This past winter we spent time in Vancouver and Calgary visiting our grandchildren and their parents.
As a mother, I had forgotten how helpful, supportive and appreciated it was to have our extended families living close to us when we had babies years ago.
As a grandmother now, I recognize how our parents must have enjoyed our children grow up. The distance between provinces does not seem as formidable as it must have seemed years ago, and we make a special effort to get to know these little beings.
Read Also
Well-being improvement can pay off for farms
Investing in wellness programs in a tight labour market can help farms recruit and retain employees
The two grandsons were born the end of October, making it easier to leave the farm in the winter. It has been a gift to watch them grow in their first few months.
While we were in Vancouver, I attended an activity time for parents and babies at the local community centre.
The woman leading the group did a marvelous job engaging the audience in action songs for parents to sing and do with their little ones. The event was enjoyable for parents, babies, and bystanders.
She ended with the parents standing in a large circle holding babies outward and slowly coming into the centre of the circles so the babies could look at and interact with each other. It was amazing to see the reactions on their faces.
Disposable or cloth?
One of the things I have noticed about raising children today is the wider range of baby products available – so much to choose from, so many decisions to make.
Diapering is one of these decisions. Do you use cloth, disposable or both?
Many factors will enter into your decision-making: time, energy, attitude and money. How much time do you have? How much energy? What laundry facilities are available? Do you prefer to use one product over the other? How much do you want to spend? How many children will you have in diapers? Are you at home most days or taking baby out? What influence do friends and relatives have over your decision? What is the environmental impact of using disposables and how will that affect your decision?
Thirty-two years ago, we started out with cloth diapers with newborns and switched to disposables because of convenience, water hauling and three babies in four years.
Watching our kids make this decision was interesting for me. Jaime and Troy and their friends use a variety of cloth diapers, and use disposables only in special circumstances.
Marla and Ben in Vancouver used a diaper service for the first four months because they were paying for laundry outside their apartment.
In terms of time, energy, attitude and money, a diaper service made sense. Now they have moved to a house with washer and dryer, and wash diapers.
While in Calgary, I attended a diapering workshop at the babes-in-arms store (www.babesinarms.ca). I gleaned information about a recommended diaper layette, diaper washing and storage and a variety of product options in cloth diapering.
The cloth diapers of today are nothing like the diapers we folded and pinned years ago. Today’s diapers feature pockets, snaps and/or Velcro tabs, are easy to use, and have built-in, leak-proof covers.
So how and why do parents choose cloth diapering over the obvious convenience of disposables? They choose cloth for environmental, economical and health considerations.
According to the website at www.thediaperhyena.com/diaper_drama.htm, cloth diapers are a sustainable option. Environmentally, 10 kilograms of cotton can diaper a child for two years, while production of disposables uses 3.5 times as much energy, 8.3 times the nonrenewable raw materials and four to 30 times as much land for growing raw materials as does the production of cloth diapers.
The raw materials in disposable diapers include one cup of crude oil in the form of polyethylene.
It takes 286 pounds of plastic to diaper a baby for one year, including packaging.
The inner layer of wood pulp and sodium polyacrylate (200 to 400 kg of fluff pulp for one year) is bleached with chlorine gas, producing dioxin, which is released as emissions.
Using disposables wastes two to three times the water waste of cloth diapers. One baby in disposables for two years contributes one ton of garbage.
Disposable diapers account for 30 percent of non-biodegradable waste, and it is estimated that a diaper would take 500 years to biodegrade in a landfill.
Disposable diapers are undeniably convenient, but they’re also costly, even for only one baby.
Twenty-four cloth diapers can be used for a number of babies, while each baby would use 5,400 disposable diapers, using only six diapers a day for two and a half years.
You can expect to spend $1,500 to $2,000 or more on disposables for each baby by the time they’re out of diapers.
All-in-ones and cloth “diapering systems” that close with snaps or Velcro are as easy to use as disposable diapers. With the systems in place today, they are not as much work as days gone by. That said, circumstances dictate decisions, and parents make the one that works for them.
For more information, visit www.consumerreports.org.
Barbara Sanderson is a home economist from Rosetown, Sask., and one of four columnists comprising Team Resources. Send correspondence in care of this newspaper, Box 2500, Saskatoon, Sask., S7K 2C4 or contact them at team@producer.com.
