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Comment by gus_massa | Hacker News Reader

That's like $3 per day (a coffee).

Most diapers only get pee, but cloth diaper are more difficult to use, let's add 2 extra minutes, 4 or 5 times per day.

No solids means "not hard rock solids", they still make a nasty stinky brown paste. Hopefully only once per day. But that diaper MUST be partialy hand-washed, don't put it as is in the washing machine. At least a partial hand wash and then go with the rest to the washing machine. This is like an additional 5 or 10 minutes.

So it's like half an hour of extra sleep for $3, and when you have small kids sleep time is never enough.

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I don't care if anyone uses cloth diapers but the cloth diaper evangelists always seem to take a page out of the people who say "renting is always bad" or "leasing a car is always bad." Focusing on the (completely legitimate) negatives associated with the thing they don't like, and completely ignoring the (no less legitimate) negatives about the thing they like.

I don't see it anywhere here, which is refreshing, but there's also something about cloth diaper use that lends itself to people making it their entire personality.

> lends itself to people making it their entire personality.

Well yeah, it would become your whole personality too if you spent that much time trying to hand scrub poop off of cotton.

I don't like those people either.

If people ask I do tell them I use cloth diapers but I (at least hope!) don't make it my entire personality.

Maybe I'd be surprised if I asked my friends and co-workers what my personality is though.

Cloth diaper usage seems like it could also correlate highly to being vegeterian or vegan, who have the stereotype of that being their entire personality.

If it helps I can tell just by this thread it's not your entire personality! :)

Quick trick for processing dirty cloth diapers:

After changing and settling the child, take the dirty cloth diaper to the bathroom, open the toilet, drop the solids into the pot and flush. Grasp the two ends of the diaper, turn it inside out, and dip the middle of the diaper (where the solids were and where some may remain) into the toilet water several times to rinse it further. Flush. Squeeze out the diaper and drop it into a diaper pail to be washed later. Wash hands. Once done, dirty diapers in the pail can be washed at your leisure.

Hope this saves you some time.

I'm from a large family. I watched my parents change my diapers and years later changed my younger siblings' diapers.

Thanks for the tips! Favoriting this for future reference

Kid's are too old now and we used disposable diapers. Anyway, diarrhea, accidents and just going to the park after the watering system created the cleanest mud on Earth gave us a lot of opportunities to clean cloth.

Using the water from the toilet would be considered gross here. I'm not sure if the rule make sense, but I'd prefer not to break it, so we used a small buckler instead. Filling and cleaning it each time adds some time.

Ours come with a roll of cotton 'paper' sheets to put in. You throw this away which catches pretty much all solids. The rest we throw in the washing machine on 90 as is. Worked fine.

My eldest stopped using diapers during day at 2 and night at 2,5 years old.

Hopefully the youngest, too. She's only 1,5 but she already dislikes the cotton cloth being wet for too long, which is great. Modern diapers are so good they barely notice. You're essentially training them to just let it go because there's 0 feedback.

That is the real advantage for me as I hate diapers with a passion. No way I'm doing that for a year more than I have to, even with easier diapers.

“ That's like $3 per day (a coffee).”

Or $1000 per year? That little coffee a day already pays for a vacation flight.

Assuming cloth diapers cost an extra 10 minutes a day, the time savings of disposable diapers are "worth" 60 hours a year.

What do you value more - $1000 or 60 hours of your time?

I's estimating like 30 minutes per day.

It's not only the time to change them, also wash, dry, fold, store. Each part adds like 1 or 2 minutes for all the diapers, in particular folding can't be done in bulk. Probably wash the diapers with shit twice once to remove most of it manually (+ 1 or 2 minute) and one in the washing machine. The 10 minutes go away too fast.

An I remember my mother talking about boiling or blenching the diapers, add like 15 or 20 minutes 2 or 3 times per week (that's like 5 minutes per day). And I may be missing other hidden time sinks.

YMMV but we usually fold diapers while watching TV or during Zoom meetings or whatever. It does take time, but it's not like we'd magically get more sleep if we used disposable diapers, since we usually sleep at a predefined time and wake whenever the little one wakes us. Maybe we get a few more minutes to watch TV or whatever. Not a huge deal IMO. But again, YMMV. If it doesn't work for your lifestyle, it doesn't work! Nothing wrong with it. My comment is merely for folks to not knock if before they try it. We certainly wouldn't have if someone didn't gift us a pack.

Yeah, or 365 coffees (well for me it's energy drinks). I'm well aware which one of those brings me more total joy in my life and it isn't the flight. It isn't even close.

Diapers and caffeine are not mutually exclusive.

Yeah, but you can hunt for discounts to reduce that bill quite a bit

I was just objecting to the typical phrase "it costs just as much as a coffee" making it sound like nothing worth thinking about. This stuff adds up to real money over time. I have explained to several people that their Starbucks habit costs more than their car insurance (and also may give them diabetes depending on the drink). It's even worse with Doordash or Uber.

Yeah it's an interesting argument. Also, coffees (especially Starbucks coffees) rarely cost $3 anymore. Maybe if you just get a regular brewed coffee but when I think of Starbucks I don't think of their coffees on tap, I think of their $7+ lattes or frapps that are less coffee and more dessert. Anyway, I digress.

Point being, a small expense once is one small expense. A small expense daily can easily become a huge expense.

That being said, I'm not gonna be prescriptive and say that no one should get their daily coffee. But they need to be aware what it costs them. If they know the cost and are ok with it then by all means, order away! I hope your friends are at least now making a conscious choice to spend $1000+ a year on coffee :)

> That's like $3 per day (a coffee).

The number I gave was a ballpark number. I actually haven't run the numbers. But in any case, this sort of argument has always made no sense to me. First I don't buy coffee every day. I make my coffee at home. And if I did, it's not like disposable diapers and daily coffee are mutually exclusive.

At the end of the day a $3 expense is a $3 expense, and adds up to over $1000 a year. Maybe that's chump change for some, but I take my wins where I can get them.

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