Washing nappies and wipes

[NicciLovesSundays]

Hi All
I am 20 weeks pregnant and thinking about the pros and cons of using reusable nappies. It has just occurred to me that i have quite a large washing machine drum. How long does it take you to have enough nappies and liners to do a load in the machine? Do you out any other items in or do a nappy wash only?
Also, ive never seen reusables in action before - is there always a disposabe bit that gets rid of most of the mess or do you have another way to remove most of the poo before it goes on the machine?
thanks

have a read of this, it should answer all your questions x

You shake the poo off into the toilet.

I thought I wanted to do this too when I was pg. Ds is now 4 months ish and I still can't imagine finding the time. He still gets through around 20 nappies a day (huge baby that feeds often and won't tolerate wet for a millisecond).
I would advise waiting and seeing. It's such a big investment to get reusables that if they don't work for your family you'll regret it.
Most reusable nappy users I know would recommend waiting until the baby is 6 weeks or so anyway as the first weeks can be exhausting without needing to wash nappies. Also, the meconium is difficult to wash, if you bf your baby might poo at every feed (mine did and fed every 1-2 hours) and they don't always fit right away, particularly if you have a small baby!

I had 15 nappies,
We'd use around 6-10 a day.
Wash and dry overnight.

I did tend to use a disposable(biodegradable) overnight and if we were out all day.

Didn't use them until my babies were a couple of months old

Not planning to rush out and buy anything straight away, going to wait until baba is 4 - 8 weeks old first. Just trying to get an idea if its for us at this stage. Thanks for the advice so far

I've just bought a baby wipe kit in the cheeky wipes 25% sale. I think even if we don't go down the reusable route for nappies, then at least we've done a little bit by getting reusable wipes.

For nappies we're going to decide after the newborn stage!

I'm so pleased people are increasingly looking into reusables!

We have a 8kg drum, and I wash every 2-3 days for our heavy wetter one year old, so when we have maybe 10-12 nappies.

Re poo, pre-weaning most people don't bother with liners. The poo is liquid and the whole nappy goes in the machine. Once weaning, we started using disposable liners. If it's just a wee, we pop the liner into the machine along with the nappies - the ones we get are 'flushable' but they wash really well and you can actually reuse until there's a poo event. If a poo, we bin.

As the baby eats more solids, the poos will get more solid. Once they're fully solid, some people don't bother with a liner.

Hope all goes well with you feel free to ask any other questions!

We’ve just started using cloth, baby is 15 weeks. Still learning but loving it so far and it much easier than I expected. It’s wirth joining Facebook selling pages to get some second hand nappies to try out some different types and see what suits you best before investing too much money.

My baby is 3 months now and we've recently got into it, with a mixture of new and second hand little lambs, and some other pockets/all in ones here and there (trying to restrain myself!)

Some use liners, I don't personally. You can get disposable (don't flush them) or washable ones. Pre weaning poo it can just go in the wash anyway without rinsing or scraping as it's water soluble. I wash every other day usually, I don't mind it actually, I find it strangely therapeutic.

I left it until now as I didn't think it would be sensible whilst getting to grips with having a newborn. If I had a second I would absolute cloth from birth though, using Muslins/terries probably.

If you're interested in trying them it might be an idea to go along to your local nappy library and get your name down for a trial pack. The nappy lady website also hires out newborn kits, I think it only works out at £10 or £20 by the time you get your deposit back but they book up fast, so I'd have a nosey now. I think the nappylady website is a really good resource for getting your head around the different types of nappies and materials used, ways you can fold nappies etc. There are plenty of other brands she doesn't stock, but I did find it a great starting point.

We do just a nappies and wipes wash. Previously every other day (we moved on to reusable at 2 weeks so from then) but now (toddler stage) only twice a week.

As PP said, pre weaning we didn't use liners, now we use disposable ones but find they wash well if only wee. Poo goes in the toilet then liner in the bin. Fleece liners at night as no poo then and it keeps them feeling dry.

Re poo, we were able to potty train for poo extremely easily and I put that down to the reusables. Toddler basically pooed on the potty mostly from 6 months and pretty much exclusively from 18 months. So the poo question (which concerned me a lot in the early days) ending up not coming up much because we so rarely had it in the nappy. Good luck!

@teaonthebedsheets
Had no idea people used the potty from that age. How did you encourage that?

It's called elimination communication. Essentially, you learn their "signs" (a big red face in our case!) and pop them on the potty, then tell them what they are doing. It meant that as we got to the toddler stage, the expectation was that poo went in the potty and it was a very short step from there to understanding signals and choosing to go independently to the potty. We aren't there with wee though as I found the idea of elimination communication for wee too much hassle!

I’m super confused by all the different types of reusable nappies. I’m i right in thinking that an all in one nappy uses a washable core and a liner? What is a 2 part nappy? I really want to try switching over from disposable.

@SB2017
Two part nappies have a cloth insert and a wrap that goes over the top. You can just wipe the wrap if the nappy is just wet and put a new insert in rather than having to wash the whole thing.

I have 4dcs and a DH who works away a lot and I find the time. Some systems (especially all in ones) are a lot less time consuming than others.

We have a 9kg drum and wash every other day, I load it up with other light colours like hand towels and child towels, baby bibs and clothes, even DHs shirts. You do a rinse for just the nappies first then can add other stuff in.

Don't go for Bambino mios just because they're easily available, unfortunately they're a bit crap, unfortunately it took me a failed first attempt to work that out. Lots of other good advice on here!

@polkadotjersey thanks for your help. Two part nappies seem better if you can get away with just changing the liner and not all of it. I want to cut down on washing if I can

I've been using cloth nappies since the meconium stopped, so from about 4 days old. She's 6 weeks now and still poos a lot (5 or 6 times a day if we're lucky!) so we get through quite a few nappies (10 to 12 a day). I wash them every other day and the machine is pretty much full with the nappies and the wipes. We get through soooo many wipes. I'm hoping as she gets older she poos less and I can get down to a wash every 3 days.

I use a mixture of 2 part system (little lambs, motherease) and an insert system (flip wraps with pad inserts). Seems silly using all in one nappies on a baby who needs frequent changing because it's more washing.

I’ve been using reusables since we came home from hospital and love them!! I thought I’d use disposable out and about but I’ve actually found reusable nappies and wipes just as easy.

Re washing - it is a lot and looking back if I’d had a tough birth / long recovery or C-section or a fussier baby I’d probably not have wanted the extra faff of washing. We had 18 nappies to begin with and I’ve built up to 27 now but I still wash nappies, wipes and anything else that’s got a bit poopy every day.

I do feel like it’s worth it though - I really hate the thought of throwing a nappy in the bin now!