So Gove wants to ban disposable nappies....

[JoyfulJanuary]

article here

What do we think? I can kind of see where he's coming from but I wouldn't have been without my disposables.

"then they’re just as bad as disposables"

Moot, but the alternates do not require landfill space, nor are they contributing to the plastics contaminating the wider environment. So if essentially the same, the definitely he choice would be the one which does not involve single use plastics

I think potty training age will return to something closer to where it was mid 20th century (begin by conditioning a habit, which gets them out of nappies much sooner, full control develops from that but with far fewer nappies used)

The number of disposable nappies in landfill is scary, especially as these days children seem to be in nappies/pull ups etc far, far longer than they ever used to be (3 and a half seems to be the new 2 and a half when it comes to starting to even consider toilet training). Our neighbour has four year old twins, she needs to use our bin (by agreement) as she can’t get all her rubbish/nappies in her own every two weeks.

In those early velcro baby weeks I didn't even have time to do my own laundry let alone manage reusable nappies.

I would be open to biodegradable nappies to be fair.

Reusables are expensive at first but then a piece of piss. Literally.

I'm absolutely with @Isitme13. I flush the poo too as I can't understand why human faeces in the rubbish has become acceptable. My eldest is 7 and shows no sign of training soon (preverbal, very challenging). I tried cloth nappies again and again when he was a baby, I tried lots of different types. I had to change him twice as often as disposables and he still got an incredibly sore bum. By the time his SEN were showing up and he was unable to tell Preschool that he'd done a poo, he would do at least one a week where it was literally an acid burn on his bum because he'd been left in it for 20 minutes +, leaving open wounds. I know other SEN parents who've said the same. It would take a week of metanium to get him back to something reasonable and I'd be praying he didn't have the same happen again until the wounds had at least scanned over. With cloth nappies, god knows what state he would have been in. It used to really upset me.

The last four years have been at times absolute hell to live with him - very sleep disordered, physically abusing his sister for seven months, being unable to leave the house or have anyone else take him off our hands (these things have slowly been addressed - in part). The drudgery has been quite enough without insisting on us running our lives around cloth nappies too.
These days, it's hard enough to get him to keep still enough to put a disposable on, he's in an ill-fitting nappy that's intended for a grown woman. after a P.O., I have a ten minute fight in the cloak - door locked to stop him escaping - to get the poo off whilst he tries to get his hands on it and smear it everywhere. Again, I wonder what on earth would a cloth one be like in comparison. Life must have been hell for people in my position in times past - my mum had a twin tub and cloth nappies. Imagine doing that with a child like my boy.
I use a friend's old washable nappy inserts as reusable wipes on him and I work really hard at getting my recycling right, I do other things like paying extra for a genuine reusable electricity supplier. I hate putting the nappies in the bin and try to mitigate for it, but at least it is in one place.
We need new technologies for the things we have relied on plastic for and yes, if you can make cloth nappies work for you, then feel good about doing your bit.

Perhaps some bright young thing will work out how to produce a cost effective, decent biodegradable disposable....

Bloody autocorrect - I meant his sister FROM seven months and scabbed over, not scanned!

It will be expensive and people will still buy cheap plastic ones. I despair, we've only got ourselves to blame when things go environmentally tits up.

I am not blaming disposable nappy users single handedly before everyone piles on.

Plus there's the disposable ones used for incontinence. I'm a carer and say one plastic bag, one pad, maybe 10-20 baby wipes. That's for one person, four times a day. Adds up but I don't know what the solution is there as reusable not an option (we don't have time, lots of people don't have washing machines or families wouldn't agree etc)

My 5 yo still uses pull ups at night. I'd happily return to cloth nappies, particularly as some nights are dry, and it feels such a waste of a disposable for daily use. Washing sheets and duvets is more awkward than a few nappies. Sadly, I haven't encountered cloth in a big enough size after he trained in the day at 2.5.

I got into cloth when I was pregnant and DS1 was 18m. Two in cloth was fine to manage in the grand scale of baby/ toddler washing, and neutralised that I didn't have to wash so many clothes from escaped poonamis. Solar panels reduced the energy cost of washing.

I feel a mild guilt that I bin a pull up per day, but at least I saved goodness knows how many nappies from filling up landfill for centuries at my time of heaviest use.

I used disposable nappies for the DC - not a choice of which I’m proud, but mine will definitely have been incinerated for power with the rest of our residual waste rather than sent to landfill because that’s what our council does with everything. (I did flush the poo - mostly to minimise the smell in the bins in the summer).

You have nappies in landfill, for babies and the incontinent, the elderly.

I think also that a. Most parents are raising their babies alone and b. Cry it out has fallen out of favour most people are picking the easy options to get them through the baby stage whether it's disposal nappies or ready meals.

What about those in nappies who attend nursery/childcare? Do you pick up your little one along with a bag of sodden terry napkins? Where do the nursery put them? How do they store them to return them to you?

The whole point of a nappy I'd to be able to contain warm poo and pee until it can be dealt with and quite possibly for hours overnight. Now think about the process of bio-degradation. Then you'll see why no-one, whether bright young thing or not, is working on the impossible.

There are brands which say they have some biodegradable parts, and I think that's all that can be achieved - though there may still be scope for improvement.

Do you pick up your little one along with a bag of sodden terry napkins? - yes

Where do the nursery put them? - in lidded bins

How do they store them to return them to you?- in the bins - line with bag, lift out

It's very straightforward, and no more unpleasant than taking away soiled clothes for washing.

For posters looking for cloth for older children, please do hunt around. I had a (very) large 9 year old in cloth overnight, as well as an average 7 sized seven year old. THere are options, and in my experience cloth nappies overnight were much better st containing floods from bigger children that disposable ones were, meaning less bedding needing to be washed.

And yes, nursery store the nappies, in a wet bag. No smells, no fuss. Just pick up the bag along with the child, swap it for a fresh one next morning.

Do also consider reusable sanpro, which also comes in many forms. My eldest dc (has severe SN) now uses reusable sanpro. Much the same - a zipped waterproof bag for the used ones, clean sent in each day. She finds it much easier to cope with (I have period pants for her, not pads), as she could not be independent using disposable pads - not enough fine motor skill to place them accurately, so needed help. So much easier for her now, and no problem washing them, plus better for the environment. Win win all round.

We used Jessica Alba's nappies (in the States, Honest company) which are biodegradable. Most people don't though as they're expensive.

Although I actually got $100's back from the company for a class action lawsuit last year where they'd lied about ingredients in their products.

As PP has said, the quantities of nappies going to landfill must be eclipsed by the quantities of pads from the elderly and disabled going the same way.
Take one person, four small and one large pad a day, add wipes and bed mats plus a bag each time to contain them.
Then multiply that by the number of people receiving care out there.
It's a huge amount. But I doubt they'd go to reusables - washing them in a communal machine would not be well received.

Whether he said to ban them or not I think it's a relatively good idea considering the impact on the environment, we can rage about plastic use but don't take our convenience nappies away.

Tbf I can see it would be a nuisance but if it was implemented I would imagine reusable more convenient innovations for reusable would be made available.

Or as a pp said nappies that actual decompose would be better even.

Potty training happened earlier when disposables didnt exist. If everyone aimed for 2.5yo potty trained over the "leave them til they appear ready" then that would have a drastic reduction in nappies going to landfil.

Obviously there was, is, and always will be, those who cannot be trained due to additional needs, but those are the exception.

@AnotherPidgey why do you throw the nappies away if they are dry? Couldn't you just use the next night?

@AnotherPidgey why do you throw the nappies away if they are dry? Couldn't you just use the next night?

Would you wear a pair of knickers for more than one day?

@AnotherPigdey
I use Bumgenius BIG for my nearly 4 year old at night (he’s 40lbs); it’s the only one I found that’s big enough (he’s been potty trained during the day since 2. 5 years but no sign of being dry at night). It’s on the smallest setting at the moment so I’m sure it will last for a long while yet.