How Much Effort Do Cloth Diapers Take? A Surprising Outcome!

Wie viel Aufwand entsteht durch Stoffwindeln? Ein überraschendes Ergebnis!

We did not develop Judes because they are less time-consuming than disposable diapers, but rather because we believe they are healthier and more sustainable.

That’s why it surprised us when we found out that the time required for Judes is significantly less than the average time required when diapering with disposables.

We first learned about this from Judes’s customers. Although we initially had doubts, we wanted to verify it, so we did two things:

First, we asked parents who use disposable diapers how much time it takes them. The result is surprising!
In the second step, we timed how long it takes to wash Judes. You will be surprised by this result too, as you will see shortly.

We surveyed over 500 parents on the time expenditure of disposable diapers

Disposable diapers result in an expenditure of 34 minutes per week

These are the insights we gained through our survey:

On average, the weekly time expenditure is 34 minutes. This is almost 20 minutes more than with Judes (more on this shortly).
The majority of parents reported 30 minutes (most frequent selection).
Only 25% stated that they spend less than 15 minutes per week on disposable diapers.

Most parents therefore spend a good half hour per week buying, sorting, or throwing away disposable diapers. This surprised us. Consequently, we inquired about which factors cause the most time.

These were the most common responses:

"Emergency purchases due to running out of diapers at home"
"Emergency shopping on the go, because too few diapers were packed"
"Frequent trash disposal within the house"
"Laborious washing due to diapers not being leak-proof"

Study Design

We aim to be as transparent as possible, so we're showing exactly how we questioned the parents.

Question 1: Have you had diapering experience with your own child?

Possible answers: Yes or No.

Question 2: Did you use cloth diapers exclusively for your child, or disposable diapers?

Possible answers:

100% disposable diapers
80% disposable diapers / 20% cloth diapers
60% disposable diapers / 40% cloth diapers
50% disposable diapers / 50% cloth diapers
40% disposable diapers / 60% cloth diapers
20% disposable diapers / 80% cloth diapers
100% cloth diapers

Question 3: What do you think is the weekly time expenditure for using disposable diapers? Such as for shopping, sorting, and taking out the trash? Please do NOT include the time spent changing diapers.

Possible answers: 5 minutes to 5 hours

Judes Baby diapering cloth diaper effort

How much time does it take to use Judes? We've measured the time.

This is the amount of time required by Judes (per week):

Washing the complete set of Judes diapers requires 15 minutes per week (with a dryer it's even only 4 minutes). Here's the exact time breakdown:

Placing the diaper bag in the washing machine and starting it: 0.5 minutes
Removing the laundry: 1 minute
Hanging up the laundry: 6 minutes
Taking down the laundry: 1.5 minutes

That's a total of 9 minutes. We have calculated with one and a half washes per week, so 1.5 x 9 minutes = approximately 15 minutes.

When using a dryer, there is no need for hanging and removing the laundry. You simply need to place the laundry in the dryer and then remove it. We calculate 1 minute for each of these tasks. As the dryer is usually right next to the washing machine, it's typically the same motion - which easily saves half a minute. Thus, the following time calculation applies when using a dryer:

Placing the diaper bag in the washing machine and starting it: 0.5 minutes
Removing laundry and placing it in the dryer: 1.5 minutes
Taking laundry out of the dryer: 1 minute

We clocked this at 4 minutes and measured it ourselves. Naturally, this timing might fluctuate by 1-2 minutes, depending on the setup of the machines. However, the crucial point for us is: Using Judes is significantly more time-saving than using disposable diapers, as a lot of time is spent shopping for diapers and disposing of diaper trash.

Since Judes can be completely washed at 60°C in the washing machine, the effort required is minimal. With Judes, no folding is necessary, there are comparatively few individual components - this also saves time. Judes dry in 24-36h on the line (in the sun, drying can also take under an hour). However, Judes can also be dried in a dryer.

Our tip: Combine your Judes laundry with other 60°C washables, such as towels or bed linen.

How to wash your cloth diapers gently and hygienically is explained in detail again in this article. With Judes Family Care, our detergent, washing cloth diapers becomes easier, more sustainable, and skin-friendlier.

By the way: Diapering time with cloth diapers is likely to be shorter than with disposable diapers, as many children become diaper-free much earlier with cloth diapers. This means even less time spent compared to disposable diapers. Here we explain why children with cloth diapers may become potty trained quicker.

Interesting: We asked the same 500 parents what they think is the weekly time spent on using cloth diapers. The result was also 34 minutes (34.2). So it's obvious that the time expenditure for cloth diapers is overestimated.
We suspect that this could have two reasons: On one hand, other cloth diaper systems often seem very complicated (e.g., there is often a need for folding and there are many individual parts). On the other hand, the unknown often seems more complicated than it is. Many parents are surprised by how easy it is to use Judes in everyday life.