Reusable nappies ! Someone advise me please I have no idea !’

[Ilovebees]

I am going to have a baby soon and I want to buy reusable nappies for my baby ! I have no idea , like literally no idea what I need , how many nappies how many liners ect , I’d be so greatful if someone who uses them can tell me which brand is good and how many I need and the amount of liners and nappies ! I know there is a lot of washing to do with these which is fine ! I’d love something more eco material brands :) All advice appreaciated sooo much !! Thank you in advance !

motherease wizard uno are my fave day time nappies.
but I didn't start using them until 3 months as 1) new babies poo 100 times a day and 2) they fit best from a few months old onwards.

You can check Facebook to see if you have a cloth nappy library near you - you can Tey different types and see which brand you prefer before commiting and buying your own stash.

cloth nappies UK on Facebook is also great for advice.
or the nappylady website.

I have about 20 daytime nappies I think and 5 nighttime ones. (night time is little lamb nappy with a motherease airflow wrap. i have 3 wraps).
I do a wash every 2 or 3 days.
used nappies go in a large nappy bag hanging up in my garage. then the lot just gets thrown in the wash.
I use disposable liners for catching most poo.

Night nappies need boosting. I use a hemp booster folded and placed near where he wees (boy)..then a fleece liner on top of everything as it stays feeling dry against his skin.
The nappies will feel saturated wet when u take them off in the morning, but the liners should keep their skin dry and the other wrap will keep clothing dry.

I'd recommend having a pack of disposable too just while you're figuring it all out.
it's a totally very easy one you get into the swing of it!

@pponk thank you so much ! I didn’t know newborns are not very suitable for reusable nappies but starting more from 4 months for best fit :) thank you !

Adding more as I remember..
Bio washing powder is best to use as it strips the ammonia well.
To wash the nappies use your short wash or rinse cycle first, with just a small amount of powder then do a normal cotton long wash with more powder.

eg - I have a cycle on my machine which does a 15 minute short rinse first then top up the powder and run the 2.50hr cotton cycle.

I used all sorts (foster carer).

My favourite ended up being stuffables. It’s a fleece pocket the same shape as a disposable nappy. You put a pad in according to the size of the baby. You put a waterproof wrapper over the top.

It’s really flexible as you can stuff with anything from a standard flannel to an expensive bamboo booster pad.

Watch some videos to get an idea of what you will like.

Little lambs were also good- a shaped washable nappy with a wrapper over the top.

I liked using nappy nippas- like a clasp to close the nappy- rather than Velcro.

The nappy bucket- I preferred drypailing, where there’s no water in the bucket. I found it far easier to manage than a bucket of stinky napisan water!

My advice is not to bother 🤣

Or at least don't put massive pressure on yourself to be 100% reusable. I decided to do reusable with my first and spent £100s on nappies recommended via the Nappy Lady and found them to be a disaster. Too bulky to get clothes on top of and every single time I tried they leaked everywhere. I still have a bag of nearly brand new, very expensive ones somewhere.

@wasanneofcleves wow really ?!😱 hmmmmmm , I really have to think then and educate myself more to know if I should do it or not , thanks for your advice ! Any advice is welcome and I will take into consideration all of your advices :) thank you

Hiya, I didn't use them when they were newborns as mine pooped too much but from about 4-6 months until they were potty trained.
I used baba+boo but I'd now buy modern cloth as I love the designs x

I can't agree that they're too bulky for clothes, you just buy clothes that fit, which might mean u move onto a bigger size slightly earlier than if you were using smaller nappies.
They do need changing slightly more frequently than disposables so say every 2 and a half hours compared to the 3 and a half you might have managed with a disposable. But when they're little you should be changing frequently anyway to prevent nappy rash or because they poo so much, which you need to change ASAP anyway.

@gemloving thank you 😘🙌

@pponk thank you for your advice 😘🙏🏻

I prefer them for newborns because of the frequent poos - it feels worse to have to throw away so many disposables in the same day! We used the nappy lady advice questionnaire and we're happy with the ones we got - muslin squares for 0-6 weeks and then moving on to totsbots bamboozles. We're now using them for baby #2.

If you are in London check out 'Real nappies for London'. They do free info sessions to explain it all and let you see examples. Many London boroughs have a voucher scheme where you can buy a few new nappies using the voucher to try out.

In other locations (and also in London) there should be a nappy library that you can get info from and possibly rent reusable nappies. (Haven't done this myself, but I have heard about them.)

I found the nappy gurus website to be helpful, with lots of you tube content reviewing the different types, and they will give you personalised recommendations if you fill out the questionnaire.

I will admit I only used reusables part time for a few months once my DS was big enough to fit into the regular adjustable nappies (with all the poppers to adjust the size/fit), up until part way thru starting solid food. (A 3-week trip to visit family abroad interrupted my use of them. Then he had a few times with nappy rash and you aren't supposed to use washables while using nappy rash cream. And now he's often so fussy during nap changes (rolling over and trying to crawl away), I'm not sure I could manage the ones with poppers, which can be fiddly to get the fit right.)

I'm currently pregnant with my second, so I would like to use the washables I have for him/her, even if I don't pick them back up for my first.

I have some 'all in ones' with Velcro fastenings (brands including tots bots and tickle tots and bambino mio) that I liked. I also liked the pocket nappies with popper closures, such as from little lamb and Alva baby. Those tended to fit my little one better and dry faster than some other brands that I tried. Both of these types are shaped similar to disposables.

@Bluebonnet3 wow , thanks for your long reply , so much appreaciated 🫶😘😍all info helps me so much ! Different opinions and views x

Unfortunately I had a similar experience although I did use them for about a year. Then they all leaked, nursery got a bit pissed off with having to change his clothes so many times, and they absolutely stink and I cannot get them clean. I've given up for the second child. I spent hundreds!

We used tots bots. The teeny fits for newborn, then easyfits daytime and bamboozles night time until potty trained. None ever leaked.
You can use the easyfits from newborn also. We had 20 which was plenty to wear, wash every other day and dry

I used them from about 3 months to 18ish months and got on really well with them. From 18 months I used disposable pull ups as they were very mobile and it was easier for potty training.

I used a few different types but my favourites were Close a parent pop in nappies. Though loads of others were great too.

I was lucky that DH used to wash all the nappies when he came home from work. I bought lots second hand, lots of people sell them in almost new condition, and I sold them on when I'd finished.

It's a good idea to buy a few different ones second hand to try but don't buy a full set until you're sure it's for you.

Also, and this is going back a few years, my county were offering free nappy through the post, to encourage people to use them, so definitely look to see if anything like that is happening?

I do think

You can often get bundles of barely used ones secondhand for much less than new would cost - as above, people buy them don't get the hang of it. New babies are exhausting and the extra washing might just be too much.

Once you get a system going, it's fine and I found less likely to leak than disposables. I loved their slightly bulkier bottoms, extra padding for when they fall on their bums!

I used fleece liners, easy to get poo off and prevents stains. We had a mix of motherease and bamboozle, all v well made, did two kids then sold on.

Oh and tots bots have now gone under. But very recently. So you might get good deals somewhere selling off old stock

20 tots bots easyfits
4 tots bots Bamboozles and 2 covers for nighttime

would be enough for most. Once out of newborn stage Ds averaged 6 day nappies and 1 night nappy per 24hrs.

After 2 years of constant use. We just washed on cotton wash at 60. All our nappies are now stored away and still all white with no stains, so you can definitely get good secondhand also if they have been looked after

We used bamboozles and little lambs. They never leaked for us unlike the disposables!
I did however use disposables when out and about as couldn't face carrying around dirty nappies on a day out.
I loved them, I will be honest though and say my husband hated them. He hated having to wash them.

I used terry nappies from birth with my 3. I bought 24 regular terry towelling squares, a packet of nappy pins, disposable liners, Napisan and 5 pairs of plastic pants to begin with. I recommend using the kite fold as it can be over lapped to make it as small as you like.

Check on freebie and reselling websites, I've seen them sold off very cheap. But the old fashioned stuff is pretty cheap new anyway and can be made from old towels if you like to recycle, you just need a good pair of scissors!

I used the nappy lady questionnaire to get suggestions. I then bought one of each of her suggestions to try out, and sold the ones I didn't like on.
I joined her Facebook group, and there was good support, and a buy/sell community... BUT also people getting obsessed with the latest prints etc. I could easily have got sucked into that rabbit hole, which isn't really sustainable.

Second hand is a good way to try. I would definitely do this for newborn if I had another.

I found I needed about double the suggested number to be able to wash every 2-3 days. I live in a damp part of the country and don't tumble dry. The drying time was the bottleneck.

I did need bigger clothes to go over our nappies. Trousers especially.

@GreyDuck - we washed every other day. I didn’t wait 3 days as it wouldn’t then easily fit in one load and need larger nappy bin, plus might start to smell. Even the bamboozles we would wash first thing and the next morning dry if drying indoors on rack, if outside in summer dry in a few hours.

I used re-usables from 6 months to 18months and then my DD outgrew them (she's a giant and well over centiles - she was the size of a 4 year old at 2) and I couldn't justify the cost of the junior ones for 6 months wear.

We only used them at home and used disposables for out and about. Purely because I didn't fancy lugging dirty nappies about with us. I know quite a few mums who use cloth and some cloth full time and others do at home only. I plan on doing the same with baby 2 and then I will sell them on or donate to the local nappy library as they are like new still.

I've got all sorts, tots bots, bellzbumz, little lamb, little love bum, Bambino Mio. I bought them all in various sales/ offers/ mystery packs. I found pocket nappies and all in one worked best for us with the poppers and boosters.

I would really recommend a nappy library to find which type work best for you and experiment with all the different boosters as otherwise it can be an expensive affair. I know one of my friends swears by flat nappies, another only does pockets with trifolds, one will only use hemp boosters. It all depends on what you and baby like, mine needed microfibre and hemp boosters as they were a flooded and heavy wetter.

Also try not to get into the rabbit hole hype, there are some fab FB and insta groups with advice but also some really obsessed and preechy people. There are also the collectors of prints that as far as I can see makes the nappies very expensive ornaments - I saw one lady with over 200 nappies in all the different prints. Unless you are running a day nursery which provides nappies or you have 7 babies or toddlers I can't see why you would need 200 nappies.

Don't buy them at first. Babies are all shapes and sizes and you can go out and spend £££ on loads and they don't work for you. Look up your local nappy library. Get a starter pack that has a few different styles and types. We were recommend the all in one types and found the horrendous. But the old fashioned flat Terry's with an outside wrap work great. Wet pailing isn't recommend anymore and never had a problem with dry pailing