• Using cloth saves you money
• Cloth is healthier for your baby
• Cloth is better for the earth

Cost

Cost was my first motivator for researching cloth diapers.  With a toddler in diapers and a baby on the way, I saw the potential for savings.

The cost is tricky...babies come along in very small sizes at first.  The "newborn" size disposable diapers are fairly expensive, but usually the hospital gives you a pack, and you only need a pack more before baby grows out of them.  So along come size 1 diapers.  Even the most expensive brands are relatively cheap--$0.15/each or less.  The problem is that you will find yourself changing baby's diaper at least every time they eat, and usually in between times too.  This is an average of 12 times per day or more!  At the end all you have is a whole lot of garbage.  Then you have to buy size 2 diapers.  Oooooh, they look like they are the same price, but they are actually less diapers per package, driving up the cost per diaper.  By the time your baby reaches a year old and size 4 diapers, the diapers will cost approximately $0.20-0.25 per diaper on average.  I hope that you change more often than 4 times per day, but in case you don't, you're spending over a dollar a day on diapers.  If you buy cloth diapers for your baby at 1 year old, they will most likely fit until potty training.  That adds up to be a huge savings! 

Considering that cloth diapers are reusable, and that many different varieties of "systems" are available, the cost of cloth diapering is difficult to calculate.  If you have more children, you can reuse the diapers, if not they retain a high resale value.  We have estimated (as have other cloth diaper manufacturers) that you can literally save over $1,000 on diapers.  And laundry costs much less than you think it does.

Health

Like I said before, cost was my main motivator for starting in cloth diapers.  Health is the motivator that keeps me going.  Much research has been done, and many other knowledgeable articles can be easily searched out (try google.com) on the chemicals that are actually in disposable diapers and what the possible ramifications are to using them.  The thought had never actually occurred to me.  Now, after using cloth diapers for nearly 2 years, I can say that I never put disposable diapers on my children.  It actually feels odd to change a baby's diaper when he/she is wearing a disposable.  My friend calls them "chemical diapers" with a tongue-in-cheek attitude.  Many other people refer to them as "paper diapers."  I have helped so many people who have babies who were forced to use cloth because of bright red bums reacting to disposable diapers.  I admit that this is my own personal experience, and if you need concrete evidence you should do some of your own research.

Environmental

Yesterday was garbage day.  Is that really all the garbage we have to put out?  I asked my husband.  After having 4 babies use disposables, I guess it's a little hard to get used to.  There is not as much garbage.  In my area, we have to buy special city garbage bags and so our disposal fees are based on how much garbage we have.  It costs $2 per bag.  (They are quite large).  This encourages recycling.  It also encourages the use of cloth diapers.  =)  I never would have thought of it before, as I do not consider myself a environmentalist.  However, I am now much more aware of the piles and piles of disposable diapers that go to the dump every day.  It saddens me to think that these are unburnable, and they do not biodegrade.  Yet our society continues to use them in abundance.  If they only knew how easy cloth diapering is and how significant the impact on our landfills would be!!