The Cloth Nappy Blog

Let’s play around with some of the assumptions on cloth nappy costs.

To recap, we discovered that 24 MCN at $30 each, washed every two days for two years, was equivalent to disposables at 27c each, or $9.72 for a 36 pack.

• Say that you only wash every 3 days, that’s like 25c per disposable nappy, or $9 for 36.
• Say that you have an efficient washing machine, that’s like 24c per disposable nappy or $8.64 for 36.
• Say that your child is in nappies until 3, that’s like 20c per disposable nappy or $7.20 for 36.
• Say that you use the same nappies on a second child for 2 years, but buy a dozen more, that’s like 21c per nappy or $7.56 for 36.

Hey – what if you wash every 3 days with an efficient washing machine and reuse some of the nappies on a second child?  They’re practically free

Of course you can go the other way, too, and make it more expensive.

• If you have lots of nappies (although then you wash less often).
• If you wash every day (but then you only need a few nappies).
• If you fully deck out your child in custom embroidered minkee (but they’re really, really, really cute).

But given the price of sposies, you’ve got a lot to play with before MCN end up costing anywhere near as much as disposables!

Modern Cloth Nappies and diapers are a long term investment rather than short term, but you can still do cloth cheaply if you aren’t certain how you’ll go.  A pack of cotton flats from a chain store costs around $28 for 8-12, so a couple of these plus some decent covers means you can do cloth for less than $100 total.  This is not theoretical – I used flats only for about 7 months with my first daughter and they are still a major part of my stash.  And they aren’t wasted if you upgrade to MCN, there are a lot of other uses for flats! So start with flats, then buy MCN slowly when you can afford them.

Prices of MCN vary a great deal, so I’ll use $30 as an average. I want to show that they are very economical even if you think they are a lot individually.

A basic stash is around 24 nappies. Again, you can have lots more, but 24 nappies will get you through. So

24 x $30 = $720

Add a bit extra for wipes, liners, snappis, covers, etc, and say $800.

Washing is actually extremely cheap. The Australian Taxation Office uses an allowance of 50c per load to allow for wear and tear on the machine, detergent, water, and electricity.  If you have a water saving machine and use less detergent it can be much cheaper, down to 10c per load, but let’s see how expensive it can be. Most people wash every 2 or 3 days, so for one year you are looking at

$0.50 x 180 = $90

Yep, $90 to wash all those nappies for a whole year.

So for a child who is in MCN for 2 years, you are looking at

$800 + $90 + $90 = $980

That sounds like a lot, but look at the other side if you were using disposables. How many nappies will be used in 2 years? Using an average of 5 changes a day, that is

5 nappies x 2 years x 365 = 3650 nappies

$980 / 3650 nappies = ~27c per nappy.

Do your disposables cost 27c per nappy?