Are cloth nappies 'on the wane'?

[ThatGhastlyWoman]

Yesterday I was in a local shop, using up a gift voucher on a shiny new nappy: the owner said that she thought (as in the title) that cloth nappying was 'on the wane' these days.

Is this true, or is it that the online shops now get all the business?

I am about to use my stash for dc3. both the others were, to a greater degree, in cloth.

dd2 less so, but then there was a lot of shit going on at home when she was tiny, and I did fall back into disposables for convenience for a bit.

it is a big intitial outlay, so I guess not that many people have so much spare cash lying around at the moment, but then the savings over time are good, if you don't get tempted by all the lovely new nappies available.

all mine are still going strong, and have been used for at least 3 children already, but in 8 years of being a parent I have only come across one other family who use cloth, so it's never been popular where I am (leafy green middle England)

In my NCT group 2 out of 8 of us use cloth nappies, which seems pretty good to me. Though admittedly maybe people who go to NCT are more likely to be inclined that way anyway?

Hmm. I'm in Scotland, and have to say have only met one or two folk who've even tried it. My sister has been setting up a new business in the last couple of years, part of which will be a nappy laundry service. It seems she keeps hearing about people selling off equipment cheaply...

Kaloo I think that's probably the case! I got the impression from going to NCT that everyone would breastfeed, but on the ward after my daughter was born I think more than half were straight onto formula...

Not round my way, but I do live close to a rather lentil-weavery part of north London!

3/8 of my NCT group are in full time cloth (inc me!)

5/16 of the babies i know born in the same month of my daughter are also in cloth

14/16 were pretty much exclusively breast fed at 3m old, and now at 6m /7m, only 4/16 are on exclusive formula, the other 12 are either wholly or mostly BF.

Everyone who i know who uses cloth / loves cloth, and we pretty much NEVER have poo leaks unlike those in disposables!

Lots and lots of my really good friends now have babies / toddlers, and i would say about 1/3 use (or used until potty training) cloth at some point!....

I had 6 long term nanny jobs over 10 years, and 3 of those families used cloth

Wow, nannyl- those are pretty good stats.

Wish more folk nationally were using them, I reckon they're much better too, though we do occasionally use disposables. My partner's a shocker for using them if he is looking after our daughter, even if there are pocket nappies sat there...

Re BF- not sure that's always about choice. My milk just started disappearing after 6/7 months, and we had to supplement with formula more and more: not what I would have wished for, but what can you do? (Did the whole breast pump thing, to no avail.) I think my daughter's a bit more hungry/large than average, too, which doesn't help...

in my area this is definately the case as a few health visitors have told me they cant remember the last time they saw a baby in cloth before my son and one of the doctors said the same.

My sisters oldest DD is 14 now and I'm pregnant with my first. Somewhere during that time it seems to have become 'normal' to use disposables.

14 years ago (in Australia) on 'lazy' or 'rich' people used disposables all the time. They were for overnight, days out and holidays.

Being pg I haven't even considered using disposables. If I'm taking a year off I figure an extra load of washing every day or two really won't hurt me!

When I was in school I can remember learning that in Australia alone disposable nappies in landfill could reach to the moon seven and half times!

And now I'm an adult I'm a carbon buyer and travel to low carbn development projects around the world. Many of these are sanitary landfill which extract methane from closed landfill to generate green electricity. When they do sample cores they have on occassion pulled up disposable nappies that are 30 years and not decomposted.

Perhaps these two combined facts are underlying motivators for me, but I really hope more people consider going back to cloth. Who knows? Maybe the economic situation will help?

Oh, and 'eco' dissposables need perfect conditions to decompose - this is very unlikely in normal landfill so a con in my mind.

After all, a cigarette butt takes 30 years to decompose in direct sunlight...

In France they're on the up.

I may be singlehandedly responsible for at least 5 families using cloth

I think I know one friend with a comparable age baby to DS2 who uses cloth. Most of my friends and acquaintances are on their second (or third!) child and I've noticed that those friends whom I knew used cloth with their first, aren't using cloth with their second. One told me that she just didn't have time for it with two young children, and another said she put off putting her second child into cloth until he refused to wear them because they were so unfamiliar.

I'm the other way round - I barely used cloth the first time round (I had a whole system of new One Lifes too, and we never got on with them - wish I'd known enough not to fall for the hype and just get a selection of preused different types) but DS2 has been in cloth since 4 months and we love it.

If I go to a sling meet, you can't throw a buckwheat organic scone without hitting several mothers whose children are in cloth. Ditto the slightly lentil-weavey family centre I go to. But among most of my friends, cloth is unheard of.

I don't know anyone else who uses washables. One of the girls in my office actually asked me what I meant by reusable nappies when I mentioned that I used them (as part of cost saving discussions)! Most of my friends don't get it and think it's too hard to do; they've never even considered it.

I met loads of people who have used cloth part time. In my experience many people change to disposibles when they go back to work as most nurseries will not do cloth nappies. Also when you are back at work keeping up with the washing is a challenge.

I think a lot depends on which group of mums you mix with. A lot of the mums at the nhs breastfeding cafe used cloth and la leche League mums often use cloth.