get a better night’s sleep: “When you’re cosleeping, disposable diapers are really loud,” Bird says. “With cloth diapers there’s no crinkle, so you don’t wake up every time the baby shiſts positions.”21

a high-stakes operation

When I was an infant in the early 1970s, my parents knew cloth diapers were the better, healthier option, and most American hospitals used cloth. Even today, in many parts of the world, cloth diapers (or no diapers) are the norm. P&G introduced Pampers in 1961, and subsequently launched a major advertising campaign to get parents to buy their highly touted

plastic product.22

Te ads worked: Today, parents in

America and Canada who choose to exclusively use cloth diapers are very much in the minority. A Moth- ering reader survey conducted in 2006 revealed that only 24 percent of respondents used cloth diapers exclusively.23 P&G earned over $79 billion in net sales in 2009.24

Teir annual financial report for that year boasts that they are number 1 or number 2 in the disposable- diaper market in much of the developing world, and that the opportunities for expansion are “bound- less.”25

Household care products, which include disposable diapers and disposable wipes, earned

May–June 2010 | mothering.com

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