Would you recommend going for reusables?

[highheelsandequations]

My first DC is due in July and I've been thinking I'd really like to try reusables but am worried I'll be rubbish with them and it'll take me 20 mins to change a nappy! I have been to the nappy lady website and she's recommended a couple of systems- flexitots and bamboozle stretch. I think I'm starting to get my head around what I need and all the different parts but would appreciate answers to the following:

Any experience with the brands I've been recommended?

Honestly, are reusables easy to get the hang of? And what problems (if any) have you had with them?

Do you use resuables when out and about as well as at home?

Would you recommend reusable fleece wipes as well? Again are these honestly easy to get the hang of?

What do I really need to know before I spend a small fortune on nappies?

What else should I be asking people?

Any comments and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Congratulations!

I am only answering as I felt the same way you did - I'm by no means an expert (hopefully one will be along shortly) and chose my 'system' (Bumgenius v3 - they've since been upgraded) on the basis that they looked pretty similar to disposables and 3 other people I knew used them too.

At the time, my local council were offering £50 grants towards disposables (do councils still do this or has it been a victim of the cuts?) so I just bought a few to see how I got on with them. Turns out it was surprisingly easy although all the poppers (to make the nappy smaller so it fits a newborn) made them look scarily complicated. I ended up buying a full set eventually.

I only ended up using them in earnest once DD was weaned and doing more solid poos. But you can get flushable liners so really that probably isn't a big deal. As she's got older I've found she's leaked quite quickly but I've just invested in some bamboo boosters which seem to be getting round that problem. I bought some fleece wipes at the same time and am regretting not having done so much earlier, they're great.

You can use washables when out and about - you can get nappy bags to carry the used ones around in although a disposable nappy bag works OK too. You might want to give some thought to whether you have enough space indoors to air dry the nappies during the winter (or are willing to tumble dry them/have them all over your radiators). But on sunny days like today they're great. One other thing to bear in mind is that you might find you need to size up on things like trousers as they can be quite bulky.

Hi High,

We went into reuseables with very little research and for purely financial reasons.

We went for the basic terry squares and have had no trouble at all.
Changes don't take much longer than a disposable. I do need to keep on top of the washing and then folding squares up ready. We have 24, so I wash every other day.

I would suggest getting the trial packs I think the Nappy Lady does and seeing what works for you maybe alongside disposables in the early days to take the pressure off, then buy the birth to potty pack that suits you best.

We don't have reuseable wipes, but I would think they'd be easy enough to throw in with the nappies.

At 5 months, we've started to have night leakage, but it's the same with disposables and at least it's easy to boost reuseables (not quite got round to sorting that yet though!).

We always use disposables when out as we don't drive and it would be a bit much to be carting around bags of nappies!

I do think it's good to use disposables for at least the first couple of weeks and switch when you've settled down a bit, especially as it's your first. It can be quite intense and there's already a lot more washing than you might expect before throwing nappies into the mix.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice, will start investigating trial packs I think. Really good to hear some experiences from people that have used reusables and good to hear that you don't need to be an expert to give them a go!

Im cloth bottoming this bump when it arrives. I have bought a variety of nappies. Some prefolds for newborn some bumgenius vs 4s and a lot of others varying from sized to one size fits all, and a whole heap of itti bittis snap ins and aios because they look much trimmer and I imagine them easier to fit under clothes.

We started off with disposable newborn nappies then went on to Mothercare shaped nappies and then terry squares.

With baby 2 and 3 we used tots bots, motherease, stuffies and fuzzi bunz.

Easy to put on, you wash so much that 2-3 extra loads is nothing and you save a lot of money plus you can resell them and make money back.

We use a mixture of disposables (ovrnight and going out) and reusables when at home (and quick trips to shops).

We started with terry squares, which were ok once we got some decent wraps (motherease).

I then got a load of second hand lollipop nappies from our nct list (60 quid for 15 day nappies , 5 night nappies, loads of wraps, liners and carry bags). These are great.

I am finding we are using the reusables more now ds is bigger as he seems less swamped by them, he can now sit and roll in them. Also, he was very intolerant of wet nappies to start with but again that is improving.

I would seriously suggest buying secondhand. Much cheaper and less guilt if you find you don't use them .

Good luck.

We have used cloth for both dcs, day and night, at home and out and about. Once you get teh hang of it then it really doesn't take any more time to change a nappy than it does a paper one. Plus cloth tends to have better poo containment so less of the explosive baby poo all the way up the back .

We have mainly used terry squares with fleece liners. Fab, easy, slim fitting, versitilie, last form birth to potty, cheap! Also have some tots bots fluffles (don't think they do them any more) which are great as they come out ofhte machine almost dry but are very bulky. Have a close baby pop in which I do very much like although it is a bit small so doesn't last birth to potty as it claims.

I borrowed a bumgenius off a friend once when I ran out of nappies ona day out and I adored it. They come apart for drying and dry really, really fast but then they go on all together so just like a disposable which is great for men (dh was never quite as good at terry folding as me!), grandparents, nursery etc.

I think you need somewhere between 20 and 30 nappies for ease although if on a budget you can get by with 15. I had 2 small buckets which together made up a full wash load. Once you get into the swing of it then you don't really notice the extra washing, especially if you have plenty of nappies and can wait until you have a full load rather than doing it in small amounts. I rinse poo down teh loo, chuck the nappies in the bucket then when in the machine start witha rinse before a wash on 60C. The rinse helps to wash away any remaining poo and also stops the wee smell from setting in.

I use cloth wipes too, at home I just run them under the tap as needed and throw in the bucket. When out you can either wet some and pop into a small tub (or if you spot a baby magazine with a travel wipes case as the free gift they are fab) or use a cheap atomiser to spray the wipe/bottom. My dcs are out of nappies now but I still use the cloth wipes quite often for poos!

Def just get a trial pack of a few different types and see what you like best before investing. I've always had really good service form here and they do some good trial kits.

i started off with disposable and moved onto a mix of cloth and disposable when dd was 2mo, using disposable at night.

dd is now in cloth 100% of the time at 10mo, unless i am very behind with the laundry then she is in disposable until i have caught up (not much drying room here)

i went for little lamb nappies as they were cheaper than the main brands of cloth nappies.
never had any problems with leaks, poo explosions, nappy rash and changing the nappy doesn't take any longer than using a disposable.

I have been trying a Bamboozle stretch on DS2 for night and I love it but find it too bulky for everyday use but DS is only 17 weeks so will prob grow into it. I use a Bumgenius flip wrap or a Motherease Rikki over it.

I think reusables are easy to get the hang of if you are open minded and find nappies that suit you. I made the mistake with DS1 of buying a whole system recommended by the nappy lady which was very reliable but I just couldn't get round the bulky bum not fitting in his clothes.
This time round I have bought many different types of nappy and am slowly trying them out and creating my stash, I used a mixture of disposables and cloth until I had enough for full time cloth.

I do use reusables out and about, usually Bumgenius one size, Charlie banana, Bambooty or Totsbots organic cotton with a fleece liner and Flip wrap. I have two weehugger double zip wetbags with one pocket for clean stuff and one for dirty, when we get home I put all my unused clean stuff in my other bag and the dirty stuff and bag go in the wash.

Definately use washable wipes, they are nicer and cheaper. I bought a fleece blanket from Dunelm and got 70 odd out of it for £3.99. Jackson Reece do nice herbal disposable wipes for when we use disposables.

I recommend babykind, cheeks and cherries, fill your pants, the natural baby and eBay for buying reusables, all mine have been on offer.

Hi highheels

I use both the bamboozles and flexitots. The bamboozles I prefer the old popper sort but the stretch aren't too bad either. The flexitots don't bother with as a main nappy, the only advantage over the bamboozles are that they dry quicker and are good as a back up. Motherease wraps are definitely the ones to use as the tots bots wraps don't seem to fit very well. Why not buy some second hand on clothnappytree

I started off using pampers as we didn't want the faff of figuring out the reusables for the first few weeks. Pampers were just horrible and kept leaking. After I converted to reusables (terrys for the first month or so) I found the washing to be not that much more as I wasn't washing bedding or clothing as frequently due to pampers leaking. Give it a go, once you get your washing routine it's really not that much work and I find a fluffly bottom strangely alluring

Yes totally recommend them but not until 6 weeks or so, newborns just seem to poo all day long, at least mine did.

in answer to your questions:

• yes I also use them out and about, went to a bbq in a field on sunday no problem at all. Have made a bag out of plastic-backed sheet and just bung the dirties in there till we get home.
• no need to spend a small fortune, I've spent 200 pounds in total and have bought 3 newborn wraps (not used much), 5 ordinary wraps of which 4 are expandable birth to potty or whatever they're called, and a whole load of cloth and bamboo nappies to go inside them. With hindsight I wouldn't have bought the newborn naps because I needed the first few weeks after birth to get sorted.
• you will feel very virtuous not throwing a whole bag of dirty disposables in the bin at the end of each day.

Hi, yes, from about 5 days onwards - if you have lots of drying space. Only friend I agreed it wouldn't be great for lived in tiny flat, no outside space, no room for racks on radiators, no money for dryer on all the time.

I got lots of second-hand ones and from 2 weeks in used them all the time for over 2 years. I found it made me feel a lot better when ds had a change and then peed immediately, as I hadn't wasted more money on a nappy. And he got rash with disposables if used more than 2 in a row. Until ds started solids I wiped with wet cloths and washed them too. Then I decided the poo was too icky and got babywipes!

But babies are all different shapes so a brand that's ideal for your baby may not work so well on another. And some babies get rash more easily with them (others don't)

Cloth nappies do look extra adorable in summer when your baby is crawling around with no trousers on!

Thanks for all the advice ladies, have decided to buy a few different brands and use alongside disposables at first, hopefully we'll find nappies that suit us reasonably quickly and be able to go reusable full time. Thanks also for the website recommendations.

Waves to mumnerves

Weve used both the types of nappy you have been advised to use and they are both great! I am the laziest person ever, we dont have a dryer and ive never had any problems with washables, ive used them with both my girls (didnt use them with DS as i had no idea there were all these scrummy nappies asvailable!) and wouldnt have it any other way.

Try buying a few at first cheaply and see how you go if you are unsure. I think theres some brand new stretchies selling on the for sale board here that some crazy lady bought too many of 'cough' lol or you could try used nappies to see if they do ok. Good luck hun xx