<prompt> Human: My wife and I are expecting our first child soon, and Im trying to plan out our expenses at least a little bit so that things arent too much of a surprise. Weve got major purchases down like stroller, crib, car seat, etc. we raided the liquidating Kids R Us and scored some great finds, and now Im trying to price out diapering.One thing thats confounding my research is that the available analyses out there on the internet seem to vary wildly in their cost estimates. This breakdown from Babygearlab estimates that 3-year disposable diapers cost over 2000, which seems wildly high though their estimate includes all accessory costs such as wipes and diaper pail and more. The wirecutter puts the estimate more at 600-700 for 3 years of disposable diapers diapers alone.A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation that I did for Target-brand diapers supposedly well-reviewed put the estimate at between 700-800 total for disposable diapers when not on sale - I imagine buying in bulk when on sale could reap substantial savings.Setting up a cloth diaper system appears to be on the same order of magnitude: approximately 600-700 when buying new buying used could also get significant savings but... used diapers?.My questions:1. Does anyone have any experience pricing this question out? Could you share your experience and how it went?2. Does anyone have links to good analyses looking at the costbenefits?My intuition is that cloth will win out on price alone; however, Im trying to get a better understanding of the marginal cost difference between disposable vs. cloth to see if the time cost of cloth is worthwhile.Other considerations: my wife and I are not entirely unsympathetic to the argument that disposables are pretty wasteful and bad for the environment; wed be willing to pay a small premium if it had some mitigating impact on waste. Also, this is our first child, and wed like to have another one or possibly two - Ive heard that cloth becomes an absolute killer in terms of savings when used on multiple children.Assistant: Cloth diapers are such a hassle, not to mention DISGUSTING to clean if you dont want to ruin your washing machine. My daughter is 4 now and Ive never had a decent job -35kyear and I will definitely say disposable diapers are the way to go. Theyre only really expensive on paper. I bought about a case every week and a half, and a case was like 40-50 dollars. Yes, cloth diapers are significantly cheaper, but the maintenance that goes into it... Ew. I gave cloth a try and that first explosive shit she had sealed it for me and my wife. Go with disposable.Obviously this is all my opinion.Human: I totally hear you, and cloth or disposable - either way its going to be kind of a nasty 3 years or more if we have more.Dealing with toddler shit, though, is something that Im sort of getting used to, and Ill say that its probably worse when it isnt your own kids. Im hoping to be a pediatrics resident in a year.  <response>: Yeah - its not that much more disgusting than literally everything else about young children. You get used to it and it becomes another thing you try to remember to wash off before you eat. Weve done both cloth and disposable and are careful budgeters. My intuition is that - in a purely financial sense - they are about even once you factor in the cost of running your washer on hot two or three more times per week. If you buy diapers and wipes on sale we get Costco wipes and mostly got Target diapers on coupons you can expect to spend about 40 a month on average a little more the first month. Thats around 1500 for three years once you buy a diaper pail. Ways to economize include potty training before 3 years I recommend your first summer after 2, and ignore the diaper-company funded experts who advise to wait til shes ready. Our son would still happily let us diaper him if we hadnt pushed the issue at 36 months. Anyway, if youre a peds R1 next year you 100 should go disposable. Theres no way you want to be messing with cloth diapers on top of everything else, even if your spouse stays home. Im saying this as the stay-at-home-spouse of a former resident. We did cloth diapers when she had a 8-6 job with some call and even that was too much. That time is better spent playing with the baby and reducing your stress level. 