Cloth diapers have been around for most of human history, but if you haven't seen cloth diapers these days you may be in for quite a surprise! Today's designs are sleek, leak-proof and come in new, cute designs.

If you haven't considered using cloth diapers, there are several reasons why you may want to make the switch. The first reason is purely economic. By the time your child is potty-trained, you will have spent at least $2,000 on disposable diapers. That is money that you are literally throwing away each and every day.

On the other hand, a good set of cloth diapers will cost you an average of $300. As your child grows, you can even sell your smaller diapers in exchange from larger ones. At the most, you can expect to spend $500 over the course of your child's diaper using time. That's a savings of $1500. With that amount of money, you could start a savings account for your children and have a nice addition to their college fund by the time they graduate high school.

Money savings aside, there are several other reasons why cloth diapers make good sense. Cloth diapers are environmentally friendly. When you throw out disposable diapers, you're not only wasting money, but you are filling out landfills with waste that won't biodegrade for many years to come. It's estimated that disposable diapers will take 500 years to completely degrade. That means that all the disposable diapers that have ever been used in the history of the product are still out there somewhere! It's staggering when you think about it.

By using cloth, you're becoming part of the solution instead of part of the problem. It can take as much as 300 pounds of wood, 50 pounds of petroleum and 20 pounds of chlorine to produce enough diapers for one baby for just 12 months! When you make the decision to use cloth, your actions have a massive beneficial impact on the environment.

Finally, by using cloth diapers you may also be protecting your baby's skin and health. Some disposable diapers contain dioxin, which is a harmful by-product caused by the bleaching of paper. Dioxin is a carcinogen and has been banned in other industrialized countries, but it has not been banned in the United States.

By using cloth, you're removing the risk of exposing your baby to this chemical, and the others that are used in disposables. The fact that your baby is wearing these chemicals all day long is reason enough to look into cloth as an option.

Cloth diapers are convenient and easy to use. Although you'll have to wash the cloth diapers, you'll actually be using less water than it takes to produce disposable diapers. Washing diapers is an easy process and very shortly you'll get used to the process.

And there are even new hybrid types available (such as gDiapers) which have an over layer in which you snap flushable refills. Before you make a definite decision in the disposable versus cloth diaper debate, take a bit of time to research new options that are on the market that may offer you the best of both worlds.