To wonder why more people don't use reusable nappies?

[GinGeum]

I know this will be controversial and I know there will always be some circumstances when they are not suitable, but since becoming a parent, I've not come across a single other parent using reusable nappies.

Everyone I know has also said they were never mentioned to them at all by antenatal classes/midwife/anyone. In the hospital, none of the staff we encountered had any idea what our baby was wearing.

Surely now we are all thinking about reducing plastic, disposable nappies should be fairly high on the list of things to cut down on? Programmes like the war on plastic on BBC barely mentioned disposable nappies. Even switching to reusable wipes would make a huge difference.

AIBU to wonder why reusable nappies aren't promoted more?

I've always used them. Most people I know do. But yabu for a goad thread

Does everyone use these liners?

Nope. I agree, they shouldn’t be flushed, the ones I used made it through a couple of washes before disintegrating so I yeah I wouldn’t image they should be flushed. But they’re paper so just bin them.

I prefer fleece liners as they stay dry so stop the baby feeling uncomfortable.

In answer to the above iIn terms of washing, I do a cool pre wash with just nappies as a rinse, they then go on a 40 degree cycle. If it’s not a full load then you can add other bits to the cycle so you have a full load. The agitation helps with getting the nappies clean, most people I know tend to add things like towels.

The disposable liners are often sold as being flushable, but shouldn’t really be flushed in my opinion, they can go in the bin though (poo should be flushed whether in a disposable or in a liner really) and obviously are a lot less waste than a full nappy.

I use little and bloom with prefolds as inserts for daytime. Pretty cheap as far as reusables go. I do have a few bum genius which are our night time nappy.

All second hand, I mended a few myself - elastics etc. They're now doing a second baby so I've had my monies worth.

If you're not fussed about patterns etc you can get them very cheap, personally I don't find them to be anymore work that buying, bringing home, bagging up and binning disposables.

If you're in Scotland look for the leaflet in your baby box, you get a totsbots newborn trial pack which is great for having a try if you're not sure. Send the leaflet off asap though as they do take a little while to arrive.

@piglet89 - absolutely make use of the nappy library. Also eBay. There is a very active buying and selling group on Facebook too - linked to an excellent advice group. The advice group is cloth nappies UK I think. The selling group will be linked from there. Im a nappy library co ordinator too, if I can help, please pm.

We used reusables for our first, but the electricity bills for washing them were crippling (and the environmental impact would have been correspondingly high). We gave them away before having our second, who then had disposables.

Always had great, almost instant advice from www.clothnappytree.com , they have lots of people selling nappies too

I went to a nappy library when DD was a month old and tried a few brands, found one we got on with and bought a starter pack. For some reason we just didn't get on with them, I didn't mind the additional work as I use reusable wipes anyway and have been using reusable cotton pads for years (which is less work but the same principle), but they leaked, irritated her, and unfortunately despite persevering it just wasn't happening. I sold them for quite a big loss as they just wouldnt sell, and couldn't afford the initial outlay again. However I'm not going to feel guilty about using disposables. We only want one child, if we wanted another I would have taken a loan probably as an investment. I haven't flown for well over 10 years, I sold my car as I didnt need it whilst on maternity and have continued to use public transport, I buy fruit and veg locally so no plastic on, get milk delivered in reusable glass bottles, and don't eat meat. I didn't buy any new plastic toys for baby, second hand ones and the rest wooden- so I like to think I do what I can in other aspects.

We had both but DS went to nursery at 8 months and it just didn't seem terribly convenient for them to use them. The fact that I still breastfed him at that age was already a curiosity. They weren't negative about it but he apparently was the first breastfed baby they've had.
We then moved and I initially sent him to his new nursery with reusable nappies. (They only get organic produce, toys are made if wood, lots of outdoor and nature-based play in the fields, etc. It's my workplace nursery,...) They didn't know what to do with them, either. He's just moved into the room for toddlers (he's 2.5) and he's wearing BambioMio potty training pants. Had to explain that at first, too, but seems to be ok for now and less of an issue.
It's harder when your child has to be looked after by someone else. He's been fine wearing reusable ones at home and they do tend to dry quickly, depending on which ones we are using. We have a range, including Little Lamb, Totsbots and Close Parent.

We've just moved over, my baby is 10 months, gutted because we should have done it years ago with our first (she's potty trained now).

I use a cornstarch disposable liner to catch solids on top of a fleece liner (aka a cut up blanket!). Solids get flushed, fleece gets rinsed, nappies get shoved in the washing machine. I tend to give them a 15 min wash cycle then a second wash with our general laundry which I do once a day.

For people saying you don't want wee or poo in your washing machine, what do you do if your kid has a dicky tummy etc?

I bought a load from a woman who'd bought them new but never used them.

But our bathroom (where washing machine is) needed repairs that took months and we couldn't feasibly do it for a few months.

After that, I struggled so much with a baby / housework / laundry and a baby with feeding difficulties (had a difficult birth and zero family or outside help) that I couldn't have coped if I'd added washing nappies to the mix.

We bought all the stuff but my god, what a faf! There was shit everywhere. And I was BF and just exhausted with a newborn who hardly let you put her down.

I agree with everything @Starface said. Cloth nappies are one of those things where evangelists bang on and on about how wonderful and easy it is but I use a mix of disposables and reusables and honestly, it is a ballache doing all the washing and figuring out the best system and dealing with leaks etc. I use all in one nappies and even after extensive research I still don’t totally ‘get’ any of the other types of reusables. And many people will have to change more often.

Having said all that I got a £30 council rebate on some new nappies and bought a few second hand so initial setup was cheap and I don’t buy into the argument that all the washing is worse than using disposables.

I hadn’t really anticipated all the squeamishness that I’m seeing on this thread, fair enough if cloth nappies aren’t for you but ‘who on earth wants poo in their washing machine’ and ‘why would you want to bring a bag of shitty nappies home from nursery’.... evidently quite a few people don’t mind this given that the cloth nappy industry is thriving?

As quite a few pp have said, reusable wipes are such an easy change to make and I honestly believe disposable ones will not be the norm in a few years. The tide is turning and excessive use of wipes is just becoming a bit gross.

I have a bag of reusable nappies from when my two were babies that i’d be happy to send to anyone who wants to try them but can’t afford the initial outlay!

Just use terry nappies and liners,soak them for 24 hours then shove in the machine. I managed with 2 in nappies, no central heating and living in the North of Scotland, you just have to be organised.

Surely it's not just nappies, sanitary products and incontinence products are all the same. In hospitals they incinerate these items as they're classed as clinical waste.

I wish I had used them with my daughter. She was out of nappies and dry at night by 20 months so would have been easy!

They’ve exploded massively in popularity in the last few years. When DC1 was born I wanted to but nobody else seemed to use them and the cost of a starter set was astronomical and I had no clue what I was doing. When DC1 arrived birth was traumatic, it took me months to heal physically and mentally and I couldn’t get the headspace to deal with nappies too. Also he was a milk allergy baby doing 10 poos a day for the first 6 months. Then when he was 6 months the builders moved in for a year and washing machine access was more complicated. It just wasn’t so easy. By the time DC2 came these were much more of a thing with much more knowledge and also second hand nappies available. But by then I knew DC2 was my last and again the outlay seemed too steep. I hope they do catch on because they are a much better solution in terms of plastic. But there are water and energy costs too - people go on about washing at 30 but I think 60 is needed to stop washing machines being full of harmful biofilms.

I had DD in Brighton 16 years ago and most of the mums I knew used them then - there were quite a few nappy laundry services around too although I didn't feel the need to use one

20 years ago it was completely normal where I lived in London to use re useables. Laundry services were common and no one batted an eyelid about it.

I’ll tell you why I didn’t use cloth nappies.

Because I had a baby that was Hard Work. He barely slept and then only on my arms. He cried if I wasn’t holding him and I barely managed day to day life. He now has an asd diagnosis. He wasn’t a ‘nap in the day for two hours’ baby. He was a ‘get up at 2am for three hours’ baby and this carried on for years. Add in the well meaning but useless advice as an extra stress and my goodness. No family support nearby. No babysitters. I barely made it through and I would have cried at an extra task . I did all night wakings, all nappy changes, and he wouldn’t stay with anyone else till he was three. And the thing is, at the time you don’t know that’s just how he is - half of you are thinking I’m bonkers for letting it be like that but that’s how it was and that’s how he is.

Cloth nappies, no matter how easy, would have been an extra task and I was barely managing.

For the person who asked about how it works practically

We have all in ones. You lay it out just like a pampers and then put a liner on it. Lay baby on do it up.

Once it is wet/ dirty remove and wipe baby. We have flushable liners so they go down the loo, with any solids.

Dirty nappy goes in a mesh bag in a bucket. When mesh bag is full the entire mesh bag goes in the washing machine. Hot wash then onto the line to dry.

The washing machine is clean for the next load. Same way I can wash my work clothes straight after DH football kit.

@steaknguinness my firstborn was also like that. It was exhausting and there was this unspoken assumption that I just hadn’t trained my baby properly. He’s still awkward and hard work with his emotions. Luckily my DC2 is an absolute peach so I know it’s not just me being shit at parenting

We have cloth nappies but don't use them much. Keep getting leaks, struggling to keep up with washing, can't afford to buy more so stuck with ones I got... I do think they're a good idea and we keep trying them and being disappointed every so often

I would love to try the reusable sanitary towels. That's my next thing to get, it just baulk at spending it on myself. I do need to get over it and get some bought, I'll be using them a lot longer than I use the nappies.

@TheGoogleMum what brand have you got? X