Reusable nappies: have I got this wrong?

[Argh25]

I have a 5-week old and going through disposable nappies at a rate of knots. I wanted to give myself a few weeks to adjust to life with a newborn and then look into reusable nappies. I'm looking for progress rather than perfection here, so reducing the waste rather than eliminating it. And preferably moving away from plastic. At some point I'd like to start just picking up on baby's cues and getting her to an actual potty/toilet but it's early days and all her cues are a mystery to me.

ANYWAY I think I've got the jist of the different types but am sure I saw somewhere that you can get cloth nappies with disposable liners that catch both wee AND poo rather than just poo. So essentially like using period pads. The liners are paper/bamboo so slightly better for the environment. Have I imagined this? Can anyone recommend any that are like this?

I'm behind in the washing as it is so the thought of having to wash enormous loads of nappies full of wee doesn't seem realistic. She's easily going through 15 wet nappies a day which is making me gag every time I think of the plastic waste. I can't wash 15 nappies a day and still function! Even switching to 5 reusables a day means I'd be doing the washing every other day. If nothing else, because our waste collection is 3-weekly it's really building up, so there has to be a better way!

TIA!

No, the liners are there to let the wee through so that it's separated from the poo. The nappies are still absorbing all the wee and you still have to change them. If anything, you have to change reusable ones more frequently because they feel wet on the baby's skin by contrast with disposables which are designed to feel dry. But as your baby gets older she won't need changing as often, so you might find you are using 6-8 nappies per day.

However, washing 15 nappies is no more effort than washing 6 - you just stick them all in the wash together and ideally you'd have a bigger load as you want your washing machine to be using lots of water. Have a look at the Nappy Lady website which takes you through all the different kinds of nappies and the washing routines.

It's not too hard to wash them, definitely managable. Never used any disposable liners myself so not sure on that one.

I always used disposable liners and used to put dirty nappies into soak in a bucket with a lid and then wash once a day. They say you need a new washing machine for each baby,

I did them. The liners catch the solid stuff, the wee gets through! Washing nappies isn't as hard as you think. So you can get a plastic bucket with a lid and a drawstring mesh bag.

• Stretch the bag over the bucket and pop the lid back on.
• Pop the nappy on the baby with a liner in.
• When it's full, take off the nappy, put the liner in the bin if it's wet, or lift it out with the poo on and flush it down the loo.
• Put the nappy in the bucket.
• When the bucket is full, pull the drawstring cords on the bag up to release the bag edges from the bucket.
• Pull the cords closed
• Dump the whole bag in the machine, releasing the top of the bag while you do it.
• Wash as normal. We added the baby clothes as they often had some wee, poo or sick on them anyway.
• Tumble dry or hang to dry.
• REMEMBER to place the spare bag in the nappy bucket for next time!

It isn't that difficult once you get into them. We used Babinex nappies so just bought their birth to potty pack to begin with, and then used liners which cost £5 for 100. The original kit cost about £300 - but as a rough estimate

Disposables
8 nappies in 24 hours
44 supermarket nappies in a pack
44/8 = one pack lasts 5 days
2 years = 730 days
730/5 = 146 packs of nappies assuming the child potty trains at 2, would cost £730

Reusables
£300 for the birth to potty pack

2 years = 730 days
8 nappy liners per day = 730X8 = 5840
5840 liners in nappy time
5840/100 = 59 liner rolls
£5 per roll = £59 X 5 = £295 on liners

£295 + £300 = £595
Even accounting for washing, that's a saving. Plus the reusables would do probably 3 children so over kids 2 and 3, you'd be spending just £295 on liners + washing costs.

Birth to potty nappies aren’t really from birth, they’re from about 10lbs+. So you may need to wait til baby is a bit bigger (unless you have specific newborn size ones).

Nappy laundry companies exist! I’ve never used one, but worth looking into.

Clean your washing machine monthly. It probably has an auto-clean function so you just press a button. (You do not need a new machine per child 😂)

Check how your nappies are meant to fit - they’re all slightly different. If, like me, you’ve inherited a mish-mash of brands, this is very important!

Liners are to separate the poo and keep things drier but I wouldn’t bother until they’re on solids unless you’re having issues with sore bums. Milk poos are water soluble so it won’t make them any easier to clean. The liners aren’t usually flushable anyway so I’m not sure where you’re meant to put the shitty liner… in a plastic nappy bag? Seems to defy the point! I’ve never used liners at all and had no problems.

Don't overthink the washing - chuck the nappies in the machine, run a rinse cycle first then wash them on a long cycle at 40. Hang to dry outside.

Never use an eco setting on the washing machine (they don’t use enough water).

The older generation may tell you to soak nappies but check the instructions on your nappies first. Soaking will ruin most new-style nappies.

We used these with DD 13 years ago, they were excellent.
the liners are a very thin bamboo type fabric, think something even thinner than a wet wipe, not like an actual liner for periods.

the washing just becomes part of routine, a week or two and it’s just normal.

i also had my boy toilet trained by 2yr 1 month, ahead of when I planned, he just decided no more nappies. They say it’s because they can feel they are wet, whereas disposable nappies keep them dry so they make the connection earlier, I bought pull ups for night time and ended up giving them away ash he never wet at night either.

We did cloth from birth to potty training. We only used liners when she developed toddler diarrhoea at 2. If breastfeed and not weaned the poo can go in the machine.

Oddly I found the washing easier in the newborn days of putting a wash on nearly every day (probably 5 out 6 days) than I did when she was bigger and using less nappies washing every 2-3 days. We did muslins which dried quickly.

Rather than doing a few cloth nappies a day I would do cloth nappies until you have enough for a wash probably 1-1.5 days for a newborn. Then put the wash on and use disposables until they are washed and dried. If you get into the hang of the washing increase the number of nappies so you have a set clean and dry and a set being washed and dried.

We had weeks where the washing was overwhelming and we would have a week of disposables but then weeks and weeks without touching a disposable. We just went with the flow and with what was in our capabilities for that week. I had a high needs baby and pnd so some weeks it was just about survival and that's ok

We are on baby #2 and we just have loads of nappies and do a nappy wash every second day. We put the nappies in on a rinse cycle first, then fill up the machine with other stuff like towels that can be washed at 60 and do the longest wash with extra rinse. On the alternating days we wash all the normal stuff that doesn't go in at 60. The pooey liners go in a nappy bin, but it's a lot less waste than disposable nappies, and no plastic. The only time we use disposables is if we are travelling and don't have space to take all the nappies and the bucket with us.

We used reusables & the key is having enough for a few days so you aren’t chained to the machine! PP’s have covered the biodegradable liners, they wouldn’t be so effective on newborn poop tho. In the interim we have some reccos for disposable nappies that are much better for the enviro:

Eco originals - by far the best both absorbency & for the enviro. Your number of nappies could half on these. They are more pricey though.

Peachies: as above.

eco by naty: really good, on offers a lot in boots. Not as good as previous 2 but much better than pampers/huggies/own brands for enviro

pura: as above

kit & kin: as above but lower on the list as the absorbency isn’t high enough up the back in our opinion so newborn poops can leak easily.

Also, get on the boots recycling scheme for nappy packs & wipe packs! Good for the environment & saves you loads of cash.

Be careful as the reusable nappies actually need to be changed more often than the pampers ones. Newborns using cloth nappies actually get nappy rash more frequently than those using plastic ones as they stay wet. We tried it, hated it. Will try again now he's 1 as I want him potty trained by 2. Also, you need a dryer. There's no way I would line dry 15 nappies a day.

So interesting how different everyone’s experience is, we had the complete opposite - on the odd occasion nursery put our dd in a pampers she got nappy rash. Never had it in 2 years of cloth nappies (other than when on antibiotics). They do definitely need more regular changing though as don’t hold as much liquid. We also didn’t have a drier when we used reusables, just dried them on the radiators! I am sure I read they aren’t meant to be tumble dried, but we do tumble dry them now with DD2! We were much more rule abiding with DD1 😅

eta - we have an October and November baby though so obviously the radiators were always on anyway!

We had fleece liners and between the nappy and babies bum and these wick the wee away. Even with very wet nappies these were pretty dry.

We only had nappy rash when we had undiagnosed food allergies and were having 20 poos a day!

I'm old but my eldest 2 DC had 3 dozen premium quality Terry nappies with a disposable liner to catch the poo. Actually the liners were washable so if just wee on them they got washed and refused. Not hard to do. Soak nappies in a large nappy bucket with Napisan. When you have a full bucket put into machine. I used to wash my nappies on 90 degrees, but I know many who just did 60 degrees. Tumble dry to make them fluffy and keep in shape. My DC had plastic knickers over the top. The bonus is because the baby will feel wet if they were they usually become dry quicker. My 2 eldest DC were both dry during the day by 18 months and 22 months. Friends babies in disposable nappies were not dry until at least a year later. My youngest DC had a mixture of Terry nappies and occasional disposable nappies if going out for the day. I handed my nappies on to a friend as even though they had serviced 3 babies were still in really good condition.

If you want to do EC, I would hugely recommend just having her naked/bottomless over a flat cloth nappy, old towel or folded muslin or a couple of the cheap Ikea face cloths. It honestly doesn't take long at all to start noticing their tells although I appreciate that I had boys and it is a bit more obvious when they are doing a wee.

With disposable nappies you don't need to be changing them every single wee, you can leave it until either they poo or it's been 3-4 hours. They don't feel wet in them, that's (part of) the point of disposables.

As @stichguru says

Plus most modern reusesbles you are NOT meant to soak. You put them in the bucket dry

Good luck with it all. I did it with twins and it does get easier

Thanks everyone. Some food for thought here!

Baby is only 7lbs and I don't think we'll have another baby, so it makes sense to me to have the ones that grow with baby. Baby is formula fed (by necessity rather than choice) so regular poos and lots of big wees.

Logistics need a bit of thought. We don't have a tumble dryer and actual space
for a tub soaking situation is a bit limited (our kitchen is 6 ft square and our bathroom is effectively a small, fancy cupboard) so will have to have a think re: drying. Summer sounds fine but imagine winter would be tricky.

The cost side of things doesn't bother me that much - I know there are nappy libraries and things but anything is going to be more expensive than the 75p a pack ones we're using from Aldi (don't judge me for using these, everyone recommended these, my baby was too small for Pampers and we're very very very tired). For all I know they aren't as absorbent as the more expensive ones so perhaps even switching to the less evil disposables might save a bit on the waste situation and even put in terms of cost. We don't have a change baby quite frequently because she seems so uncomfortable - we were changing quite often at the start as part of the stripping down saga to keep her awake to feed, but find she gets very agitated if we leave her in one too long. To be fair, I wouldn't want to sit in wet knickers for three hours!

That said, they sound a bit like my period knickers so the concept is basically fine, I think it's just the thought of having to wash so many nappies - my period knickers are fantastically absorbent so I only use two a day. I'm also very frugal on my washing and only do two loads a week atm (two adults and baby, and the a third load for period knickers or bedding).

I think the main points I'm taking away:

1. I must have imagined the liners that absorb the wee AND poo
2. reusables might be a bit easier when baby isn't feeding quite so much as I won't be going through so many
3. some nappies need soaking and some really shouldn't be soaked
4. most people do more than three loads of washing a week (!)
5. I'm going to wait a bit until my brain is less fried and baby is a little bit bigger so we have more options.

Really grateful for all your responses! My brain is melted after an afternoon of unexpectedly screaming baby so will return to this with a better brain in a few weeks...

Where there's a will, there's a way!

I used bumgenius pocket cloth nappies for my 2 and loved them! I did use paper liners too, when they were on solids and doing real poo’s.

have you heard of cheeky wipes? Reusable cloth baby wipes that can really cut down/ replace disposable wipes, if this is a concern for you? I loved them for my 2, so much nicer than disposable wipes.

we still have loads of microfibre cheeky wipes that we have stacked in bathroom , used instead of toilet paper for wee’s ( as my now teen daughter gets thrush from paper toilet roll and hates using it).

I wrote nearly the same post 4 months ago! My baby hates wet nappies, plastic or cloth so we go through a lot! We use old fashioned flat nappies because they're easier to wash and dry, but use disposables if we're having a tough day. We do a wash almost every day combinded with our towels, kitchen cloths, washable dish scrubbers, underwear, changing table covers etc. We run on solar though and I dry in the garden. I don't think you can do washable nappies without a lot of washing, the clue is in the name! If it makes you feel better, for 1 baby with mains electric and tumble drying, it's debatable if reusables are any better than disposables for carbon when you do the life cycle analysis. They don't get better unless you're on solar with 2+ babies or using 2nd hand.

I did birth to potty pocket nappies with my eldest from 12lbs/12weeks to 3 years old. And birth to 2 and a bit years so far with my second. You need about 20 nappies for a wash in an 8kg machine so a couple of days to have enough to wash. Nothing bigger than a tea towel in with the nappies or it stops them washing properly. We dry pail in an airy basket to help prevent smells. In over 4 years of using reusable nappies I've used a handful of liners. I hate the disposable liners. The washable liners I've used a few times on things that aren't already lined like Terry nappies. Pockets have built in fleece lining and an additional liner is optional but not necessary.

We had pockets nappies that were fleece on the inside so didn't bother with liners till weaning as breastfed poo washes out very easily. We used paper liners after weaning but they only catch poo. We used fleece liners at night as they act as a stay dry layer on the baby's skin. With our first we mostly used disposables till 4 months but with our second we got a set of reusable newborn nappies and started on day 1 in hospital. Birth to potty nappies don't give a good fit till at least 8 weeks old usually. We did have some trial and error along the way and different nappies suit different babies. Our first was in pocket nappies but they leaked after a few months with our second so we switched to terries. We never soaked nappies. They went into a dry bucket then on a long wash over night and we put them on the airer/washing line in the morning. It becomes very routine.