Question on cleaning baby bums for the v. inexperienced

[redcarrot1]

I intend on using reusable nappies and will clean bum with cotton wool dipped in water...blah blah.

My question is what do you do with the poo-covered cotton wool? Do you just pop it in a nappy bag/something similar or straight in the bin? Won't the bin then stink of poo? I think I'm going to need a bigger bin!

40 + 1 and starting to panic!

Just do whatever is easiest for you. I put cotton wool into nappy sacks. Make sure you get the cotton wool squares. Not the balls

Once meconium is gone its easiest to use reusable wipes and chuck in with the nappies.

Aah...so I should use muslins post-meconium. Can you get away with one per nappy change? Think I'll need more of those then! Thanks!

reusable nappy wipes are really easy to use - you could cut up old flannels, or buy fleece backed terry squares from online nappy retailers. Some people carry them in a little tupperware box ready dampened, I carry a small drinks bottle with a solution of water, olive oil and a drop of baby soap which I replenish every couple of days... I can't believe I've been doing this for 7 years now!! I found cotton wool balls extremely difficult to use, so when I've been in hospital I've used sensitive baby wipes and switched to my reusable wipes as soon as I'm home. huh. I wouldn't use muslins - personal choice, but my muslins are for shoulders!!

Just put it in a nappy sack (30p for 300 lightly scented ones from Tesco last time I checked!) and into the bin. Empty bin out to outdoors wheelie every night. No smells this way. Newborn poo is minimally offensive.

In the longer term get yourself some washable wipes. Ikea flannels do the job just fine, though Cheeky Wipes are a nicer alternative. I use disposable nappies due to laziness but have always used washable wipes simply because they clean really well. I find disposable wipes just... smear things around

Oh and you need a washable wipe made of terrycloth rather than muslin. Muslins are huge and would just smear. (Must stop saying smear).

Yes to the washable wipes. They are cheap and work far far better than disposable wipes.

Have a look at the cheeky wipes website thenmakeyourown. The flannels from ikea are good. Someone also bought me tons of cheap supermarket baby face clothes. They are now bum clothes

We use Cheeky Wipes (and reusable nappies) and find them great - agree you could make your own cheaper. We make a mix to soak them in from a mug of chamomile and honey tea with a few drops of essential oil; nice and soothing.

Another vote for reusable wipes. Very easy to use! As long as you have a nappy bin with a well-fitting lid (we use a 20L pedal bin with a mesh liner inside), there is no smell.

Also Cheeky Wipes are having a 25% sale today and this weekend.

Added bonus of using reusable wipes is that if you ever run out of toilet paper while you're on the loo.......

Of course that only works if you keep them within arms reach of the toilet.

Not read all posts but we use flannels here one flannel will cover even a big poo if ur careful with it just run under warm tap ring out wipe bum stick inside ur nappy and stick in ur Pail then u can wash it all at the same time :)

And if bubs ever gets nappy rash u can brew up some camomile tea and use that on ur flannel it'll help soothe the skin :)

Camomile is amazing on little bums.

Washable wipes way better than cotton wool at cleaning bottoms!

Another vote for cheeky wipes. Much less likely to get the toxic sludge that is newborn poop on your hands!

We used little flannels (they might have some name but I clearly cannot remember it). Get them pretty wet with warm water and you will get them clean sharpish.

Also, we used to do bucket and sink baths to clean up, which involved no wiping cloths at all, just a a hand.

wow, thanks! This has been an education.

And I thought I'd pretty much researched every aspect of looking after a newborn....

We used cotton wool and water for a couple of weeks, as advised. But we soon found that this only smeared poo around rather than picking it up. Since then we've pretty much been on baby wipes, with no problems....

We use soft toilet paper to get the worst part off then a sponge and warm water to clean up..... The toilet paper goes in the loo and there's no washing to do.

Silly question... when you have things to flush down the loo, like that toilet paper or a flushable liner, how do you get it from where you're changing to the toilet?

When everything goes in the bin, we just have the nappy sack next to the change mat and all the dirty things to straight into it, then tie it up, and we take it to the bin.

But we just started experimenting with cloth nappies with flushable liners, and I'm not quite sure how best to handle the flushable part, so they are still ending up in the nappy sack and bin. Do you use another nappy sack to contain and transport things to the loo? Or just put it on some toilet paper? Or does everyone else change the baby within reach of the toilet?

(FWIW, we're still at a point where poo is very runny. I think if I just picked things up and carried them, I wouldn't get them to the toilet without dripping.)

We use fleece liners as found the flush able ones pretty useless tbh when babies poo is firm enough to flush take the whole nappy to the loo and flick it down I have spare plastic forks spoons knives that I keep in the bathroom for when it's a bit sticky sorry tmi if ur clever u can also hold the fleece liner in the loo and flush and the flysh will take the poo off but if ur using flush able liners I'd take nappy to toilet flush liner & poo then put ur nappy in the pail :)

And I'd switch to fleece if ur Los poo is runny as it will just soak right through the paper liners fleece will hold it all in u don't need to spend a lot if u have some fleece u can make them urself :)

I used to hold the fleece liner in the toilet while I flushed it if it was runny.

Don't do this if you have a Blu in the toilet though as you will end up repeatedly washing said liner a million times until it stops being blue.

I chalked that one up to experience along with not putting tupperware and/or baby bottles in the dishwasher along with the dishes from that night's spaghetti bolognese. Still have some lovely orange stained plastic boxes in the cupboard.

I don't change nappies in the bathroom - I tend to wrap the used liner inside the nappy and place the whole lot on top of my nappy bucket until I've changed the nappy, then when baby is all clean, dry and dressed again, I put her safely on the floor and take the nappy to the bathroom to flush the liner, bring the nappy back to the bucket, give the top of the bucket a quick spray with my 'out and about' spray then go wash my hands. If it is what I have come to call a 'leaker' (sorry if tmi), I may need reinforcements to help me, but if alone will put the whole lot inside the nappy bucket and deal with it once baby is cleaned up and dealt with!