First off, Lantern's right about the first few weeks of adjustment. But this doesn't necessitate disposables. My wife and I subscribed to a cloth diaper service, which was actually cheaper per week than buying disposables. The environmental costs would be interesting to try to work out: on the one hand it is more pollutive because a delivery truck picks up and drops off the diapers. On the other hand, rather than dozens of families washing their own diapers, the service would use less water and energy at their centralized location. At any rate, the service couldn't be beat for convenience and cost, although clearly this may not be available in all areas of the country.

People should factor the advances in cloth diaper technology, as well. A quick google search will yield diapers of astonishing variety and sophistication. They have gotten better not only in terms of ease and (for green sake) durability, many of them are made of a blend of materials that take less effort to get clean.

Lastly, not to be overlooked is the fact that cloth is much easier on baby's skin, even compared to non-chlorine diapers: fewer creases, more breathing, softer on the skin. Our little poppet has not had a single rash in her six months of life.

I can't recommend cloth highly enough. You may have to do some research and thinking through what works best for you, but even beyond the environmental factors, the days of cloth being a time-consuming, leak-ready, pain in the ass alternative are LONG gone.

Another plus on the diaper service (at least the one in my area) is that they are able to recycle and reuse some of their water, thus reducing total water consumption even further. Anyone with an answer to whether or not a diaper service is better or worse than disposable?

When my kids were babies (late seventies/early eighties), there would have been no way in hell we would have anything to do with cloth diapers. Forget about the chore of washing the things, trying to put a cloth diaper on a fussy baby with those pins, would have been more than our already frayed nerves could have taken.

But I was listening to some young ladies talking about cloth diapers the other day at work, and was quite amazed by the conversation. It seems now they have designed these things so they snap on and off, are fitted, and have removable liners. I think I would have to give them another look before dismissing the idea out of hand.

Diaper services use far less energy than disposables or washing from home. It's an industrial process, so by not stopping the system, they don't have to use as much energy to keep the water at super hot temperatures.

The delivery service is actually fairly negligible, it's long efficient trips by one car, rather than the many inefficient trips to the grocery store by individual cars needed for disposables.

Washing from home with a high efficiency machine, might match a diaper service with delivery, but I don't know if that study has been done.

You have to figure in that some diaper services go through up to 21 cycle changes, compare that to 3 at home (hot rinse, regular wash, rinse).