I am just including the cost of putting nappies on a child.  It does not include a % of the cost of a washing machine (or maintenence) as I felt that it was unfair to calculate the cost of a new washing machine into the cloth category.  My argument why is below.  It also does not include a % of the council rates for the % of bin collection disposables would use etc. and it also does not include "nappy sacks", bags or other bin lining/disposal products.  (If you want to factor in machine wear and tear then to be fair, other disposable-use costs should be also worked out)

Of course you'll want to know where I got all the numbers from.... so below is all the calculations I used.
You can do your own calculations if you like, by working out how much you pay per nappy (disposable) or what your washing liquid is etc.

In my situation, I have enough nappies to only wash once a week at a cost of only $0.27 a week for washing.  Our nappy stash cost approx $430 all up.  So it works out at being cheaper than the above cloth calculation.
Daily Costs - Disposable
I'll be using the following averages:  Disposable Nappy (medium size) = $0.38c each, Disposable Baby wipe = $0.06, # of wipes used per nappy change = 3, # of nappy changes per day = 6.  So that's $1.08 a day in baby wipes and $2.28 in nappies.  A total of $3.36 per day, a total of $23.52 a week.
Averages worked out below.

Daily Costs - Cloth
Based on having: 10 fitteds, 5 covers, 10 flats, 5 prefolds, 10 boosters, 20 baby wipes, 10 pockets, 2 AIO.
Using 6 changes a day and 7 wipes a day.  Plus washing machine cost of $0.27c per wash (cold) and washing 3 times a week.  This works out at $0.81 per week (Since the weekly cost of cloth nappying your child (after the initial outlay) is only in the washing). Since many people add to their cloth nappy stash as time goes by (because of outgrowing nappies or because we like to have new things) I haven't factored in the cost of nappies at all into the costs - other than stating the startup cost.  Averages worked out below.

Daily Costs - "Cloth Evened Out"
To make it a little more spread out, I have also made a separate column, and divided the outlay cost into a weekly cost, based on 2 years in nappies.  I used 2 years instead of 3 to make each column the most expensive. If using over 3 years the weekly costs would be less.  (So $779.60 divided 2 years = $1.07 per day or $7.50 per week).  So "cloth evened out" is the $7.50 per week for nappies plus $0.81 per week of washing.

Second Child

Why did I not include a percentage of the cost of a new washing machine
I also believe it is unfair to calculate any of the total cost of buying a new machine, as a washing machine should last around 10 years and therefore 2 years of cloth nappy use is only a portion of the amount of washing that it will do.  We recently bought a new washing machine, to replace the second hand one we had that died - which we estimate at being over 20 years old!  (The motor burnt out).  Not only that, but "a washing machine" can vary so dramatically, and not everyone would buy a new machine if they did replace it, so it's all too much to include.

For example.  Our first washing machine was free to us (Family friends upgrading to a larger machine), which lasted around 5 years until we got another machine (when that family friend upgraded again), which lasted 2 years then the motor died.  Both machines were about 20 years old and weren't bought new by the family friend.  So for about 7 years we were using a washing machine that cost us nothing.  If we'd have had children earlier, we could have gone through the cloth nappies on our free machines - therefore making a % of the cost of a washing machine irrelevant.  Our new washing machine will hopefully last 10 years (newer ones don't last as long generally), but we estimate another 6 months to a year in nappies, so that is only a very small amount of the washing machine's life.

So, if you think its not an accurate calculation if you don't take these costs into consideration, that's fine.... but I also didn't include disposable users paying for scented "nappy sacks" to carry soiled nappies in and a % of the amount of extra garbage bags you would need.  Plus, if you are going to work out that cloth nappies cost you X amount in the cost of a washing machine, then you would also need to work out (to be fair) what portion of your rates covers garbage removal, and then how much of your household garbage was taken up by nappies.  So I think that about evens itself out.

Working it all out
So that you can see where I've got all those numbers from, and so you can customise it to suit your own calculations, all my workings are shown below.  As maths was never a good subject of mine, if you find any mistakes please let me know and I'll fix them.
 

Washing Machine Running Costs

# of Wipes used each nappy change and Frequency of nappy change
I use 1 wipe for a wee, and 2-5 wipes for a poo (depending on the poo [sometimes more]).  Ive only spoken to one other mother, who changed to huggies wipes because otherwise she'd use around 4-7 wipes for a poo - she now uses just 1 (I don't know how).  So I will be using an average of 3 wipes for a nappy change.  That allows for the times you would use only 1, and times you would use more.  The more expensive wipes I've found you use less of, and the cheaper ones you use more of.  So I believe a 3 wipe per change average would be reasonable considering that a more expensive wipe with fewer used could be similar in cost to a cheap wipe with more used. I'm also assuming 2 poos a day, while some children will poo once or even less frequently, so if you think 3 wipes per nappy isn't enough, but your child does 1 poo a day that could even out.
Anyway, if you use less wipes and don't like my average, feel free to do your own calculations.

The estimate of how many nappy changes a day you have is hard to calculate.  In a disposable it could be as few as 3.  In cloth (where mothers are more likely to change after every wee) it can be as many as 14.  I've heard an estimate of around 8 cloth nappies a day, I would decrease that to around 6, given that I would probably use 4 (though perhaps thats because I am a slack mother).  Again, if you want to incorporate more frequent changing, please feel free to do your own calculations.  Remembering that I'm doing this on a "medium" size scale (around 5-11 kilos), so past that terrible liquid baby poo stage.

I would normally change 2 poo nappies a day, and as an estimate of nappies needed per day is around 6, that would leave 4 nappies with a wee.  So with an average of 3 wipes for each poo (2) and 1 wipe for each wee (4), that would be 10 wipes a day.  With the average cost of a baby wipe being 6c, a day's supply of baby wipes would then be 60c.

Laundry Detergent
Without checking each bottle/box of detergent to find out how much you need to use, I can't say how much the detergent costs on average....  I use Hurricane Liquid, which costs me 48c per wash (Using 1 cap (bit less than 1/3 cup) for a full load instead of the cap and a half they recommend.)  I use that because I like the smell and its biodegradable and the bottle is recycled.  You can get cheaper detergents.  Soaking in things like "Napisan" is not neccessary so I have not included it.  Fabric softeners SHOULD NOT be used, as they mess with the absorbency of the fabrics (and will make fleece repel - not good for liners).  So this was also not included.

Reusable products - Nappies and Wipes

To get an average cost for these I had huge tables, so these are on a page on their own.  Its also become a bit of a price comparision for people to use as a guide to buying nappies too.  The numbers I got are below, and check out that page for details.

Average cost of a Baby Wipe: $1.80 | Average cost of a Booster: $5.71  | Average cost of a Traditional/Flat nappy: $5.99
Average cost of a Fitted: $21.68 | AIO: $24.70 | Pocket: $20.52  |  Prefold: $9.99  | Cover: $21.05

Cloth Nappies, Wipes, Boosters and packs price tables

Because there are so many different types of nappies to choose from, I'll be using a selection for my calculations.  This is a selection of what I would probably buy if starting out with cloth (Based on what I know now about how well each type works and what I like).  This is based on having enough suppies to go 3-4 days before washing (Since I'm calculating washing at 3 times a week).  I believe cloth nappy users (using cloth wipes) would be most likely to rinse & reuse a wipe if it was used for just a wee.  So I am therefore calculating a cloth baby wipe usage of 3 per poo and 1 for all wet nappies during the day, and with my scenario of 2 poos a day, that would be 7 wipes a day.  I've included all my calculations of averages and so forth so you could do your own calculations if you wanted, say all fitteds and covers, instead of a combination of styles.  So the nappy stash I'll be assuming for this would be:

10 x fitteds, 5 covers, 10 flats, 5 prefolds, 10 boosters, 20 baby wipes, 10 pockets, 2 AIO.

So using the average prices listed above...
10x $21.68 (fitteds) = $216.8, 5x $21.05 (covers) = $105.20, 10x $5.99 (flats) = $59.90, 5x $9.99 (prefolds) = $49.95
10x $5.71 (boosters) = $57.10, 20x $1.80 (baby wipes) = $36.00, 10x $20.52 (pockets) = $205.20, 2x $24.70 (AIO) = $49.40

Total Cloth setup cost = $779.60

Additional supplies for a second child
This is assuming you need to purchase more nappies to replace those worn out/damaged by use on child #1.  You probably wouldn't need to add to your nappies, as most should be perfectly capable of lasting through 2 children - but I wanted to show that even if you did have to add to your collection for child #2, it's still much cheaper than another child in disposables.  Remembering this comparison is only assuming a child of 5-11 kilos, so I'm not including working out costing having one "Medium" sized child and a newborn, although the added amount for the second child should cover the extra nappies you would need having 2 children in nappies at the same time.  If you were shopping with this in mind when you buy your nappies, you could choose nappies that are sized to fit from newborn to toilet training, so that all nappies wold fit both children (rather than having sizes that a child would grow out of).

5 fitteds ($108.40), 2 covers ($42.10), 2 pockets ($41.04), 2 AIO ($49.40) = $240.94

Disposable products - Nappies and Wipes

Nappies

Wipes

¹  Nappy Averages taken by adding:
Baby Love + Huggies Crawler + Snugglers + Coles brand, then dividing by 4 (Coles average)
Baby Love + Huggies Crawler + Snugglers + Homebrand [woolies], then dividing by 4 (Woolworths average)
Then the Coles average and Woolworths were added together and divided by 2 to get combined average
These brands were chosen as both stores stocked them.  Where 2 sizes were both stocked, the smaller of the 2 was chosen.

² Wipes averages taken by adding:
Huggies refill + Johnsons Fragrance Free Refill + Nurseryland, then dividing that by 3 (Coles average)
Huggies refill + Johnsons Fragrance Free Refill + Homebrand, then dividing that by 3 (Woolworths average)
Then the Coles average and Woolworths were added together and divided by 2 to get combined average
These brands were chosen as both stores stocked them.  Where 2 sizes were both stocked, the smaller of the 2 was chosen.

[Why choose cloth][Make your Own][$ Cloth Vs Disp $][Cost of a Stash][Nappy Types][Nappy Links][My Suggestions]
[My Conversion][Our Stash][Naps I made][Contact Me][Home]

(C) Obsidian 2006.  All rights reserved