reusables with no dryer?

[susiemj]

Hi,

I'm expecting my first baby and am trying to decide what nappies to use. My main worry is that we don't have room for a dryer in our kitchen. Is it a complete nightmare trying to get napies dry with no dryer? Also, our nursery won't accept babies with reusables so we'll have to buy some disposables anyway. Any advice would be gratefully accepted.

do you have a washing line?
i used real nappies for a while. no dryer either. but i did have a washing line, and a room which looked like a laundry room because it always had clothes spread around it drying.
if you have access to an outside washing line, should be fine, just ensure you have enough nappies. or you could get a washer dryer. uses same amount of space, but you can, if need be, dry half the wash in the machine.

Hi Susie. We don't have a tumble dryer and used cloth nappies successfully with both our kids. Types that you can dry fairly flat, rather than the all-in-ones that come as big wodges of padding, work best - hang them on a sheila maid, or a clothes airer in front of a radiator.

Our nursery was resistant at first, but agreed to a trial, and were converted - so it might be worth pushing them a bit.

good luck - there are loads of cloth nappy experts on here, you'll get tons of advice if you decide to go for it.

washer-dryers are very inefficient at both functions and worse than separate washers or dryers in terms of environmental impact though. I had one a few years ago, never again!

I don't have a dryer and use cloth full time - even bamboo.

With the nursery, try showing them some pocket nappies

If you want to email bumfluffnappies at gmail dot com, I can talk you through various options.

completly aggree with sazette re washer dryers. but i thought i'd put them n as an option.

i actually had some kushies ultras wheni was using cloth. the big all in one with plastic padding built in. they took an entire day to dry on the line, unless it was blazing hot sunny day. the flatter ones will dry much much quicker.

I told our nursery that we used cloth nappies, rather than asked! Get a bumgenius and show it to them, see if they'll cave!
I find pocket nappies with microfibre inserts very fast to dry. Agree with cylon re kushies, they took 80min!!!!!!!!! in a DRYER!
I try to line-dry even though I have a dryer.

I have a drier but NEVER put nappies in it,

I use the line, or an airer indoors, or I have some multipeg thingies (technical term) that I hang inside over a curtain rail.

The only nappies I have that fit her atm are kushies, which don't take all that long to dry (no longer than my bamboo ones), and nursery have never had a problem with them. Infact the 5 nurseries I spoke to all said they wouldn't mind, so ...

It might be worth giving the nursery a gentle push. In my experience many people (including nursery staff would you believe) are still in the dark when it comes to modern cloth nappies. if you can show them its not all terries and pins anymore they may be more willing. As flame mentioned - pocket nappies are most convenient for nursery.

To help you narrow down the choice its a good idea to find a nappy agent in your area or many retailers such as myself, flame and others do offer a tailored advice service to help point you in the right direction.

You can always have a mix of nappies to help you with the drying issue. Bamboo nappies are the most popular at the moment as they are soft and absorbant but take a while to dry however to counter this its worth having some microfibre nappies too - these come out virtually dry and help bridge the gap while others are drying. Pockets (as recommended for nursery) are also quick to dry.

Any other questions - please feel free to email me at nappyneeds1 at aol dot com

Yup, I called the nursery I was wanting DS to go into and said "he uses cloth nappies, what do you need me to do?" and they said they don't have any others in cloth, but just come in and give them a lesson They were lovely.

there is absolutly no reason for the nursery to decline you a place for using reusable nappies FGS what sort of discrimination are we going to get next "sorry you can't buy a house in this street as you own the wrong coloured car"? FFS how stupid, you are actually saving them money as part of the money you pay will cover the disp nappies provided. I would tell them you see that as discrimination and you don't want nasty chemicals etc against you child's bottom . I would go as far as contacting your council's early years contact if they don't budge, rant over

Thanks a lot! You're all unanimous! I'm going to investigate the options you suggested. I'll get back to those of you who offered if I'm completely confused. Not unlikely .....!

I don't have a drier either (although hope to remedy that situation soon) Fluffles are great, very quick drying but are very fluffy and huuuuuge. I'd also recommend the nippa version rather than the popper version.

I used reusables for DD for about 14 months (from 6 months until she potty trained) and we've never had a tumble drier. Used combination of line drying, on clothes horse thing and on radiators.

I think DD was possibly one of the few (possibl;y first) child at nursery with reusables but they were fine with them (she used tots bots).

We don't have a dryer, and most of my nappies are bamboo so one of the slowest to dry. I wash twice a week and never run out of nappies-have enough to cover 3/4 days of wear before washing and then enough left over for at least another day and night (think about 25-30 nappies total).
I generally wash first thing in the morning, then hang on line all day (or on airer if raining) and depending how damp they are when they come off the line either put them away (the dry ones), stack them up in airing cupboard on top of hot water tank overnight (the ones that are almost dry) or hang on airer overnight to go in airing cupboard the following morning (the wetter ones). It is a bit of a pita when i have to hang them on airer during day as it takes up most of the free floor space in sitting room but it gives dd hours of fun pulling them off and making me have to hang them back on (if i get really annoyed with this i put airer on top of dining table-also in sitting room). TBH though, even if i did have a dryer i'd still only use it for finishing nappies off (say 10-20 mins at end of drying time) rather than completely drying them so i'd still have an airer up in wet weather.
The best thing about reusables is how creative u can be, when dd had a bug and was getting through hundreds of nappies i was able to just stuff a wrap with various muslins, flannels, newborn terries etc until my other nappies were dry-much easier than having to go to shop for more sposies with a poorly baby.

oh and another idea u could look into-my parents have one of their radiators on both the hot water and central heating systems so even in summer it is possible to dry things on radiator without having to turn on heating-the radiator just comes on when the hot water does. when i stay with them i use a radiator airer on that to get things dry

i have no drier and manage fine but i mostly use flat shaped terries as i struggle to get the tots bots type dry, but then i have 4 kids so probably a bit more washing than you. i like the flat ones better than the bulky ones anyway (except at night, i use bamboozled then but only need a couple). flat terries much cheaper too!

do you have the ceiling height for a ceiling airer? We have one of those & it's fab - nappies dry overnight normally (we have no tumble dryer) - I line dry if weather is nice or use the ceiling airer.

I did say to DH we could put a tumble dryer in the gvarage if I found it a problem with the nappies - we still don't have one.

DD is now 20months, we have 20 MEOS nappies, when she was little I washed every other day (she averaged 6-8 poos a day ) but it's been every third day since she's been about 8 months as her poo rate slowed when she went on solids! - I've never once run out of nappies.

Yes you can do cloth with no dryer, as long as you factor that in when you buy your nappies. Some nappies do take an age to dry: bamboo nappies and hemp nappies can be pretty slow, so perhap you wouldn't use those as your main nappies.
If you don't mind synthetic nappies you could go with the microfibre option, because they dry very quickly. I think the main ones are the microdiddy, microdizzy, fluffle and bambinex teddy.
Or you could get pocket nappies, which are expensive, buy you use fewer because the drying time is fast, they are just like empty bags to dry because you take the middle, absorbent fabric out to wash them - if that makes sense. It would be a good idea to try these before committing exclusively though, as they don't suit every baby.
A cheap option for a young baby is flat nappies like prefolds and terries, they are usually made of a natural fibre like cotton or bamboo and because they are only once layer with no elastic, they dry pretty fast. I started out with these and would definitely use them again for a young baby.
Even if you buy shaped nappies with elasticated legs, it's handy to have a few flat nappies just in case.
Fitted or shaped nappies take a bit longer than flat nappies to dry, as they often have sewn in soakers to absorb the wee and the layers take longer to dry, but if you put them on a clothes horse near a heat source most cotton nappies should dry in 24 hours and maybe another 12 to get bamboo and hemp completely dry.
Of course if you have a clothes line outside that helps too, but you can manage in a flat with just a couple of clothes horses.

I have no drier and only have 6 fuzzi bunz and 2 me sandies for nightime!!!! We still manage fine as the fuzzi bunz dry so quickly over the radiator even when its not on. We use the fuzzi bunz inserts and boosters and fleece liners. I also keep 6 muslin squares handy though to use as inserts for the rare occasion when the inserts arent quite dry for the first nappy in the morning.

We wash the nappies when the kids go to bed each evening and put them out to dry when we go to bed.

I forgot to say, the number of nappies you have is also dictated by the number of times you want to wash per week. If you want to wash every other day, you would need enough nappies for a couple of days. If you are changing an average of every three hours you would need 8 ready to go, eight from the previous day in the nappy bin and at the end of the second day you would be washing 16 nappies and hanging them up to dry. If you have some flat nappies or microfibre/pockets, then you would have some nappies ready to go the next day, but if you were using bamboo or something you might not have any fully dry the next day, so you would need another day or half a day's supply until the nappies dried.
When the changes go down at around 6 months, you need fewer nappies per day and can go up to three days between washes or just buy fewer large nappies and sell on your smaller nappies or keep them for the next baby .
It's really with little babies that flat nappies are quite an economical option because you could have 20 odd terries or prefolds for between £30 - £40, which would only buy you three or four pocket nappies without inserts.
It would also buy around 4 - 5 Fluffles, which might be a good option, but quite bulky compared with flat nappies.
If you buy second hand from places like the nappy lady or UKParentslounge you would spend less though.
I hope you aren't too confused by now.
If you want to see some user reviews for different types of nappies you could look on my nappy review blog
Hope that helps.

Didn't know you could get quick-drying reusables! How quick are we talking? Does the room need to be warm (no heating in the room we can use for drying) if you dry them inside? And lastly, would it be a bad idea if your house is already damp?

Quick drying - a microfibre one probably takes 6-8 hours in a cold damp room.

That's not bad i guess. Mind you...i also just remembered we're on a water meter!! Not that it affects anything now anyway, dd3 is 8 months already, but i was curious about the advances in nappy technology over recent years!

8 months - still at least 10 more months of nappies to buy

Water meter - 2 extra washloads a week.

Unfortunately there are other reasons, which i will not bore you with, financial for one. But i do like to know things...only way you find out is asking innit!?