Once upon a time the only way to diaper your baby was in cloth.  Before washing machines were common in the home you either had to handwash or you could use a diaper service.  Once disposable diapers became the norm and pushed cloth diapers out of mainstream life, the diaper service business took a hit.  Some family owned diaper services are still running today, like the Dydee Diaper Service in LA that started in 1938.  Others had to shut their doors.  Today cloth diapers are making a comeback.  Just like cloth diaper sales rising in recent years, more diaper services are opening as well.  Learn more about cloth diaper services and see if they are right for you.

How Does it Work?

The specifics for a diaper service are going to be unique to each location.  In general though, you can expect all or some of the following:

You will choose from a plan that offers a certain number of diapers (typically prefolds) each week.

The clean diapers will be delivered to your home each week, along with a wet bag or garbage bag.

Your starter package will usually include a plastic diaper pail.

You will leave your dirty diapers for the service to pick up.

You will usually have to provide your own covers, although some services do include them.

You will usually have to wash your own covers.  Luckily, most covers can even be washed with regular laundry.

The diapers will have the same PH as your baby’s skin.  Unlike home laundering, you are guaranteed not to have stink/ammonia/buildup on your diapers that could irritate baby and cause rashes.

You are usually required to have your own Snappi.

Many services do not require you to shake out solid waste, but some will.  Take that into consideration as your research.

Why Choose a Diaper Service over Home Laundering?

Why not?- If you have the means, and would prefer to cloth diaper without having to deal with washing them, then why not?

Both Parents Work Full Time- If both parents work full-time there are only so many hours in the day.  Some families would like to cloth diaper but don’t want that added responsibility and time commitment of washing diapers.

Disability- One or both parents have a disability that prevents them from being able to wash diapers easily.

Simplicity- Sometimes it is just plain nice to use prefolds and covers and not have to worry about washing/stuffing/folding/choosing cloth diapers.

Travel- If you are traveling, especially for longer stays, you can use a service in your desired location during that time in order to keep using cloth diapers when you are away from a washer. ( I have done this twice)

What Does It Cost?

Again, this is unique to your region.  Here are a few samples of a typical Diaper Service and costs:

Bundle Baby Shop- Service area includes: Boulder/Denver

$20.00 a week (23.00 for organic prefolds).  OR $33.00 per week for a Fuzzibunz Service.

The Diaper Fairy- Service area includes: Louisville, KY and Southern Indiana

$18-20.00 per week (depending on how many diapers are in your package.) OR “A Wave of the Wand” Wash your diapers is $23.00 a week.

Diaper Kind- Service area includes: New York City

$35 per week for Organic Prefold Service OR $50 per week for All-in-Two Service

Diaper Junction- Servicing most of the Hamptons Roads area!

$20.00 Per Week For Full Time OR $13.00 per Week for a Part Time Service

The cost will still be less than disposable diapers in most cases, however you will be paying more than if you decided to launder your diapers at home.  You can expect that most services will require a set-up fee which will sometimes include items you will need such as a pail, covers, wet bags, and accessories.  You may also be required to buy a minimun number of weeks.

Gifting a Diaper Service for New Moms

Many parents hoping to cloth diaper will request not to receive disposable diapers at their baby shower (I know I requested this).  Since diapers are a traditional gift, you may want to purchase a diaper service for those first few weeks for the Mom-to-Be.  While Mom is healing and having her babymoon this makes a perfect, thoughtful gift.  This also helps bridge the gap between a newborn size set of diapers and One Size diapers that many parents will buy.  Not having to buy a seperate set of newborn diapers will save money.  Tiny Tots is one service that has an option to gift a service, typically for 4-6 weeks.  Most services do offer this newborn timeframe.

Pros vs Cons

I have only used a diaper service myself on two vacations.  It was a very painless event.  The diapers were all clean and stain free and in good condition.  It was very nice to get a vacation from washing my diapers while still getting to use cloth diapers.  To dismiss diaper services would be a mistake.  There are many options for families hoping to use cloth diapers and the Diaper Service is one that is making a comeback.

To find a diaper service near you visit the Diaper Service Locator.

Just for fun: Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe- the Diaper Service Episode

This post has been submitted to the ParentingbyNature blog contest.  I wrote this post and decided after the fact that it would be a perfect fit.  I am really proud of this particular post, and when I wrote it I was almost crying!  I hope if my post is selected as a finalist that you will vote for me.  Thank you!

Many of you know that I attended ABC Kids Expo this year. Attending also gave me the unique opportunity to attend the RDIA‘s (Real Diaper Industry Association) keynote meeting as press. I live tweeted the event as much as possible, but missed quite a bit since my son was a tad cranky. We were out of our time zone and things were just difficult. The fact that Pampers has been slyly dropping “facts” about cloth diapers being bad for our babies (see this post) made me think back to Jen’s, creator of Bum Genius and Cotton Babies, outgoing keynote speech at that meeting. Jen was the Chairperson of the RDIA and gave the reigns over to Leah Carter who is the woman behind Better for Babies (Little Beetle cloth diapers).

Jen gets loads of credit for helping usher in the modern cloth diaper revolution. Without her Bum Genius 3.0, and now the supremely affordable Econobum line and versatile Flip line, some parents may have never even heard of cloth diapers or attempted them. I began with Bum Genius 3.0′s because of their rave reviews on Diaper Pin. I was able to convince my husband to cloth diaper after showing him the 3.0′s that I purchased in North Carolina. My first brand new cloth diaper purchase; it felt so good and I fondled them forever. I put them on a teddy bear while I anxiously awaited the birth of my son. My point is the Bum Genius is a household name for cloth diapers. Ask any cd’ing mama if they have heard of them and they say yes. You can find them at some Targets even!

In the speech Jen made she notes a few things that could be coming for the industry. First, that disposable diaper companies will be (and obviously already are) taking notice of the cloth diaper industry. This means a few things. One, that they will step up their efforts to slander cloth diapers by releasing either bogus and unverified scientific evidence about the healthiness of their diapers and the harmfulness of cloth. This is evident in the Pampers quotes. Two, that they may even try to fund (and influence) studies to back up these claims. This isn’t unheard of; already there are studies claiming that disposables are no worse or even better than cloth diapers on the environment. This study says the water used to wash diapers and the manufacturing of the diapers is just as bad as throwing THOUSANDS of diapers in the landfill. Third, that if they can’t beat them, they may join them. Meaning, big companies like P&G could begin making their own cloth diapers or buy out an existing smaller cloth diaper company. This one actually scares me the most. I shudder at the thought of a behemoth company making cloth diapers. I love supporting cloth diaper companies because the majority of them are small, family run, companies started by Stay at Home Moms. Even the larger companies like Bum Genius are still run by the orginal creator. Jen’s story is pretty amazing. She started her company from nothing and is now the most recognized cloth diaper brand. No matter what you think about her, her company, or her diaper you have to respect her commitment, business savvy, and ability to start so many families on cloth diapers. We were a Bum Genius family, and still use them as the workhorse of out stash. There are plenty of diapers I like more, and plenty I like less.

What I am trying to convey is that cloth diapers are making a come back.  If P&G, a multi-million dollar company, is shaking in their boots about what this means for their profits then we know we are on to something.  Getting the message out about our “real” diapers is crucial.  The more they slander cloth diapers, the more we have to praise them.  Think back to when you began researching cloth diapers.  What if you heard that they weren’t really that great for the environment.  Would you have believed that?  Maybe.  Or what if you were told cloth diapers would give your child a cold or impair their ability to learn.  A little crazy but you didn’t know any better.  Maybe you would have thought twice about cloth diapers.  Just maybe, you would have picked up a box of Pampers.  We have to spread the message more to combat these falsities and outright lies.  If our community bands together and continues converting moms, aiding them in their research, showing off our diapers at play groups, changing our babies in public, putting our babies in baby legs and cute fluff, and evangelizing on Twitter, Facebook, Mommy Forums, and blogs, we can grow our grassroots cloth campaign.  We are all onto something great that is bigger than ourselves.  I know this sounds overdramatic, but I am extremely proud of our cloth diapering community.  We help one another, we care about the earth, our babies, and the futire.  We have begun a new era, but we have also come full circle.  Our grandmothers didn’t have a choice but we do.

I want to quote Erin Kimmet, creator and President of Thirsties, who said this in a Q&A I had with her (not published yet but I have to share this now. I love it) “I hope that when my kids have kids of their own, and when my grandkids have kids, they will refer to the past 30 years in history as the diaper-dark-ages! And they can brag about how their mom was a part of the diaper revolution!”

Viva la Cloth!  Viva la Revolution!