OK, so you've a baby on the way, or you've a young baby. You've going through the major dilemma of what to do about nappies - disposables are so convenient, but even the "green" ones go to landfill and the normal ones, well they have so many gels and chemicals in they aren't just bad for the environment (imagine the manufacturing process and then they're around for 200+ years) but some say they are bad for a boy's fertility and can cause irritations on their skin.
Then there's the real nappy option - ugh.... how many different types, how do I decide, the smell, the washing.... no thanks! But....
Well 3 years ago when I found I was pregnant I was pretty determined from the word go that I didn't want to be using disposable nappies - our parents coped fine with real ones, so why shouldn't we? They can't be that bad. I did a bit of looking on line.... not much info out there then and what was I felt was very biased towards "you MUST use real nappies". In terms of speaking to someone- well even now I don't know anyone who has their kids in real nappies (and our son is now out of them). So in the end we went for something we could buy easily that would dry quickly. We started out with Cotton Bottoms wraps, inners and liners - all could be purchased in Boots and John Lewis, so no waiting around for deliveries, which was a plus. Well, the wraps just didn't work.... they have no cuffs so we had lots of leaks (yuck). So I tried some others and ended up with Bambino Mio (go for the plain white wraps as they can be washed @ 60 rather than just 40, so can go in with the nappies ... we discovered this after nursery melted some wraps!). I actually found that the cheapest place to get the wraps was Kiddicare as they have multiple buy deals.
In terms of how many - well make sure you've enough to last 3 days plus one for drying time (wraps don't have to be clean every time) so about 8 wraps and up to 20 nappies was about right for us.
You also need a bucket with a lid to keep out those nasty smells.... add a few drops of lavender to it, or tea tree oil, both of which have natural disinfectant properties, so smell better and help with the bugs. Plus of course rubber gloves for fishing them out and into the machine (when our son was tiny it was 3-4 washes a week, but as he got older, 2-3). You don't always have to wash at 60+ degrees - only do that if there are some real nasties in there - but make sure you've got a decent load and don't use fabric softeners.
The other thing that we didn't think of, but learnt in time, was wipes... yes, those innocent wipes. Most aren't flushable and it is REALLY difficult to find flushable ones... try the Bambino Mio ones (again, Kiddicare are cheapest) or Perfectly Happy People who do their own.
As our son got older, we did find that the real nappies weren't absorbent enough over night, even with booster pads. So, I have to admit that we went to "green" disposables and we use Nature Baby nappies as they are easy to buy from supermarkets or Boots. No, I don't like using them, but he's more comfortable and doesn't end up leaking every night.
That leads me to a major benefit of real nappies (or at least I think it is).... earlier potty training! Yes, it's true, or at least for us it has been - I don't think that 2 years and 2 months is bad to be out of nappies during the day (he's the first in his group at nursery). We're convinced that a lot of this is because we let him have nappy free time from quite a young age, which meant he learnt the benefit of it in terms of freedom, so wanted to be out of nappies (he was the one that made the decision, not us). If you were a young toddler in disposables that we really comfortable and flexible and you couldn't tell when you were wet other than the weight, would you make the effort to have to use the potty? I can understand why kids are getting older before they are potty trained as more are in more comfortable disposables.
All in all, would I use real nappies again - YES! It's easy to get used to the routine, some nurseries will wash them for you or you can go for a washing service if you want to, they're cheaper and you wont need them for as long. Lots of good reasons as far as I'm concerned... plus, it's better for the environment.
Are there any other real nappy users out there - I'm interested to know what made you make the decision and how it's gone for you. If you're considering them, feel free to ask any questions.
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So, as a newbie to this, just how does it work? How do you wash the diapers, especially the non-wet ones? Are you doing laundry constantly?
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we had a bucket .....
the nappies consist of the outer and main cloth bit (some people go for a combined inner and outer, but they tend to take longer to dry) and then you have a liner - some are very good and use a washable liner which is a bit like muslin, but is only supposed to let moisture go one way. We used flushable liners. So, you "build" the nappy (yes, it can feel like construction sometimes, especially for night time nappies complete with booster pads) and then afterwards you flush away the liner and contents (if it's gone further, a quick rinse in the toilet does the trick - not pleasant, but rubber gloves are a good investment!). You then put the cloth inner (not the outer as many of those will perish if kept damp for too long) in a bucket. You can add water and detergent, or specially nappy stuff. We did in the beginning but found it was best to just put in some tea tree oil to keep the smell at bay. Babies go through a lot more nappies when they're just on milk, so you end up doing 3/4 washes a week, but once they're on solids, then 2/3 tend to be enough.
You just wash the inner and outer as usual - we tended to just use a standard mixed cycle most of the time and once a month we'd blitz them cloth parts with a hotter wash, or if he'd had a tummy bug. It's important not to use a fabric softener as that stops them from being as absorbant. 99% of the time we let the nappies driy naturally, but there was the odd occassion where the tumble dryer was used (normally when they weren't quite dry enough to take in a big enough supply for nursery).
If you're baby is going to be at nursery it's well worth asking if they will wash the nappies - it was never pleasant being handed a bag of dirty nappies at the end of the day (the first nursery washed them but the 2nd didn't as they don't have a machine on the premises)
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