Tots Bots & Motherease wraps??

[discodolly]

Hellooo, I'm a newbie and expecting my first in a few weeks. Am completely sold on the idea of cotton nappies and am thinking of investing in Tots Bots and motherease wraps.

Do many people use these, if so what do you think of them? How many nappies and wraps should I buy (am planning to put babe in yukky disposables for first couple of weeks til I get into the swing of it). Also what other bits and pieces will I need to get - something to soak in?

Re. the Motherease wraps which are better - the popper ones or velcro? And with which nappy velcro/nippa? Is there a better time of day to use a certain type (is one better at night?)

Any advice greatly appreciated as I've come up against a lot of negative people against cotton nappies and am determined to prove them all wrong!x

I use these and they're great. get popper wraps as older babies can undo velcro. Nippa nappies are better for getting a good fit, velcro are easier - so really you want velcro if you have a squirmy baby, nippa if not (or if you are prepared for extra effort) - I bought velcro size 1s and nippa size 2s.

Apart from that all you need is a bucket or box with a lid. You don't need to soak them - just rinse off the poo in the loo (easier than it sounds) and bung them in till they're washed. You might also want to invest in some flannels while you're at it: better at cleaning than wipes IMO and can be washed with the nappies.

Finally I bought a few flat nappies for emergencies, and for use as bum towels - saves egtting a big towel wet when baby wees at the wrong time.

Good luck. i am the laziest mum ever, but still do proper nappies. Something about those TBs makes in not really a chore to hang them out. Think i am weird though.

popper wraps are a lot better than velcro!

I have kissaluv nappies, (poppers), bumbles nappies (like nippa tots) and lots of tots (mix of aplix and nippa). Love them all!

I also have some tots aplix wraps, and some motherease popper ones - the aplix ones are rubbish!

Except for their fleece ones (for night) which we swear by.

hi DD...sorry i can't advise on the TB, as i use a variety of bambino mio/stuffable/occasional AIO(ds now 8 wks, nappies going well ) but just wanted to encourage on the real nappy using - it's really easy, no hassle at all. as for people's negative comments - i've found that people i tell are really encouraging about our washable nappies & pleased we're using them...so what you've found is by no means representative. i'm sure that most MNers will say that TB & ME wraps is a fab way to go! best of luck with last weeks of being PG (swore i wouldn't but kinda miss it)

i've been recommended tots and ME wraps, popper style too. Also bumbles, which seem absolutely great and are fleece lined so good in hard water areas. You will also need some kind of nappy liners, paper or fleece are the options I think

I'm also waiting patiently for babe (edd tomorrow eeeeek!)

just wondering whether the seasoned nappy users could advise on whether it's best to go with disposables for the first few weeks or launch straight in there? with DD1 I always intended to move to real nappies, but in all the mayhem never actually did, having started with disposables so I'm interested in opinions

Also, are paper or fleece liners better with bf poo?

sorry if this is construed as a thread hijack - thought you might be interested too DiscoDolly (love the name btw)

with a second child you know what you are doing more and don't suffer so much from new baby shock - you can go straight to cloth nappies. If the baby is small better to use folder terries in a wrap - or wait til they are big enough to fit normal cloth nappies.

Liners with breastfed poo make no difference until they start on solids, then definitely fleece ones work best in my experience.

Personally I prefer the velcro wraps - but each to their own

personally i contacted an agent and went to see the nappies and have a chat.

I have all sorts of nappies, prefer the popper wraps and dry pail (no soaking). I use fleece liners which I make myself (chop up fleece to size)

thanks throckenholt - I bought some muslins to use when babe is tiny - but haven't yet worked out how to fold them

wouldn't fleece liners get really filthy with all that explosive poo?

I'm hoping that the fact that I now have a drawer full of real nappies (some on loan from a friend for trial, a few I bought myself to try and the aforementioned muslins) means I will do it this time around

think I will use disposables for those meconium days though...

discodolly - have you been in touch with the nappylady? they give good advice and usually have a representative near you that you can visit to handle the nappies etc - thet's nice to do and might help you decide

otherwise a lot of people advise getting a mixture to start with so you can see what works best in your situation (seemingly baby combinations like tall, large thighed, skinny waisted etc can have an impact on effectiveness!!!)

good luck with it all

I can predict MANY completely confused messages from me over the coming weeks as I try to get a handle on the whole affair

MP - i too bought muslins for the first days, but wasn't clued up on how to fold...which meant i used disp. for a few days & then went straight to prefolds. i was confused by the size of the muslins (were far too big when folded), but have since found that folding the corners in towards the middle would hv made them the right size, & made it poss. to fold in lots of exciting ways! nippa'ed origami/bat (it has lots of names i think) fold is my favourite (i use @ night with a little ewe terry & polkabot wrap) - nappylady website has lots more, inc. instructions.
hth

i currently have a 5 week old dd and a 2.5yr old dd both in nappies. we use mainly tots bots and ME wraps. the poppers work well for dd2 who is very chunky, but i prefer the velcro on dd3 atm who is a small 9lb and skinny. As she gets bigger i think the poppers will work better.

hth

thanks motherpeculiar for a chance to say this - i think it's best to start with cloth nappies pretty much straight away - for us it was day 3 once out of hospital. The thing is that you might as well learn how to do them (it's not hard) while everything is new - a few weeks down the line you will be much less likely to be keen on 'starting again' with a new technique. Also, while baby is bf the nappies are nicer and usually easier to handle (no firm poo etc) so you might as well make the most of that (without assuming anything about your feeding plans, sorry!)

One thing i will say - tumble dryers make a difference! Esp in hard water areas!

We don't have one, but I have noticed the nappies getting slowly harder.

Went to MILs when washing machine broke and used her tumble dryer - every nappy came out as soft as new!

muslins - just fold into an oblong and hold them on with the wrap. You can do more complicated folds (google for nappy folds) but that seems to work just as well.

fleece liners - well breast fed poo goes all over the nappy anyway - and they all go in the wash and it comes off (sometimes you get yellow staining but hang in daylight and it disappears) - so it doesn't matter. I just found fleece liners (or any liner) not much use until they are eating solids.

tumbledriers make much nicer nappies - but if you are using nappies for environmental reasons then the extra leccy used by the tumble drier goes against that.

We used disposables in hospital but switched to cloth as soon as we got home. I did have a c-section so was in hospital for four days though, and also ds was a big baby so there were no size issues with the size 1 nappies. If he'd not fitted the size 1s I would probably have used disposables until he did rather than master a different nappy system.

We use Tots Bots (nippas) with Motherease wraps (poppers) and are very happy. DH prefers the Tots Bots wraps though so we have some of those too -- although to be honest I think he just objects to the Motherease name

Non-aplix nappies and wraps last longer than aplix, which may be a consideration if you're planning to use them for more than one child.

I love using tots bots, bit of a sceptic at first but 9 months later would never switch to using disposables. Prefer using flushable liners because that way you don't get such a bad smell when dry pailing. Any tips on how to stopthe bucket smelling of amonia whilst he's teething?

I find paper liners make no diff at all with bf poo! Equal amounts of poo on liner and nappy. Don't know if you're "supposed to " use Vanish oxi-action but its BRILLIANT for getting the yellow stains off.

I'm very reluctant to get my pretty little nappies all yellow with poo (is this the saddest not to mention most ridiculous, thing I have EVER written - hmmm, quite possibly!)

and how do I protect my friends nappies? don't want to hand them back all yucky looking...

maybe I should buy all yellow tots bots and stop fussing...

mp - either leave the nappies to dry in the sun, or wash, then rub liquid washing detergent into yellow bits (not all will have them) and rewash. I let it go a bit with ds, but dd's nappies were very white after she'd finished with them!

(anyway the yellow is fairly easy to get out. It's the orange and brown that cause problems...)

definitely the yellow staining of breastfed poo fades really quickly in sunlight - it is the brown staining of "normal" poo that causes long term stains !

Since starting to use the paper liners we never have poo on the nappy, we buy them on a roll and need to fold them so can fit them to the size of the nappy. The colour of the nappy doesn't make that much of a difference when it comes to baby poo staining. The person I bought the nappies from said that putting oxi action in the wash occasionally won't hurt and you can get the one specially for babies now.