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Overall, cloth diapers are superior to disposables because they are more sensible to use. I have broken down the reasons into four categories, though, for those of you who need a little more convincing. Four really good reasons to use cloth diapers on your baby are as follows:

Cloth diapers are the cheapest way to diaper your baby. You can easily save up to a $1,000 on your first child and could possibly diaper subsequent children for free because you will already have most everything that you will need. Compare the cost of different diapering methods below:

Disposables (Over a thirty month diapering period) $1,500 (average cost)

Diaper Service (You would not be buying these diapers to keep) $1,200 (maybe more)

All-In-One Diapers (The ultimate cloth diaper designed like a disposable) $1,200 (average cost)

Velcro Covers and Diapers (Price also includes everything else that you will need for this system like liners, doublers, wipes, detergent, and All-In-Ones for nighttime use only) $500 (average cost)

Today we live in a throwaway society, and many of us do not think twice about where our garbage is going or what kind of an impact we are making on the environment whenever we take out our trash. Did you know that disposable diapers are the third most common consumer products found in our landfills (following fast food containers and newspaper)? Of course, I am not just talking about the couple of hundred that you or I could contribute if we used disposable diapers on our children, but I am showing you the bigger picture where at least 18 million disposable diapers were brought to the landfills just last year. Did you know that it is estimated that disposable diapers take about 500 years to decompose in a landfill? That is a lot of diapers that might still be here by the year 2,500, and that was just last year's figures!

Unfortunately, the number of disposables used will only increase if people continue to buy them. Of course, most people do not dump the feces out of disposable diapers before throwing them away, so there are estimated to be about 100 intestinal viruses living on the feces in the landfills. These same viruses are also contaminating our water supplies and latching on the insects that bring these diseases directly back to us. Using cloth diapers will allow you to actively participate in saving Mother Nature's resources by reducing, reusing and recycling your diapers. You will feel better everyday knowing that you are one less person contributing to the problem.

Would you rather wear paper or cotton underwear? Personally, I would choose the cotton if I were going to have it against my skin for twenty-four hours, seven days a week the way our babies wear their diapers. That is the way I view the diaper issue as far as comfort is concerned, and I assume that my daughter does, too. Besides, the chemical, sodium polyacrylate, that is gel-like when wet and used in disposables to increase the absorbency is highly toxic and is often found sticking to infants' genitals during use. Did you know that ingesting just five grams of this chemical could possibly kill you?

This is not the only toxic chemical possibly present in disposable diapers, though, because dioxin may also exist from when the paper was bleached. It is an extremely cancer-linked toxin that has been found to cause genetic damage, immunity problems, and liver disease even in small quantities. And for those extra-sensitive babies, dyes and perfumes are always lurking around in a disposable diaper. When considering all of these factors, is it worth disregarding your baby's comfort for the convenience of a disposable diaper?

Of course, a disposable diaper is the most convenient way to diaper your baby because all you have to do is throw the diaper away when it is soiled. You still have to make a special effort to buy them every week or month, though, and you have to store the dirty diapers till trash day and then take them out to the curb. Taking this little bit of extra effort into consideration, home laundering cloth diapers can be just as easy as throwing away disposables. Once you devise a method to purchase the original amount that you will need to get started, purchasing cloth diapers becomes less of a burden than purchasing disposable diapers. Besides, they are easier on your checkbook in the long run, and that means less work that has to be done in order to fund them.

Since you will have to store dirty diapers for a few days regardless of which method you use, keeping a diaper pail full of dirty cloth diapers until wash day is not a big deal at all. It is just as time- consuming to heft the diaper pail to the washing machine as it is to take a trash can to the street. I dump feces into the toilet if possible, and then I toss the soiled diaper into the pail without presoaking. When my daughter and I travel, I just take a plastic grocery bag with me to store the dirty diapers until I get home. It is that easy!