StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

The Biggest Concern for Most Parents - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
This essay discusses the method that suits your lifestyle and your baby, and resist any suggestion that you are doing things the wrong way, whatever anyone says to you. Real or disposable – the choice is yours since both types of nappy have a role to play in your baby’s life…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER97.6% of users find it useful
The Biggest Concern for Most Parents
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "The Biggest Concern for Most Parents"

Disposable or real? – The choice is yours! Do you worry about whether you should breast feed or bottle feed? You are not alone! Most new mums worry about which is best. When it comes to nappies, some people prefer real cloth variety while others Some parents swear by the prefer the convenience of disposables, arguing that they are cleaner, fresher and much easier to use than cloth nappies. The debate rumbles on and so we need to examine the pros and cons of each choice. A cause to celebrate. You might have noticed that Real Nappy Week runs between 16th and 22nd April 2012 (Go Real website, 2012). Fans of the cloth nappy will attend special events to celebrate its continuing use in the hi-tech world of today. Everyone appreciates the nostalgia for the genuine, old-fashioned article, but is it really true that real nappies are better for you and your baby> Which is cheaper? There are four major criteria that spring to mind when considering your nappy buying options: price, effectiveness, and the delicate problem of napkin dermatitis, or nappy rash as it is more commonly called. Starting with price, there is an immediate issue of short and long term planning. You will have to make an initial investment in real nappies, since retail price comparisons show that you need to spend about £250 on reusable nappies. You will also have to think about a plastic bucket with a lid (about £7) and a supply of special nappy cleansing fluid . This seems like a lot of money initially, but over time, nappies work out as the cheaper option. Washing the nappies over a period of two and a half years will cost about £80 bringing that the real nappy option for one baby to a total cost of around £330 -£400 depending on how often you use a tumble dryer. In comparison, disposable nappies cost approximately £600 over the same period. If you are planning to have another child, then your savings will be even greater, especially if you dry the nappies in the fresh air rather than in a tumble dryer. It seems, then, that real nappies are cheaper than disposables and for bigger families, clearly the economical option. But which is best for baby? You might be wondering which type of nappy works best. There are so many size and style options available that comparisons in this area are much harder to make. Leakage is a problem with all nappy types, and the more active your baby is, the bigger a problem this is likely to be. The advantage of real nappies is that they can be easier to adjust to your baby’s individual shape. Different technologies in disposable nappies can give you a range of absorbency levels, and so there is no real problem finding the right one for your baby. Cellulose core disposable nappies are sometimes enhanced with absorbent gel technology and there are new developments in this area all the time, this means that disposable nappies are able to absorb more than natural fibre cloth nappies in most cases. Science shows that the best disposables may have the edge in effectiveness. Examining the pros and cons. Real nappies take up a lot of your time, and they take space for soaking and drying also. With the price of gas and electricity soaring in recent years, the cost of washing and drying the nappies has to be factored in to the equation. One way of looking at this is to consider whether your lifestyle and home surroundings are suitable for the extra labour needed to ensure nappies are washed to the correct temperature (at least 60 degrees is recommended) and thoroughly dried. If your home is a small flat, you may find real nappies difficult to deal with. If you have more time and space, however, this could be the best option for you. And what about the planet? When it comes to ecological arguments, and let’s face it everyone these days needs to think about this angle, there are pros and cons for each nappy type. Real nappies use more space to grow per nappy, and the cotton comes from distant countries like Egypt. They use up a lot of water and energy in the wash and this detracts from their environmentally friendly impact. In contrast, disposable nappies are more expensive in the long run, and around 7 million trees per year are used up in the production of disposable nappies for the UK (Norfolk Council, 2012). After use they contribute chemicals and considerable bulk to the country’s waste disposal system. Some eight billion disposable nappies have to be disposed of each year in the UK (Which?, 2012) and most of them end up in landfill sites where it is estimated that they will take about two centuries to disintegrate completely. It is hard to imagine that one small baby can use a staggering 4000 – 6000 disposable nappies. If you live in an area of water shortage, then, there is an argument for using disposables, but for everyone else, real nappies appear to be marginally the better choice for the planet. The delicate problem of nappy rash. The biggest concern for most parents is the health of their little one, and so we looked into medical opinion on the best way to avoid nappy rash. A recent study (Baer, 2006) reviewed the scientific literature on nappy rash in babies who use disposable nappies, as compared with those who use real nappies, and found that results were inconclusive. One mother we spoke to confessed that in fact the best solution is a combination of the two systems – real nappies for overnight and for times when the infant is at home. Disposable nappies are ideal for outings, trips away from home, or for spells when the weather is too wet for drying. The best of both worlds may be the solution. It seems then, that there is no clear indication of one system being better or worse than the other. Our advice is to choose the method that suits your lifestyle and your baby, and resist any suggestion that you are doing things the wrong way, whatever anyone says to you. Real or disposable – the choice is yours since both types of nappy have a role to play in your baby’s life. References Babycentre Website ( 2010) http://www.babycentre.co.uk/baby/buyingforbaby/nappies/ Baer, E.L., Davies, M.W. and Easterbrook, K.J. (2006) Disposable nappies for preventing nappy dermatitis in infants. The Cochrane Library 3, pp. 1-20. Go Real (2010) The Real Nappy Information Page. Available at: http://www.goreal.org.uk/ North Norfolk District Council Website. (2012) Further Recycling. Available online at: http://www.northnorfolk.org/environment/236.asp Which? Website. “Choosing nappies: washable vs. disposable.” http://www.which.co.uk/baby-and-child/nursery-and-feeding/guides/choosing-nappies-washable-vs-disposable Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(The Biggest Concern for Most Parents Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1, n.d.)
The Biggest Concern for Most Parents Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/family-consumer-science/1592697-write-a-1500-word-article-which-could-be-featured-in-a-parenting-magazine-about-disposable-nappies-vs-real-nappies
(The Biggest Concern for Most Parents Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 Words - 1)
The Biggest Concern for Most Parents Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 Words - 1. https://studentshare.org/family-consumer-science/1592697-write-a-1500-word-article-which-could-be-featured-in-a-parenting-magazine-about-disposable-nappies-vs-real-nappies.
“The Biggest Concern for Most Parents Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 Words - 1”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/family-consumer-science/1592697-write-a-1500-word-article-which-could-be-featured-in-a-parenting-magazine-about-disposable-nappies-vs-real-nappies.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Biggest Concern for Most Parents

Parenting a Child with a Disability

SOWK 503- Fall 2012 Assignment #1: Article Critique Date Course Instructor Article Critique Parenting a Child with a Disability The article “Parenting a Child with a Disability: The Role of Social Support for African American parents” by Ha, Greenberg and Seltzer talks of different social difficulties or challenges that parents of African American descent face raising their disabled children.... Social Concern The main social concern described in the article is the concept of acceptance and the role of the society in assisting African American parents who live with disabled children....
6 Pages (1500 words) Research Paper

Increasing physical activity in elementary school children to prevent childhood obesity

Health behavior is currently a major concern for many people.... … the biggest predisposing factor of the children's unhealthy lives is the lack of exercise.... the biggest predisposing factor of these children's unhealthy lives is the lack of exercise.... the biggest predisposing factor of these children's unhealthy lives is the lack of exercise.... Already obese parents do little in promoting healthy living among their children....
4 Pages (1000 words) Research Paper

Single Parent Struggle

It is quite difficult to anticipate how kids will survive the change in their lives, and how they will react to the absence of one of their parents.... Furthermore, Single parents suffer from much negative behavior from their children.... For example, in case of divorce, children are the ones who suffer the most when their parents are having clashes with one another.... parents start their new lives, but the lives of children get shattered because they have to live with one of the two parents, due to which they become deprived of the love of the other parent....
4 Pages (1000 words) Research Paper

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren

This is one of the biggest reasons for stronger family relationship and bonding in the family.... Moreover, due to work schedule or career of the parents or due to single parenting, grandparents come forward to support their grandchildren.... "Grandparents raising their grandchildren", "grandparent caregivers", "grandparents-as-parents" and "grandparent-headed families" are interchangeable terminologies which refer to the families where grandparents provide full time parental care to their grandchildren in the absence of the children's biological parents....
14 Pages (3500 words) Essay

Ethical Issues with Research on Lack of Parental Involvement and Childrens Education

This essay stresses that teachers can decide to fail students who provide negative feedback, or the parents can punish their children, who are the most helpless of the three and need protection.... This would require both objective (such as attendance to school activities or parents' meetings) and subjective (degree of attention or participation in these gatherings) measures, and direct (tutoring for so many hours each day) and indirect (cooking nutritious meals and taking them with the children) methods of involvement....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay

The Concept of Latchkey Children

In order to protect children from real dangers, parents instill a certain amount of fear into their children.... parents transfer their fear to their children.... In order to balance this fear, parents need to prepare their children for all emergencies....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay

Does Spoiling a Child Lead to an Unhappy Adulthood

The authors assist the parents to see the child with an exigent temperament in an optimistic light and offer a prosperity of practical suggestion for understanding and considering the high-needs child throughout the pre-school years.... This journal commences with a section the majority of the parents would love.... This journal will be essential to some parents who cannot realize or deal with a baby with tiring temperament.... Goran-Băzărea explains temperament traits that can be tough to parents and offers straightforward scales for evaluating a child on every feature....
3 Pages (750 words) Annotated Bibliography

Sorts of Services a Social Worker Make Available

nbsp;The children's service plays the role of promoting the life of children who are needy and also care for children who are abandoned by their parents, who are orphans and also guide the parents who are disappointed in life.... She is disadvantaged in society because she never attained educational qualifications which put her off from most of the white color jobs.... Amy conceived at a very early age without knowledge of how children should be reared because, in most of the cases, her mother Beulah cared for the child....
13 Pages (3250 words) Case Study
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us