10 Reasons to Use Cloth AND Disposable Diapers

Image of Mom Diapering a Baby

Ten years ago my husband and I set out on our merry little cloth diaper journey, excited to save both money and the planet while putting something soft on our first baby’s sensitive wittle buns. A few months in my husband had to travel frequently for work, so I stayed with my parents to make my life easier as a new mom. My cloth diapering career screeched to a halt when Dad said he didn’t want me to wash poopie diapers in his washing machine.

Enter what I like to call “double diapering.” UrbanDictionary.com defines “double diapering” as “the process of putting two diapers on a baby or child, rather than one,” like at bedtime or nap time. The MommyKerrie definition, however, is “going back and forth between cloth and disposable diapers and enjoying the benefits of both.” Here are some things I love about being a bipolar diaperer of sorts:

1. You’re still saving green. These days you can get cloth diapers cheaper than $15 each by compromising a little. You can ask for them as baby shower and new baby gifts. Consider getting them used or borrowing them from cloth diapering pals to offset the cost of convenient disposables.

2. You’re a diapering chameleon. You’re like the mom who bottle feeds AND breastfeeds, which means you can converse easily with any mom because you have a foot in both diapering worlds.

3. You’re still saving the planet because you’re using cloth SOME of the time. The rest of the time you’re making life easier on yourself (vacation when you deserve some downtime, nighttime when you need sleep, when your husband is out of town and you just need a laundry break, etc.) so you can be Super Mom.

4. You can “make up for” using disposables by using gDiapers (when you’re done, you can flush them, throw them away or toss them into a compost pile) or chlorine-free disposables.

5. You can work and do cloth. More and more day cares are welcoming cloth diapers so that doesn’t always have to be a factor in your diapering decisions. The cloths go home in a bag for you to wash.

6. You won’t have to fight with your spouse. If one of you is pro-disposable and the other pro-cloth, you both win and get to diaper how you want when the other isn’t around.

7. You have security. You know how extreme couponers feel having a bunch of stuff they got for free sitting on shelves in their basement? Now you can also feel warm and snugly having a bunch of clean cloth diapers plus a backup package of disposables around.

8. You worry about diaper rash either way. Listen to a mom who knows: I haven’t noticed any more or less diaper rash with cloth versus disposable. So don’t let anyone guilt you into thinking either option will be bad for Baby’s buns.

9. You save a lot of space in your diaper bag when you throw a couple of disposables in during a busy week of lots of outings.

10. You know disposables hold more pee, so don’t sweat it if you use them at night. I love them for when I’m at the zoo with the kids all day and don’t want to change the baby every couple of hours or pack out my cloths.

Kerrie McLoughlin (TheKerrieShow.com) has double-diapered her own 5 kids since 2001, which comes to about 25,000 cloth and 5,000 disposable diapers. Sheesh!

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4 Comments

  1. Carol, that’s funny, picturing a baby with 3 diapers! I know lots of people who have done it this way, but my cheap Aldi brand of diapers holds all the pee at night, miraculously. I also used the same ones for my daughter when she was 5 and was still wetting the bed and they held really well. I have not had the same luck with Target brand, and maybe grocery store brands are also not so great.

  2. Holly

    Do you use 2 diaper pails? One for cloth and one for disposable? Thanks!

  3. Emily

    Great list! I thought I was crazy for doing both. I find myself basing the diapering decision on her outfit! (Is she wear something very trim, or does she need to fill out the pants a bit?)

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