Even before Leander was born, we had already made the decision to use cloth diapers rather than disposables. Our biggest motivation was the environmental benefit: the sheer thought of having to throw out a whole bin bag full of plastic every week made me cringe, and thankfully, Nadine felt the same.

Then there is the argument about the toxins in the plastic found in disposables.
And the fact THAT it’s a piece of plastic I’m wrapping my baby in.
And and and...

When you look at the initial investment of cloth diapers, they seem expensive. Then there is the myth of “all the extra washing” that also turns people off them. So I decided to do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, based on our current experiences.

We bought our entire set of diapers for about 250 Euros, thanks to Austria’s Windelgutschein. Based on the first month of living with little Leander, we have to wash a load of clothes once a day - about half of it are nappies and clothes that get the occasional collateral damage imposed on them. If we were using disposables, we would probably be washing every 2-3 days. For a conservative estimate, let’s say we would be doing laundry three times a week. That’s an extra four loads of laundry a week thanks to the cloth diapers.

Based on the German Finanzamt, a load of laundry cost €1.13 on average. Four times a week (the additional four times), 52 weeks a year, for three years, that’s about €700 more spent on washing. Add to that the cost for the diapers, and the cloth diapers cost a total of almost €950.

Now, on to disposables. We used some for a trip to my parents’ house. Three days spent there, and we went through half of a pack which cost €5. So, that’s €10/week (this is quite conservative, as a lot of people calculate about 5-6 diaper changes a day), and about €520/year. Multiply this by three years of diapering, and you’ve got over €1550 spent on diapers that got thrown out after one use.

The difference? A whooping €600. That’s for one child. Add another child, and you’re saving another €800.

Seems like cloth diapers are even more common sense than I thought!