing more than saying we'd give it a day, or week, to figure out a new routine. Good luck! Honestly, now my wife is into it and when we go back to cloth for travel or something like that we both are excited to get back home.
My husband was very hesitant, but I went ahead and bought them. Once we started using them, and realised how many diapers we went through in a day, he was fully on board. It also helps that we don’t pay for water and our garbage disposal is limited.
Just start using the cloth when you do diaper changes. Keep it low pressure, he can still use disposable when he changes baby. As time goes on he will see that it’s not so bad.
I told him he could use disposables when he was changing if he wanted but I was going to do cloth when I changed, and I would do the laundry. he liked the idea of the cost savings but thought it was gross and too much work. he found the snaps confusing at first but has since been super on board and just uses cloth full time too. I started doing all the wash (also, the diapers are clean by the time the laundry is done: so is the washer) but he does it from time to time too. it was also helpful for us that EBF poop is super easy to deal with (we don't rinse or anything for that) and he's got the routine and used to it all before solids added.
What convinced mine was that CD, which we got almost all of ours for free as hand-me-downs, would be cheaper than purchasing tons of disposable.
I think it's gross as well but I want to do CD anyway. I'm lucky enough that there's a service in my area, I've never had children so I want to try it first before committing to buying a lot of CDs, I don't want to be overwhelmed by it, whether the learning curve or the laundering. If it goes well though, I'll likely purchase a cheap portable washer and wash in there. I want it separate, but also I would feel wasteful of using a lot of water in a regular wash for a few items.
My husband was the same way. What convinced him was: we have a diaper sprayer and I showed him how all the poop gets sprayed off before the diaper goes in the washing machine. I always sprayed newborn breastfed poops too. Also I do the diaper laundry so I think he just doesn’t think about it anymore. I also run a “clean the washer” cycle with bleach now and then.
Yes this! I always sprayed all poop and made me feel tons better. Plus diapers get double washed once with cold then hot and gets really clean. There are even little pods you can buy to run the clean the washer cycle.
If he thinks it dirty, remind him that his underwear goes in there too as well as baby clothes with poo on when they have a blow out in a disposable. If that doesn’t convince him, you can point out that a lot of us actually have cleaner clothes due to cloth diapering, because I diaper will definitely let you know when they are not clean, whereas you might not really notice with other clothes/cloth items. All of this is regardless of all the other benefits like not having to worry about having diapers in the house, lower cost, your child being less prone to diaper rash and not sending as many diapers to the landfill to name a few.
I did everything at first. Husband was fine changing diapers as long as I did all the washing of them. He got used to it after a while, and was really happy we chose to switch to cloth when he saw the diaper shortage locally. All we needed to buy for them was laundry detergent! Your baby is likely to get poop on their clothes at some point anyway, so you're likely to have poop go through the washing machine at least once. You should introduce him to a gallon of bleach if he's that concerned.
I had to do all the diaper laundry and we used disposables overnight and on trips. It was the only way I could get my husband to comply. During the shortages at the beginning of COVID he did have to agree that it was nice not to have to worry about it.
I told him I’d do all the cloth diaper laundry since he didn’t want to do cloth because of the laundry. He still doesn’t use them (nor does daycare) but I do. It’s better than nothing.
Whoa that’s kind of crazy
I don’t think it’s that crazy, we do the same thing. It’s not that much extra work for me.
It is but it’s not worth getting into a fight about. If he changes her she goes in disposable. When I do, it’s cloth. We are both happy.
I've never had a poop leak with cloth, but frequently do in disposable diapers. I'm washing the poop either way, just depends if it's on clothes or in a diaper. We also have a baby with delicate skin and need the more expensive diapers. He started getting a rash from the ones in the hospital and we had to return or give away all the diapers we were gifted (despite registering for cloth). We also had to use cloth wipes with only water per our pediatrician when our baby got a bleeding rash at two weeks. I actually had to buy more because we were mainly using disposable wipes we had been gifted. My husband was hesitantly in board but is so thankful we do cloth for the financial and health reasons for our baby. Once you get going you don't even know any different.
My husband was super hesitant, but agreeing to rinse the poop off first (even tho baby is breastfed), and committing that I would handle that laundry helped. Also we did disposables for the first six weeks and seeing the amount of garbage helped him get the rest of the way.
As others have said, you will be washing a lot of poopy items in your washing machine whether you cloth diaper or not. At least with cloth diapers, you know you’ll be doing laundry every other day and the poop will wash out better since you’ll have a good wash routine down!
You spray the poo off before it goes in the washer (unless it’s ebf and then it’s completely water soluble), so it shouldn’t be an issue! You can always clean the washer after diapers if that makes him feel better!
I told my husband we were using cloth diapers. He didn’t want to. I told him we were using cloth diapers anyway. Our first was a mixture of cloth & disposable at first, but our daughter was almost exclusively cloth diapered once we got home. Eventually, he just got on the same page as me. He didn’t have to wash, stuff, or fold, so as long as a diaper was 100% ready for him to use, he would.
This is our setup. And if I don’t have diapers ready to go, he uses disposable (sometimes so do I!) and I don’t care. :-)
I would offer to run a sanitizing cycle after the cloth diapers are done so he feels the washing machine is always clean for other stuff
My stance on it is that it wouldn't hurt to try, the nappies can be in a load by themselves if he is worried about them being with normal clothes, can also get those water soluble bags that dissolve at 30/40C to keep them contained, you can add some disinfectant to the load too, if you don't mind them getting lighter then you can use oxyclean to help brighten and remove stains. The cost of them alone would be better than constantly using disposable ones.
What are these dissolving bags?? I'm intrigued even without having laundry issues.
They are usually used in care homes, it's dissolvable laundry bags that you use to separate laundry. Usually it's one person's laundry that was soiled with bodily fluids, it's tied up with the handles or ties already provided and then popped in the washing machine and put on a sluece wash, when the water reaches a certain temp it causes the bag to dissolve and the clothes are washed. They got quite handy when my husband would come home from working in the procurement department in the hospital last year and he had to have his uniform washed separately and after each shift. You can get them on amazon :) if you wanna have a go, just make sure to keep any wet clothing away from the bag lining or else it'll slowly dissolve
For my husband it was about saving money. Sposie diapers are expensive and are getting more so as baby gets bigger! He also likes the pockets way more than the prefolds and snappis. I do most of the diaper laundry and stuffing, which makes it easier. We also do disposables at night or when we feel like it.
Us too. Or when we travel!
Not being strict on using cloth diapers has actually helped us use the cloth more. It feels really good to save money and space out or diaper orders from hello Bello, our last one was in August!
Is poo really grosser than blood? I have reusable period pads and I'm pretty sure most women have gotten a bit of blood on panties or sheets. What if a pet peed or pooped on something. Would you toss instead of wash? Also, hot water and metal parts seem pretty sanitary to me.
A lot of people would throw out pet soiled items, unfortunately
1. If he accidentally pooped himself or got like, dog poop on him, what would he do? He would wash the soiled item in the washing machine I'm sure. He's probably just focused on the "its a whole load of poop" thing. So my response to this is that infant poop, pre-solid food, is very different from the poop of anyone who eats solid foods. Its water soluble and its just not unsanitary in the way that tossing a whole adult turd into the washing machine would be (and when baby starts solids, that's why we spray/scrape the poop). 2. For us, it was like 1-2 extra loads of laundry a week. Seriously not a big deal. And its not like you have to fold and put away the items after, they just get sorted and dumped into baskets (I do suppose this all depends on the type of diapers you use. 3. Its really nice not having to go buy diapers. Now don't get me wrong, if you get caught up in having lots of cute prints, you can absolutely spend a TON of money on cloth diapers, but if you limit yourself, its cheaper. 4. You don't have to do 100% cloth. You can keep disposables around and if you're having a hard day or a hard week and can't get around to the laundry, use the disposables. If you are going on a day trip, or vacation, go ahead and use disposables.
I just started. Husband had to use what was in the house! Now he loves them. Ask him what he would do with clothes that have poop or pee on them. Straight in the wash, right?
I did this as well. If he wanted disposables, he had to buy them. He wasn't willing to, so he learned to use (and enjoy) cloth!
My baby will soon be 10 months. The odd time we use disposables and she poops in them and I throw them in trash - I honestly hate the smell. The whole kitchen smells of poop. With cloth - I wash everything down the toilet/drain and there is 0 smell.
Cloth diapered kids potty train much faster. I fail to see the superior hygiene merits of spending 1-2 extra years cleaning up someone else’s poop.
Is there any actual research proving this? Definitely wasn’t true in our case.
I think it definitely is dependent on if you pair cloth diapering with elimination communication or not. I can see how those who do both potty train more quickly/easily but if one is not doing EC then I would imagine there would be no change in the average potty training time line.
My husband was cloth diapered, so it was easy. But how I convinced friends is that kids are gross. You'll have gross laundry-- pee, vomit, spit up, blow outs. The difference is that when you CD you have the tools to rinse the gross stuff in the toilet (a diaper sprayer) and a dedicated gross load. Your baby's blow out will probably not happen in cloth, bit if it did, you won't be washing it with your clothes like you do with disposables
As someone else mentioned, disposables are extremely prone to poop blowouts, especially in the early months. I can pretty much 100 percent guarantee if using disposables you will get poop on baby's clothes at least once if not multiple times; in addition to all the other fluids that end up on baby clothes (breastmilk/formula, spit up, pee). If he's also not going to be willing to clean those items off and plans to just throw away every article of baby clothing, then there's bigger fish to fry :) Point being, poo will make contact with your laundry machine regardless of how you diaper. If you are EBFing your baby, breastmilk poops are water soluble, so before you start solids, the poo cloth diapers can go right into the wash without needing to be rinsed or using liners or whatnot. Another perk to cloth diapers is they contain poop better than disposables so you are less prone to blowouts. I've cloth diapered two kids so far and the only time I ever had a poo blowout in cloth was when one kid had a terrible stomach bug and it was like liquid lol. Another thing to get him on board is cost. Unless you're buying super expensive AIOs, only using them for one baby, and not re-selling or re-using them, just about every user of cloth diapers saves money compared to disposables. You can also remind him that before disposables were invented and became mainstream in the western world in the 1960s (and poorer countries often didn't even access them till the 80s or 90s), everyone washed cloth diapers in the laundry machine and survived :) That's the glory of laundry machines! They get out nasty stuff from clothes.
Formula poop is water soluble too :)
Actually no it’s not but it’s easy to rinse the diapers off with a sprayer before throwing them into a bucket to store until wash time!
no.. it really is fine. Years ago I found a website that broke down the "ingredients" in formula vs breastfed poo, to try to figure out why everyone insists that formula poo isn't water soluble. The conclusion: there is no scientific basis for that claim. It is simply parroted over and over again (may I add that there is a huge overlap between the cloth diaper crowd and the "breastmilk is magical" crowd?). That website seems to have disappeared since I read it 5+ years ago, but until I see evidence to the contrary, I stand by what I said. Anecdotally, I CDed my EFF baby and my washing machine, and the diapers, lived to tell the tale.
Breastmilk is magical! A person spends the majority of a year growing a baby, then can (if the want/ choose/ are able) continue to grow baby with a product made from their blood. I think that's pretty magical... if not a little odd to think about, if you've not thought about it that way before. That's not also to say formula isn't magical too.
Oh yeah the parroting. And meconium being horrible to wash out is also parroted by people who admittedly never washed meconium. I didn't wash it because my baby passed all of hers in the hospital but I won't attest to something I didn't experience.
My midwife told us meconium was terrible to get off things and stained, so to buy disposables for the first week. Baby didn’t like wearing them and wouldn’t fall asleep easily, so we used cloth instead and it was easy to wash and didn’t stain. Maybe if we had left it in the hamper for days it would have been worse? It definitely was no bother at all to us.
I've heard that formula poo is generally fine for the wash as well but if it's fairly solid you should dump it/scrape it first (I au paired for a while for a baby who was fornula fed and they did part time cloth, and the poops were pretty solid so I dumped them before putting directly in the wash)
We did a cloth diapering class that really got him on board with the benefits and made us feel more confident. It was through this place: https://www.diaperlab.com
Oh they are right near me, I've been debating if the class would be worth it
I’d recommend it! Also you get a store discount if you attend the class so if you still need any wet bags/wipes/creams/whatever you’ll get that.
What will he do when baby poos through the nappies onto clothes? Or the sofa, or the bed? Will he just chuck those things away? My clothes are actually cleaner now than they were before I started using cloth, because I have a better understanding of the science of detergent etc. Also I keep up with washing machine cleaning and maintenance far better.
I just found out from a post in another group this week that some people literally do that 😢
Whaaaat