AIBU to wonder why more people don’t use reusable nappies?

[KatyClaire]

I have a fairly new baby and I’m a little surprised at how few people I’ve encountered are using reusable nappies. I haven’t met anyone using them in my antenatal group / baby classes / local parents group etc. There has been such an explosion in the use of reusable products (sanitary products, straws, cups, make up wipes etc) that I had assumed it would have crossed into nappies as well.

I don’t know whether it’s a perception issue (people thinking they’re messy and hard to clean), the upfront cost, confusing information etc?

Do you use reusable toilet paper and bin bags? If not, why not?

Using a bucket is not advised for modern nappies so there are no smelly buckets here. And I can't see how putting a rinsed poo nappy in the wash is any more unhygienic than any other item that has had poo rinsed off it, like vests or pants.

Where do you store the soiled rinsed nappies until you get enough for a wash? I know people use a wet bag out and about but it would reek after a few days!

The odd poo soiled rinsed vest or knickers won’t have the same impact on your machine as washing nappies. The amount of poo that must build up in the machine over time horrifies me, doesn’t it get stuck in the rubber seal and drainage parts?

@HTH1

Do you use reusable toilet paper and bin bags? If not, why not?

Not really found anything satisfactory re toilet paper. My preference would be to have a wet room system like in India and no paper, but I've not installed it. If I built my own house I certainly would. In the meanwhile I'll rely on recycled paper instead. Bin bags - that's something to sort out with the local authority - I still need my bins taken away...

Do you use reusable toilet paper and bin bags? If not, why not?

I personally have a bidet but I also don’t think toilet paper is on the same scale - I appreciate that the production of it is damaging to the environment, but it isn’t taking 500 years to decompose in landfill like a nappy is.

Bin bags - is there honestly an alternative? We do what we can to avoid binning rubbish in the first place (food waste bin, avid recycling, avoid single use plastics and packaging as best we can) but for rubbish that has to go in the bin I don’t know what other solution there is. If anyone has found one please let me know!

@HikeForward here's how I do it. The nappy doesn't have any poo on it as the poo lands on a disposable biodegradable liner. I put the poo down the toilet and wrap the liner in a bit of toilet roll and put it in the bin. The nappy itself goes into a lidded nappy bucket which contains a mesh laundry bag. Every other day I open the bucket, remove the laundry bag and place in the washing machine to avoid having to handle any used nappies. No poo goes into my washing machine at all, been doing things this way for a year and my machine is in perfect working order and very clean. My friend has 2 children in cloth nappies and her washing machine is the same. I respect everyone's choices, just thought I'd share seeing as you asked. I know my way sounds like a huge faff written down like that but honestly it's second nature to me now.

@HopeForTheBestExpectTheWorst my child is 2 and a half and no issues.

Also most nurseries won’t take children in cloth, they want disposables as it’s more hygienic than wet bags of soiled nappies hanging from pegs all day. And I’m sure staff don’t want to scrape poo off nappies by hand when they could just dispose of it in a yellow bag!

^ this is untrue, I was changing cloth nappies as a nursery nurse 18 years ago and they were far less mainstream then. A decent nurse I will be happy to use cloth.

I would hope most nurseries would adjust just fine really and wouldn't be impressed if they couldn't handle it

The nurseries I used all specified no cloth nappies for hygiene reasons.

I think it’s unfair to expect a childminder or nursery teacher to scrape your baby or toddler’s poo into the toilet, then rinse the soiled nappy and package it for you to take home. Where would they store all the wet smelly rinsed nappies? People who use cloth are generally against plastic bags IME so even sealing it in a plastic bag for hygiene would be unacceptable? It also takes much longer than changing a disposable and one keyworker might have 3 or 4 children in her care.

Add to this, nurseries often have a changing room without a toilet (or no facilities to wash poo fragments down the sink, if they used a standard sink I imagine it would block the u-bend of the sink pretty quickly if lots of children wore cloth). And they’d have to sterilise the sink every time. Especially in the baby rooms. Once they’re potty training they seem better equipped to deal with accidents, but soiled clothes were still sent home in sealed plastic bags.

@HopeForTheBestExpectTheWorst that’s a fair point, but even if I do find reusables completely unbearable when my baby is 18 months old and decide to switch to disposables, I will still have saved thousands of nappies from going to landfill. To me personally that feels worth it.

@HopeForTheBestExpectTheWorst I use cloth on 2 dc both well past the nappy stage now.

I respect everyone's choices, just thought I'd share seeing as you asked. I know my way sounds like a huge faff written down like that but honestly it's second nature to me now

Thanks, that’s interesting. I guess disposable liners avoid the poo in the machine problem.

I used re-usables for about a week but found it too hard to manage the extra washing, drying and getting the fit right (I know they say try lots of brands but I was put off by the cost per nappy, cute as the designs are!) And i was worried about the machine long term, managing when out and when she started nursery etc.

I’m sorry but you lose all eco points for uttering the sentence “Bin bags - is there honestly an alternative?”

Nobody who had spent more than 5 minutes considering their own impact on the environment would need to ask that question. It’s very clear cloth nappies is your little pet project while you’re on maternity leave and that’s as far as you’ve gotten with your plan to save the world. Which is fine, like has been said, by me included, nobody needs to be totally green in every aspect of their life- we all do what we can. But if you haven’t even investigated alternatives to bin bags then you have absolutely no right to rabbit on about the thousands of nappies everyone else is dumping into landfill. It’s laughable tbh.

@HikeForward

I would hope most nurseries would adjust just fine really and wouldn't be impressed if they couldn't handle it

The nurseries I used all specified no cloth nappies for hygiene reasons.

I think it’s unfair to expect a childminder or nursery teacher to scrape your baby or toddler’s poo into the toilet, then rinse the soiled nappy and package it for you to take home. Where would they store all the wet smelly rinsed nappies? People who use cloth are generally against plastic bags IME so even sealing it in a plastic bag for hygiene would be unacceptable? It also takes much longer than changing a disposable and one keyworker might have 3 or 4 children in her care.

Add to this, nurseries often have a changing room without a toilet (or no facilities to wash poo fragments down the sink, if they used a standard sink I imagine it would block the u-bend of the sink pretty quickly if lots of children wore cloth). And they’d have to sterilise the sink every time. Especially in the baby rooms. Once they’re potty training they seem better equipped to deal with accidents, but soiled clothes were still sent home in sealed plastic bags.

When you work in childcare, nappy changing is just part of the job band you know that when you go into it. Used nappies would go into a wet bag kept in the child’s bag, it really was quite simple.

@willFOURbagsbeenough

I’m sorry but you lose all eco points for uttering the sentence “Bin bags - is there honestly an alternative?”

Nobody who had spent more than 5 minutes considering their own impact on the environment would need to ask that question. It’s very clear cloth nappies is your little pet project while you’re on maternity leave and that’s as far as you’ve gotten with your plan to save the world. Which is fine, like has been said, by me included, nobody needs to be totally green in every aspect of their life- we all do what we can. But if you haven’t even investigated alternatives to bin bags then you have absolutely no right to rabbit on about the thousands of nappies everyone else is dumping into landfill. It’s laughable tbh.

I’m genuinely interested in alternative to bin bags? My council only take general waste if it’s bagged so im not sure what else I could do,

I’m genuinely interested in alternative to bin bags?

Not sure what the question is.

My council only take general waste if it’s bagged so im not sure what else I could do

Well I guess that’s the end of that story then? It’s not like there are bags that aren’t plastic....

Why do so many nurseries state disposables only in their policy then?

Personally I’d feel bad giving a nursery teacher extra work to do (and let’s face it scraping, rinsing and bagging a re-usable takes much longer than changing a disposable nappy. Nursery staff are often low paid and don’t always have children of their own. Changing a disposable is fairly simple but changing a re-usable can be quite revolting, especially if child is weaning and nappy has no liner, so the whole nappy has to be rinsed out and packed up.

We try to be environmentally friendly where we can - we don't own a tumble dryer, we recycle, use biodegradable wipes, don't use harsh chemical cleaning products, etc...but reusable nappies just did not work for us.
They would get really wet, leak and droop, it felt like we permanently had the washing machine on and her skin felt damp which I didn't like. Personally, I did not think they were any good and disposables are much easier and kinder on DDs skin. We tried 2 different brands too and they were not exactly cheap!

@willFOURbagsbeenough

I’m genuinely interested in alternative to bin bags?

Not sure what the question is.

My council only take general waste if it’s bagged so im not sure what else I could do

Well I guess that’s the end of that story then? It’s not like there are bags that aren’t plastic....

I’m not sure why you feel the need to be rude to me, I am genuinely interested. Paper bags fall apart when they get wet so wouldn’t really work for general waste as the waste would then be loose.

Hmm , have you done any research on sweatshops and workers rights with these companies I would hate to think of other Mothers working 12 hrs a day to supply these . Also which politics they associate with .

It was quiet a while ago I had babies , but so disappointed to see new Mothers being called too lazy or can't be bothered . Motherhood is never the easy option . What has happened to young women ?

I’m not sure why you feel the need to be rude to me, I am genuinely interested.

Look I am not going to spoon feed you this information. If you were genuinely interested you’d have done your research already and seen what’s out there. Paper bags falling apart when wet would not mean case closed.

HopeForTheBestExpectTheWorst - try me - washable nappies for all my kids, 4 of them, oldest is 9yrs old, all in washable nappies from birth to 2yrs when they potty trained.

Re nurseries - pretty appalling for nurseries to have dispo nappy as a policy in this day and age! I would be really unimpressed. All they need to do is put the dirty nappies in a nappy bag of sort and in the baby's bag for me to pick up every day, hardly rocket science!

@Thesearmsofmine I'll save you some research, the bioldegradable bin bags are really expensive, much much much more so than plastic, therefore not very accessible to most people. Probably why PP didn't want to say anything useful about it.

Probably why PP didn't want to say anything useful about it.

No, I didn’t want to say anything about it (never mind anything useful!) because I actually spent the time doing my own research (FYI bio bags aren’t your only option ) and have no interest in spending time giving that info to someone who can’t be arsed to do it themselves despite being “genuinely interested”

If you want to reduce your plastic distribution you’ll do it. Regardless of whether someone on the internet tells you how or not.

@MissBaskinIfYoureNasty

The ones I've used are either crap and leak or look really hefty and uncomfortable on my babies. I also think the culty hoarding of must have prints is a tragic community I don't want to be part of.

tragic community I don’t want to be a part of

😂