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Comment by jswelker | Hacker News Reader

I did the math meticulously when I had my first kid years ago, comparing store brand diapers vs cloth. Once you factor in the up front cost of the cloth diapers plus the cost of water and energy and detergent running the wash, the costs are virtually identical. The math looks better for cloth if you use them for years or multiple kids, but that's not super hygienic.

That's not even factoring in time and convenience.

I am convinced cloth diapers are some kind of performative environmentalialsm or performative motherhood akin to the trad wife phenomenon.

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Did you calculate based on buying cloth nappies second hand and then reselling them? That was a great alternative for my family. Worked out to something like $100 in total nappy costs for one child, including the opportunity cost of tying up the capital up front. That's less than $1 per week. Make it $1.5 if we include electricity and water costs of laundry, compounded over that period.

I would struggle to find single-use nappies for $1.5 per week in my area.

I guess if you buy them used the math changes. Second hand diapers was a line in the sand for my wife.

But these people talking about diaper washing services, at that point, surely what is the point? I guess the thought of diapers in a landfill keeps some folks up at night.

What do you find confusing about the idea of a diaper service? It seems too unsanitary for you? The idea that it might cost slightly more than disposable diapers is intolerable to you?

Do you have any reason to believe washing diapers actually is unsanitary?

The price tag and environmental impact of constant diaper delivery seems off the cuff like it would negate the original benefit of cloth diapers. Admittedly I have not done math on this one.

With the service we used, they picked up and dropped off diapers once per week using a big truck. They also drove around to do the same for many other people at the same time. You can't call this diaper delivery "constant". And if the emissions from this are significant, you could always use an electric van.

How are you feeling: do you still think this is something only for performative environmentalists or "trad wives"? Neither of these descriptions apply in even the remotest sense to my wife or I.

> but that's not super hygienic.

You're willing to wash and re-use for one kid but not then to let the next one re-use? So does that mean the wash doesn't get the diaper clean? And if that's true, why re-use them at all for anyone?

It's more about the accumulation of fecal matter over time. I don't feel convinced that a washer removes it all, hence staining. And I don't feel great about making my kid sit in another kid's shit.

I would need a second washer — you feel comfortable washing your own clothes afterwards?!

Have you ever had a wife having her first baby?

There are many decisions young parents make that from the remove of a keyboard in a happily single or child-free relationship seem irrational or (mon dieu!) _inefficient_, but there is a emotional depth to these choices that are _very_ meaningful to the people involved.

We're just talking about diapers, right?

Disposable vs. cloth? All else equal, don't the former make more sense (cleanlinesswise)?

I think we agree :). There were plenty of wrong ideas in this thread and I must have clicked on yours accidentally.

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