How often do you change nappies?

[aendr]

I'm a bit curious about any differences in usage of cloth and disposable nappies (to see if my husband's thoughts on the matter are valid). Of course, this could be affected by the age (stage) and gender of your child.

So, in the absence of poo triggering an immediate change, how often do you change your child's nappies?
And to see what this affected by:
Do you use reals or disposables, or if both how differently do you treat them?
Do you have a boy or girl?
Are they breast or formula fed, weaning or eating family food?
Do they have sensitive skin, triggering earlier changes than you might otherwise do?

Thank you, ladies.

oops and gentlemen

And I should answer my own question.

We change disposables at each feed, typically 4-5 hourly at the moment, or cloths 3 hourly. We have a pre-weaned formula-fed boy who doesn't have sensitive skin and who typically poos once or twice a day.

12 month old girl, disposable nappies (though wish I'd gone down the cloth route)

Normal fully weaned diet (same food as us)

One bottle of cows milk at night.

I change her upon waking, before her morning nap, when she wakes from nap, before her afternon nap, when she wakes from nap, before bed.

She quite often poos after her tea so often an extra change then.

She has sensitive skin, excema and suffers from constipation.

We use cloth and typically use 4 nappies in a day. DS is changed first thing, mid-late morning, early afternoon and before bed with sometimes an extra change around lunch if he has been changed earlier in the morning. So I guess each nappy is on for 4/5 hours, 12/13 for the night nappy.

At the moment ds is teething so pooing constantly though.

DS is 16 months so on family food. This is pretty much the same pattern that we had for dd too. Both were changed far more frequently when they were younger due to frequent pooing (and power weeing in ds' case!)

DD is 16 months old, and we change her disposable nappy in the morning, after her mid-day nap and then before bed at night, plus if she has a poo in between. She has no skin issues, we rarely use creams, and she's eating 'normal' food, with two 7oz bottles of milk a day

ok - not including poos

DS3 (22 months) gets changed

in the morning
some time late afternoon (when the nappy starts to pull the trousers down )
then before bed

use disposables (pull-ups), no sensitive skin.

oh forgot to add - eating normal food, 3 9oz bottles of milk a day as well (and about 4 bottles of juice)

and with DS1 and 2 I changed them when they'd poo-ed or when their nappy was full and about to start leaking because it couldn't hold any more wee - no skin issues their either, DS1 breastfed then jars, DS2 formula fed and "normal" food.

DS is 18months, fully weaned, and we use cloth. He gets changed on waking, mid-morning, before lunchtime nap, after lunchtime nap and before bed. On average every 3-4 hours, with extra changes for poos - unless he poos within about half an hour of bath time, then we leave him.

Am your baby feeds 4-5 hourly! DS never went that long!!

nappyaddict: sorry to make you - I know I'm usually lucky (feeds at 6, 10-11ish, 2-3ish, 6-7ish, 8:30 to bed and sleeps ). Unfortunately at the moment he's ill so we have to wake him for antibiotics, fight some ventolin into him and because he can't breathe well he's feeding only a little every 2 or so hours, waking himself by coughing and, worst of all, moaning pitifully in his sleep, tearing at my heart .

When in cloth I changed as often as every 30 minutes, or as soon as I noticed they were wet.

In disposables, I'd do it if I noticed it had been wee'd in, but it was less obvious than in cloth so maybe less often.

I wouldn't want to sit in my own wee, and like being clean and dry, so I offer the same to my children.

First thing, after nap, after nap, before bed at the moment

He gets very upset at nappy changes.
I think I might change more often as we approach potty training, but at the moment, it's too stressful for us both. He's big enough to fight me, but not big enough to understand.

He's 11 months, breastfed, baby-led weaned, in cloth, no skin issues.

I change DS' nappy about every 6 hours. He uses a mixture of cloth and disposables.

Usually when he gets up, lunch time, dinner time and bed time.

Blimey Geepers! You must spend your life changing nappies!
How do you notice cloth is wet? Other than smell of course?

DS hates having his nappy changed and it takes all of my persuasive abilities to manage the changes I do.

I change DS about every two hours. If I think something might affect that (eg long journey) I put him in a disp. He gets a bit red in the wedding veg dept if I leave him longer than 2 hrs.

Do you use reals or disposables, or if both how differently do you treat them?

Use real in the day, disp at night

Do you have a boy or girl?

DD out of naps, DS in naps

Are they breast or formula fed, weaning or eating family food?

He's BF 100%

Do they have sensitive skin, triggering earlier changes than you might otherwise do?

He has eczema, but not in the nappy region.

Wow, some people seem to change nappies really frequently! I'm guessing your DH's theory is that cloth nappies need changing more often than disposables?
10mo DS goes through either 3 or 4 cloth nappies in any 24 hour period. Always change on rising and just before bed, then either one or two changes in the daytime - unless we're surprised by a teething poo of course. Sometimes use dispos during the day if we're staying away or out and about trying to travel light, but no difference in the timetabling!
Was EBF, now BF + FF + eating all kinds of food (BLW). No skin problems.

Every couple of days

I have 2 in cloth nappies and they both get changed every 3-4 hours and as soon as they have pooed. Both are girls, dd3 is eating and drinking family food and drinks, dd4 is bf and weaning. Neither have sensitive skin.

DD aged 7 months, bf and weaned is changed on waking, after lunch when she usually poos and late afternoon, then last one at bedtime.
Ds aged 2.4 is changed on waking, mid morning when poohs and then late afternoon either because he has drunk a lot or done another pooh. Clean nappy for bed time.
I use disposables.

puddock how many hours would you say you go between changes?

i use cloth, change every 3 hours or so, 7 mo dd, bf and family food. i leave her in a cloth nappy (boosted) for 11 or so hours overnight. if in disposables (on holiday/days out) more like 4-5 hours.

DD 13 months, on normal family food.

Cloth during the day, usually disposable at night sometimes cloth.

Change first thing out of night nappy, changed late morning, change mid afternoon (about 2-3ish), change for bed)

So whats that about 4 nappies a day, would be more obviously if she there was a poo and would also put her in a fresh nappy if we were leaving the house for more than an hour.

I don't think I use cloth nappies differently to disposables (was in sposies til 8 months and also used them on DD1, I think once you find the right cloth nappy for your baby they last just as long.

DD is 10mths old and in cloth - no sensitive skin. Bf and whatever we're eating.
Excluding night-time, she is changed around every 3.5 hours.

These equate to roughly:
First thing (7.30ish)
Late morning (11ish)
Mid aft (2.30ish)
Early Evening (6ish)

Including night-time, I make this 5 nappies per day.

DS was in cloth until potty training - his changes were more frequent - he would leak if left 3 hours so generally between 2 and 3 hours for him. He had the same feeding habits as D but did have sensitive skin.

puddock: yes, you're right. He doesn't want to use cloth nappies (or what he calls "complicated nappies") and one of his arguments against is more frequent changes (which while the nappies were getting to full absorbency was true). As a relative novice I'm not sure if I can stretch the time between changes to disposable length or not. We're using sized ones (size 1) and he doesn't want to buy size 2s.

I wanted to see, without affecting the answers given, how the nappy ritual changes as children get older - whether our usage of size 2s will be different to that of size 1s. And then I got curious about all the other possibilities, given that if we have a second child everything could be different.
I'm a scientist, curious about all sorts of things, and perhaps some of you are interested in comparing these things too :-)

We use 4 cloth ones a day, and DD is 2.4.

But what does make them go longer is using a booster (either a bought one or - MN tip - a cheap microfibre cloth) which does help stretch the time between changes.

We've also used sized nappies, and definitely change less frequently now (and DD now has 2 boosters at night too).