Knitted nappies?!

[Paaseitjes]

I know you can use lanoline knitted covers but I'm wondering why knitted inners aren't used. Wool is absorbent, dry feel, soft and somewhat antibacterial. Knitted would be stretchy and fit well. It seems so obvious, that I must be missing something! Dear mumsnet, please tell me why are knitted nappies not a thing before I start making some?

My entire family is allergic to wool.

Wool is water resistant to a point, but then becomes saturated easily and can’t be washed at high temperatures ( usually) you can’t bleach it because it destroys the fibres.

Anything knitted becomes heavy very easily when wet.

Itchy and extremely difficult to wash, surely?

My friend used handwashable wool nappies but she put a liner in which was like a disposable nappy.

I'm not sure that soft wool like merino would be more itchy than terry cloth? Would it end up heavier than towelling? It would be exposed to the same amount of pee. The washing is probably the limiting factor. Even magic anti bacterial wool would get pretty nasty only washed at 30

I can’t wear Merino either. All the fibres have scales in them that cause itching. They’re just smaller and smoother on Merino.

Cotton does absorb a lot if watet, but will retain or return to its shape, wool when saturated can stretch permanently. Also cotton is very smooth and fine and doesn’t really cause allergies at all

How would you knit them?

I'm not a knitter, but I guess I'm asking what stitch maybe or if you'll be doing something like felting them afterwards?

I'd imagine the nature of knitting having holes would mean that pee would be more likely to go through rather than soak in? And I can imagine poo would not be easy to wash out of a knitted fabric with lots of nooks and crannies. And you couldn't scrub it.

Would you be able to wash them on a hot wash? My machine has a 'nappies' cycle which is 90°C, I'd image they'd come out to fit a barbie doll after that?!

Ah, that's interesting about wool stretching when wet. I didn't know that, although I suppose it's obvious when making felt hats. I know the baby isn't allergic to wool, thankfully. He's related to some enthusiastic knitters so will be wearing half a sheep this winter!

Wool gets very heavy, stretched, felts etc etc etc when wet. There are more suitable fibres like bamboo. Not sure why you would knit them though. If you want to make your own, try bamboo terry fabric.

They’d droop and stretch like mad.

and they’d stink because you couldn’t hot wash them.

I use a fleece layer which catches anything solid.

I was reading about wool absorbency as a building material which got me thinking, then Google didn't have any answers. There must be quite an overlap in the Venn diagram of knitters and washable nappy users, so I was surprised no one was doing it. I knew I could count on MN! I now have a list of reasons why no one knits their own nappies

Yeah, I’m in that Venn diagram, now that you point it out. Nevertheless, nappies and knitting don’t overlap 😂