Art 19 ↔ Art 12 — Content advocates for consumer information transparency (Article 19) while the platform's use of tracking infrastructure and analytics potentially conflicts with privacy rights (Article 12) of readers accessing the information.

Art 17 ↔ Art 22 — Investigation exposes pricing practices threatening economic security (Article 22) by addressing corporate property and business practices (Article 17), creating tension between consumer welfare and corporate economic interests.

abustamam 2026-03-08 13:55 UTC link

We're using cloth diapers for our daughter (6m). She's still exclusively breastfed so no solid poops but so far I estimate we've saved over $100/mo by this decision.

The story may change when she starts on solids but I recommend everyone to try out cloth diapers, just make sure you have a routine and system in place to make it less overwhelming (we have two diaper pails next to the changing table, one for disposable wipes and one for the diapers, every other day we wash the diapers and liners).

westurner 2026-03-08 13:55 UTC link

I was designing waterproof textiles a few weeks ago and somewhat accidentally also designed a Chitosan-Alginate Fleece that could be used as fleece liner, super absorbent diapers, gauze

How do the production costs for Chitosan-Alginate Fleece compare to diapers and gauze?

cowpig 2026-03-08 14:03 UTC link

I feel like the time demands of modern life are the main culprit here. Today families mostly need two working parents, which means nobody to take care of the baby full-time.

If you have someone taking care of them full-time, toilet training early is usually easy and a net time save.

But if you can't ever invest that time because of the time version of the poverty trap, you are in diapers until the kids are developed enough to make the transition themselves or by seeing other examples (at daycare, etc), or are just old enough that it can be explained to them.

noemit 2026-03-08 14:05 UTC link

My mom toilet trained me at 3 months. She had me on a schedule and she would hold me one toilet during the determined times and I would go. This was right after communism fell so she only had access to cloth diapers, and cleaning them was so annoying she did it as early as she could. She was shocked at how long my kids stayed in diapers. I asked her how, and well there is a slight difference between us. She had 2 years of parental leave. I had 1.5 weeks with my second. I did a board meeting from the hospital with my first. Let's just say I don't have the time to dedicate to it. It takes 2 weeks of dedicated focus, repeatedly putting them on the potty, rewarding them, and cleaning up. I know it's possible. Modern life tends to build on these conveniences and efficiencies until it's no longer possible to go back.

I have tried "underwear weekends" with my 2nd so he seems what it's like to pee himself but it's just not enough. He needs 2 full weeks and I'm sure he'd get it. By the end of the weekend he's just starting to grasp it, and then on Monday I put a diaper on him again and it's more confusing than helpful.

joenot443 2026-03-08 14:16 UTC link

Have any parents tried Elimination Communication? Basically teaching your baby to inform you that they’re ready to go, and taking them to the toilet immediately.

This is something my partner wants to try when we eventually have kids. Something I’d never heard of until last week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elimination_communication

xivzgrev 2026-03-08 14:22 UTC link

Parent of 2 kids. Parents receive enough judgement. Do whatever works for you!

-cloth diapers? Awesome

-train early? Awesome

-train later? Awesome

There's trade offs for each, and you are going to figure out what works best for you.

If you want to train later and the diaper companies make more money, that's how a market is supposed to work. They're providing a product you value. So all good!

matthewaveryusa 2026-03-08 14:24 UTC link

All our kids were trained between 2-3 y.o, with overnight 3-4 (boys take longer (¬_¬)) honestly diapers isn't even a cost factor. When daycare is 2500-3000/month those first 3 years, diapers are picking up pennies in front of a steam roller.

perks_12 2026-03-08 14:25 UTC link

I know the Hustle is a Hubspot content factory, but I got to admit they've been capturing more and more of my reading and (YouTube) watch time recently. They have fascinating topics and seem to be researched very well.

nkrisc 2026-03-08 14:30 UTC link

Diapers are overall a tiny expense compared to what you’ll spend over the course of their childhood.

It only lasts a few years and then you’ll never have to think about diapers again (at least until the next kid).

Just do whatever is easiest and keeps you sane. There are bigger things to worry about.

My oldest was trained at 3 years, and my youngest at 18 months.

The oldest only trained for a week, and the youngest trained for almost year.

stackedinserter 2026-03-08 14:47 UTC link

> More recent studies and surveys, tell us that the average age for starting toilet training is ~21 months.

The way they raise kids in NA was one of the cultural shocks for us. 6yo kids in strollers. Parents never walk with their babies outside. Well, baby pram is not even a thing here. Diapers until age of 3 or 4. Overall hygiene/cleanness doesn't exist. It's ok to pour frootloops in a dirty tray and let the child eat it with their dirty hands. Kids' clothes are forever dirty. It's ok to send your kid to school/daycare with holes in their socks. School assembly? Let kids sit on the gym floor for an hour. Field trip - kids sit on the ground.

I'm not surprised society is so mentally unwell here.

sfpotter 2026-03-08 14:55 UTC link

Cloth diapers are good. We used them for our last kid with a diaper service and are going to do it again washing them ourselves with our next who is due at the end of the month. Regular diapers are useful to have either way. But cloth diapers are obviously much better for the environment and if they're an option for you, you should consider them. Not a hard concept, not worth a big discussion.

jsmith99 2026-03-08 15:04 UTC link

The big difference is that 'real' nappies become extremely uncomfortable when wet (child immediately cries to be changed) so toddlers get a strong incentive to stop wetting whereas with modern disposables they barely even notice when they wee.

newsclues 2026-03-08 15:15 UTC link

As long as people are consistent being ecologically responsible seems great.

When people tell me I need to use paper straws but they can use disposable diapers, it makes the logic in my brain meltdown

cm2012 2026-03-08 15:39 UTC link

"Big diaper" has made basically every form if diaper 80% cheaper compared to 30 years ago, also.

karmelapple 2026-03-08 15:40 UTC link

It talks about a study from 1944 in the US, specifically in Minnesota. How many of those parents were full-time stay-at-home parents, probably typically mothers, who were monitoring the child and helping with potty training?

How many kids nowadays are in daycare?

When there is a 3-to-1 adult-to-child ratio, doing something like this is much more challenging when there's just one adult and one infant.

jswelker 2026-03-08 16:44 UTC link

I did the math meticulously when I had my first kid years ago, comparing store brand diapers vs cloth. Once you factor in the up front cost of the cloth diapers plus the cost of water and energy and detergent running the wash, the costs are virtually identical. The math looks better for cloth if you use them for years or multiple kids, but that's not super hygienic.

That's not even factoring in time and convenience.

I am convinced cloth diapers are some kind of performative environmentalialsm or performative motherhood akin to the trad wife phenomenon.

entwife 2026-03-08 17:04 UTC link

For toddlers who are able to communicate, simply add an absorbent layer into the disposable diaper to give them sensory feedback about moisture. Gauze squares from the first aid aisle work well and are very cheap.

kqr 2026-03-08 20:17 UTC link

A lot of people in this discussion seem to compare the price of single-use nappies to that of buying new cloth nappies and then giving them to the landfill once done with one child.

I can strongly recommend buying them second hand and then reselling them. They become effectively free at that point. (I get it to come out to $1.5 per week, including the iost of running laundry and the opportunity costs of tying up the capital in nappies.)

I'm also happy to hear about more people doing the hybrid approach. It's not all-or-nothing. One of our children peed so much at night they had to wear disposable nappies overnight but could do with reusable during day. We also packed disposable for longer outings or trips.

shortercode 2026-03-09 09:01 UTC link

We used reusable nappies for our daughter and introduced the potty very early. The reduction in waste is many times larger than you expect particularly with a very young child ( we started with disposable, but switched in the first few months. Here’s some notes:

- Put your child on the potty during changes, and first thing in the morning. Build’s association and encourages bladder control. Do this long before trying to get them out of nappies.

- Reusable wipes are also a massive win. We have face wipes and bum wipes, basically just soft cotton. Bit of water under a tap and your good.

- Our biggest hurdle for moving away from nappies was nursery, as they wouldn’t consistently put a younger toddler on a potty.

- Introducing a potty earlier means less poopy nappies, turns out even a toddler dislikes pooping their pants.

- Expect a stupid amount of laundry, and the nappies to leak a bit ( so more laundry ). You also can’t use a drier with them as it damages the water proofing layer.

- Travelling is harder… Used nappies should be cleaned within 3 days, so expect to take dirty nappies away with you for washing plus clean nappies/boosters/cloths/bags.

- It’s easy to buy new/almost new/good condition second hand. Either people want to do it but don’t get on with it, or never start, or potty trained. Means a significant reduction in cost. But expect ones that have been used less to be more water proof and Velcro to work better etc.

- Our daughter loved playing with the clean ones, putting them on toys, using cloths etc. Probably helps they have cool designs on the outside. I expect a disposable wouldn’t work well after it had been played with.

- If you need to use disposables while you’re away etc the chemicals can cause rashes after your child has adjusted to their absence.

- When they start weaning you have to “remove the solids” before washing. Yes this is unpleasant, but more often than not is just upending it over toilet. You get used to it. Same as nappy changes in general and washing nappies.

- When we did swap to pants we didn’t do anything special. Just stop nappies, ensure you have a potty nearby, and deal with it for a few days. It’s uncomfortable for them and they learn fast. Expect a bit of frustration and wanting the old routine back.

waffletower 2026-03-09 16:23 UTC link

Freud had a lot to say about excrement and shame -- I think cultural fears are still very resonant here. With modern washers cloth diapers clean extremely well -- you can bury your nose into them afterwards with confidence and not notice the faintest evidence what the diaper was like prior to washing. If you feel you can't, I think that is culture speaking, not reality. You are definitely already well exposed to your family's intestinal bacteria strains so any phobia here is purely psychological. While I admit it was difficult for me to consider buying used cloth diapers, after raising two children I think I wouldn't have a problem doing it now. We found buyers for all of our children's used cloth diapers. They were in great condition. One thing to also keep in mind, typically children have difficulty with bedwetting at the late stages of diaper training, so our diapers at least, were washed dozens of times without being soiled by excrement prior to re-sale.

Forgeties79 2026-03-08 13:58 UTC link

Looking back my wife and I have said that we could probably have done cloth diapers during the breast-feeding phase but man… Definitely not with solid foods. I don’t know how people did it. Like yes of course if we didn’t have an option we would do it, but with disposable diapers right there… There’s no way I’m ever choosing cloth diapers and solid foods lol

josh_p 2026-03-08 14:04 UTC link

We tried with "hybrid" diapers for all three of our kids, a cloth shell with a disposable liner. They worked, but they're still a lot of extra work. We always kept disposables on hand for when we couldn't keep up. Our second and third kids are twins (2 for 1!!) and that was a lot harder to keep up with. And I ran into problems where I didn't set the diaper right and they would leak overnight, making more work. We had to give up on cloth just to stay sane. I guess my point is, yes, try it if you're able to. But also when you've got a new baby, do what you gotta do for your health, physical and mental, so you can take care of your family.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2026-03-08 14:08 UTC link

> don't have the time to dedicate

I hope it's worth it

colmmacc 2026-03-08 14:09 UTC link

Our two year old is potty training right now, and this was definitely a factor for us. We had to wait until it could be explained. Another factor is that diapers are now so absorbent that the kid feels no real discomfort from a pee or a poop. His main motivation is peer pressure and to be a bigger kid; concepts he's only recently caught.

allturtles 2026-03-08 14:17 UTC link

> My mom toilet trained me at 3 months.

Is this a typo? I don't see how it could be physically possible for a three-month-old to be toilet trained. Among other things, they can't sit up on a toilet seat or walk to the bathroom.

showerst 2026-03-08 14:25 UTC link

I just want to second this; a ton of parents I know had kids ready to do it earlier but waited until a major holiday/break when everyone would be home anyway to knock it out.

colmmacc 2026-03-08 14:26 UTC link

EC only works if parents are the sole carers, and every success story I've heard had one main parent doing 90% of the care-taking. No daycare would do it, and if you can find a nanny, au-pair, grand-parent or other carer who is up for it ... small kids still just behave differently around different people. If they have a different level of comfort, anxiety, or reluctance with a person it breaks down.

noemit 2026-03-08 14:31 UTC link

If I've learned anything from parenting, its to give more grace, because you really never know someone else's situation from a short interaction or fact about their parenting.

trollbridge 2026-03-08 14:32 UTC link

Yes. Requires complete consistency but by my third child, she consistently goes #2 on her little potty.

Once you don’t have to change poopy nappies anymore, you’ll never want to go back. EC is actually less work in the long run.

Note that my wife and I both share responsibilities for taking care of the kids. It is not that time consuming.

dangus 2026-03-08 14:36 UTC link

It’s easy for this style of journalism to get upset about “billions” but that’s just the reality of a country with over 300 million people.

If each person in this country buys a product for $10 they’ve spent $3 billion. Now it’s a scary headline about how billions in wealth has been siphoned.

I for one am not going to use cloth diapers. Sorry not sorry. I don’t give a shit (pun very much intended) about the benefits: I’m not cleaning diapers out, I’m not saving soiled diapers in my diaper bag to take home when I’m out and about. It’s just not something I’m going to do when Costco will sell me over 100 disposable diapers for $20.

To your point, diapers at under $100 a month is nothing compared to a single night of babysitting or a month of daycare.

caminante 2026-03-08 14:41 UTC link

I submit the cost benefit is closer to neutral with extra washer cycles, setup costs, labor, friction while travelling...

This is probably better ROI than "breastfeeding saves money" when formula is so cheap and you avoid pumping, washing, and labor while exhausted.

rocmcd 2026-03-08 14:41 UTC link

As a parent, this is a hilarious comment.

This is like saying "why don't you just teach your cat to use the toilet instead of using a litter box?". I mean, yeah, that sounds awesome. Given infinite time and energy, I'm sure it's possible. Best of luck to you, though.

And I don't say that to be rude or disparaging, it's just that parenting is a little like war: your plans never survive contact with the enemy. I had similar thoughts and ideas before I had kids, and they all went out the window when you deal with the real thing. Sleepless nights, a screaming infant, being scared out of your mind when they're sick... but then you will find a calmness unattainable anywhere else as you hold your sleeping child. All of your accomplishments will pale in comparison to the joys of parenthood, and you will unironically look back at those years as some of the best years of your life. You will see.

gus_massa 2026-03-08 14:49 UTC link

That's like $3 per day (a coffee).

Most diapers only get pee, but cloth diaper are more difficult to use, let's add 2 extra minutes, 4 or 5 times per day.

No solids means "not hard rock solids", they still make a nasty stinky brown paste. Hopefully only once per day. But that diaper MUST be partialy hand-washed, don't put it as is in the washing machine. At least a partial hand wash and then go with the rest to the washing machine. This is like an additional 5 or 10 minutes.

So it's like half an hour of extra sleep for $3, and when you have small kids sleep time is never enough.

xbryanx 2026-03-08 14:59 UTC link

> But cloth diapers are obviously much better for the environment

What about this is obvious? Water usage, transportation, fabrication factors, different usage patterns; seems like there are many things to tease apart here.

ritlo 2026-03-08 15:00 UTC link

Agreed on the strollers. There are medical reasons sometimes or whatever I’m sure, but that doesn’t explain most of them. We pushed ours to walk outdoors as much as possible as soon as they could walk at all, otherwise you end up with the 6yo with an iPad in a stroller at the zoo, wtf. Can’t let them get used to anything you don’t want to keep doing for a looooong time.

> It's ok to send your kid to school/daycare with holes in their socks.

My kids wreck clothes. Others (like the people we buy them from, used) seem to fare better but each of my kids probably puts four holes in clothes per week, not even considering stains. Sure you can mend them but not when you discover the hole two minutes before you have to be out the door.

> Kids' clothes are forever dirty

Mine never, ever were as a kid—but I had one homemaker parent. You can do a way better job at this stuff while also feeling less-stressed and overall doing less total work under those circumstances. Between paid work and non-fun kid stuff / housekeeping my wife and I put in probably 70 hours a week, each, and don’t keep up as well as my mom did (granted, we have more kids too, but still). Coordination costs and having to chop the work into little bits between other things makes it way less efficient, and it can be hard to get to everything quickly. Things that go wrong Monday may not get addressed until the weekend, where my mom would have had it taken care of within an hour.

swarnie 2026-03-08 15:25 UTC link

What is a diaper service?

dd8601fn 2026-03-08 15:39 UTC link

I mean... they're pushing diapers for 6-9 year olds, now?

What I took away is, by the early 2040s, "potty trained" is going to appear on peoples resumes.

AndrewKemendo 2026-03-08 15:41 UTC link

Parent of three teens headed to college/trades in the next year.

While I completely understand your positivity nihilism, this kind of parent as victim mentality needs to stop altogether.

I’m looking around where I live and literally zero of these people have to raise their children because they didn’t have the access to abortion, contraception or public services.* 99% of parents decided to keep and raise a child.

It is objectively bad to park your kids in front of an iPad for hours a day so you can work

It is objectively bad to have your kids all over social media

It is objectively bad to feed your children ultra processed foods

Etc…

If raising your children is not the most important thing in your life, to the extent that you’re going to actually do scientifically demonstrated correct things like providing them vaccines reducing sugar limiting screen time encouraging outdoor play and exploration and community building etc…then you should not have them.

If you do not have a community that can provide this if you are not independently capable enough… then you should probably not have them.

Being a parent is a transcendent privilege across every period of time, history, class and race - it literally is the driving factor of society.

*In the 18 months since Dobbs between .9% and 1.2% (should be zero but here we are) were victims of rape and forced into birthing that child according to:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/64-000-pregnancie...

a_cool_username 2026-03-08 15:44 UTC link

I had planned to do cloth diapers if we had a diaper service available, for environmental reasons, but there's none where I live now and I definitely am not up for washing diapers by hand/pooping up my nice washing machine. Props to you for sticking with it.

tetromino_ 2026-03-08 15:52 UTC link

> But cloth diapers are obviously much better for the environment

It's obvious only if you save and reuse the same set of cloth diapers for 2 or more babies. (Which places some constrains on brand, durability etc.) If you have only one kid, I am not sure which side is environmentally more friendly; growing and processing all that cotton (not to mention the plastic for all the waterproof covers) uses a lot of water and energy...

ralfd 2026-03-08 16:14 UTC link

In German this is called "windelfrei" (diaper free) or in english rather terribly named "elimination communication":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elimination_communication

> Elimination communication (EC) is a practice in which a caregiver uses timing, signals, cues, and intuition to address an infant's need to eliminate waste. Caregivers try to recognize and respond to babies' bodily needs and enable them to urinate and defecate in an appropriate place (e.g. a toilet).

> Keeping babies clean and dry without diapers is standard practice in many cultures throughout the world. While this practice is only recently becoming known in industrialized societies, it remains the dominant method of baby hygiene in non-industrialized ones.

> The terms elimination communication and natural infant hygiene were coined by Ingrid Bauer and are used interchangeably in her book, Diaper Free! The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene (2001).

I actually know quite a few (a bit hipster) German parents who tried it with good success rate (at least they claim that). It doesn't have to be perfect, but you train regularly with nursing / waking up that the baby urinates with every nursing/waking up. This is possible from day one and they catch on quickly to it.

Edit: Here is a subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/ECers/

ThePowerOfFuet 2026-03-08 16:14 UTC link

>If you want to train later and the diaper companies make more money, that's how a market is supposed to work. They're providing a product you value. So all good!

Yeah, if you don't give a shit about the environment.

prismatix 2026-03-08 16:15 UTC link

If one of you is a stay at home parent, then it's worth trying. But don't stress yourself out trying to make it happen.

I have 2 kids. The first I was able to stay home with for 1 year. We did what I'd call "light EC" which worked well and she was using the potty for BMs most of the time by 1 year old. She was fully potty trained by 2.

Second child: both parents are working full time, which means childcare is split between nanny & daycare. The nanny is pretty good about encouraging the potty, but EC went pretty much out the window. Daycare facility doesn't even have potties until the 2 year old room. She isn't 2 yet, but is just starting to understand the connection between the sensation and actually going.

mizzao 2026-03-08 16:32 UTC link

We did this with both our kids; the first one stopped pooping in diaper by 5 months. This made cloth diapers much more feasible as you just have to rinse. A local daycare was willing to do it as well and so she was fully potty trained well before starting preschool at 2 years.

As others have said though, YMMV so don't beat yourself up if your kid won't do it. 80% by age 1 in 1944 is a great data point for what's possible though.

tasuki 2026-03-08 16:47 UTC link

> that's how a market is supposed to work.

What about the negative externalities?

jswelker 2026-03-08 16:49 UTC link

That math does not match my math with my kids. Does that factor in the price of water and electricity and detergent? And are you comparing to store brand diapers or the luxury name brand ones? The price difference is literally 5x for some sizes.

tasuki 2026-03-08 16:50 UTC link

If money is all you care about then sure.

toxik 2026-03-08 19:29 UTC link

Very interesting idea! I think I'll try this. Makes a lot of sense and has almost zero cost.

bombcar 2026-03-08 19:55 UTC link

They also survive much more and much longer than they used to, and even compared to cloth they can store a substantial amount of wee without having the kid soaking in wet.

Of course, they have that blue line that appears at 0.01% wetness to encourage you to change it earlier, but ah well.

kqr 2026-03-08 19:56 UTC link

Did you calculate based on buying cloth nappies second hand and then reselling them? That was a great alternative for my family. Worked out to something like $100 in total nappy costs for one child, including the opportunity cost of tying up the capital up front. That's less than $1 per week. Make it $1.5 if we include electricity and water costs of laundry, compounded over that period.

I would struggle to find single-use nappies for $1.5 per week in my area.

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