You’ve seen the writing on the wall. You’ve drunk the kool-aid. You’re prepared to sell grandma’s antique brooch. You are 100% sold on cloth diapers.
But, Dad? Not so much.
Oh, trust me, I know you’ve tried. You’ve shown him the cute prints, the nasty gel beads and the landfill pictures with sea gulls and disposable diapers galore. And all he’s thinking is, “You want to wash a dirty diaper in the same washer as my clothes??”
So, what’s a gal to do?
Most likely he’s given you the go ahead as long as you fully understand that he will never change one. And you’ve probably agreed.
But, life works much better when both parents are on the same page when it comes to major parenting decisions. I happen to think what you put on your baby’s bum is a major decision.
Well, worry no more. I have a slam dunk way for you to convince your husband that cloth diapers are the best choice. No, I’m not talking about that method of winning over your sweetie. I’m talking dollar signs.
Show a man (most men, but not all, are the “nerds” in the family) where you can save hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars and you’ve got ’em.
Amber Roy, author of the blog Empowering Ellie, sent me a Cloth Diaper Savings Calculator that her and her husband developed.
On her blog, Amber tells how they came about developing a calculator of their own when there are many on the web already:
The problem for us was that we wanted an accurate assessment the difference between the two options. There are TONS of numbers thrown out there about the THOUSANDS of dollars you save using cloth, but we wanted to know how these numbers were calculated. The few more detailed calculators we found were just not detailed enough for us. Therefore, we developed our own calculation and at that time saw that cloth diapering would save us money.
Here’s a helpful hint:
To see how small changes can sway the savings, leaving disposable as the cheapest option, use our calculator to simply add one disposable diaper a day to your costs (as some people do at nighttime). It quickly adds up and wipes out the cloth diaper savings.
For more information on the benefits of cloth diapers, check out these articles:
The 5 W’s of Cloth Diapers – contains many links to other articles about health, budget and environmental reasons to cloth diaper
Gabrielle Jewson says
unfortunately the link says that the site has be deleted. Is there a new site to get the calculator at?
Jennifer Reinhardt says
Hi Gabrielle, I will see if I can find something else. That is an old post! :)
Trisha W. says
I just went to pin this old post to Pinterest and discovered the linked website is no longer there. Too bad. I remember the calculator being a neat tool.
Julie says
What a great idea! I will definitely add this to my links to check out on my blog. I know so many dad’s can take a bit to get on board and I can see how this would really help them along :)
Cara says
For it to work on a mac you have to have Microsoft Office for macs.
Janise says
Awe. Tried to down load but can view on Mac. :-(
Jamie says
On the website, they give you the choice of downloading the newest version of Excel or the 97-2003. Did you try the older version and see if your Mac could convert it? Sometimes that’s a nice work-around. Just trying to help. :-) If it doesn’t work, maybe you could email the author of the calculator and ask if she could save it another format and email it to you. It’s a really great calculator, so I highly recommend trying to get it.
cara says
My husband loves cloth diapers. Velcro better than snaps. He even wanted to learn how to wash them and stuffs the pockets, folds the prefolds, knows which to hang dry. he likes the saving money and enviromental part of it. Neither our water bill nor electric bill have raised at all in the 3 months we have been using them and we wash 3 times a week and partially dry all the dipes then fully dry the inserts/prefolds.
Jamie says
Wow! OMG and wow! I had expected to see some amount of savings, but I was really shocked at the amount. I didn’t start CDing until my DD was almost 15 months old (due to several reasons), so I kind of expected to see my savings eaten away by that usage. But when I did the math and added those numbers in, I will still have saved half of the projected cost! Now, I really do have some bragging rights!
Thank you so much for sharing this!
Sara says
That was us!! My husband did agree to change them, but NOTHING more! He is totally grossed out at the thought of his clothes being in the same washing machine … so I have to do 1 load between diapers and his clothes :p In the 3 weeks we have been using cloth he has commented several times at how easy they are and how he feels better putting them on our DD over the disposable ones we were using.
Heather says
Wow! I feel like you personally wrote this to me!! Great article, great timing… Thanks again for everything you do!