The following is a guest post written by my wife, The Cavewife. She occasionally writes here about what’s on her heart as a frugal stay-at-home mom.
Potty training for little ones is a whole new journey. It can be easy or hard, but the idea is your child will do it when he or she is ready. (And certainly not before…)
My husband and I have spent the past month or so getting our two year old daughter to use her potty. She has now successfully used her potty twice. The frustrating part is she keeps forgetting to tell us that she has to go. So for now, she wears her training pants only at home and disposable diapers when we go out.
My husband and I made our usual monthly trip to Sam’s Club this past week. We went down the baby care aisle to purchase some much-needed diapers for my infant daughter and two year old daughter. We are always shocked by the price of diapers. With only those two items in our cart, we were already down nearly $70.00. Is that crazy or what? For that price, I could easily buy two weeks worth of groceries under my meal plan for my family!
Here’s what our diaper costs look like right now:
| Brand | # Diapers | Cost | Per Diaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Store Brand (Size 5) | 156 | $30.88 | $0.197 |
| Pampers (Size 1-2) | 234 | $37.62 | $0.161 |
| Total Spent | $68.50 |
Before kids, we never realized how costly diapers could be. And with the birth of our second daughter, things have been even more costly. We thought about using cloth diapers for our infant daughter, but we just have not had time to even explore that avenue.
We figure once our two year old masters potty training, life will be a bit easier. She will be able to go when she needs and will be wearing regular underwear. Our trash load will also be cut to just one load of disposable diapers and of course we will only be spending half as much on diapers (or even less if we use cloth diapers). For now, I’m going to continue to price disposable diapers and other cloth diaper alternatives.
Photo by: johnbullas
{ 1 trackback }
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Cloth diapers are NOT difficult to use. There are plenty of help sites on the internet, including sewing your own. I used basic prefolds, pins, and “rubber” pants in the old days and they are still readily available. In the past decade or so there are many more alternatives, at least one of which is available at Target, which are even easier to use and cute besides. Besides being more frugal, cloth is much kinder to the earth. In my opinion, it is a matter of stewardship. My advice is to start simple, but do start.
oh, and a p.s. : It is widely believed (at least in cloth diaper circles) that cloth diapered children are potty trained earlier and easier. Mine were always done before age 2, day and night. I’ve potty trained lots of kids (mine, foster, adopted, and babysat) so I have a bit of experience. The website I’ve linked actually goes to my DD’s, a young mom who uses cloth too.
My son and daughter in law used a diaper service and it actually worked out cheaper than disposables. It’s a thought….