Reusable Nappies without Outside Drying Space?

[Sastra]

I really want to use re-useable nappies, but we will be living in a two bedroom flat on the first floor. We have a tiny porch, where we might be able to pop a bit of washing, but the rules of the estate we're moving to stipulate that no drying may be done in the communal garden/ outside areas.

Will it be impossible to reasonably use reusables? We will have a washer/drier, but I imagine the things would need to be aired once they came out of the drier?

So long as you have a dryer you'll be fine. It'll be a shame not to line dry them in the good weather, but hey ho. Good luck

I use reuseable and don't have a drier. I use Bumgenious all in ones. In the winter they have to dry indoors, I can get the liners on the radiators and the outers on one clothes horse, they dry overnight.

If you don't have outside drying space you'll need to consider material type, microfibre or cotton is quick drying but not as absorbent as hemp but that takes days to dry.

I am in a similar situation as you. I want to use reusables, but the chances are we will be living in a flat (we will be moving in Sept when I will be 34 weeks).

After living in flats for the past 5 years I have a Dri-Buddy which is essentially a clothes horse in a bag with a heater. It holds 18 items on hangers and will dry t-shirts in about 3 hours, though jeans etc take longer.

I use BumGenius too. Have never tumbledried and only occasionally dry outside. Have never had any trouble getting them dry.

As other posters have said microfibre = fast drying

Cotton slower

Hemp/Bamboo even slower

My first DC was a December baby. My cloth nappies (motherease one size) didn't see the washing line at least until April. We have one of those pulleys, and nappies dried overnight. We managed fine.

If I had an outside porch/balcony, I'd be tempted to shove them out on a clothes airer. A few nappies is very different to a double bed sheet strung out to dry. They can only ask you to stop.

OP I have been using reusables since my DS was 3 months old (now nearly 25 months) and I live in a part of the country where it rains a fair bit so more often than not I have to tumble dry.

Obviously it needs to be practical and certain nappies take longer to dry than others. Have you already chosen which ones you will be using? If not you'll get a lot of good ideas from here.

HTH

I have no dryer nor outside space but manage just fine-we use bumgenius Flips and think they are great!

I used reusables (tots bots bamboozles) for ds1 while living in a one bedroom flat without central heating. I got a condenser dryer when he was about 6 months but before that I just dried them on the clothes horse or draped over the oil filled electric heater I had. Wasn't any bother really.

Must confess I'm using disposables this time because I just can't be arsed with the extra laundry but it was fine.

Just to add, speak to your local council as most still have schemes to buy your reusables cheaper (I got £100 worth for £20 with my local scheme)

Another but genius user here. I have outside space but often not the right weather to use it and no tumble drier.

I dry the inserts on an airer that hangs over the radiator, and I hang the outer bits on a whirly gig thing that I got in ikea, I can't link but it looks like an octopuss with pegs hanging off the arms. It works well.

I do have different night nappies that take a little longer to dry but have a couple more so this doesn't matter and the usually can be finished off by putting them directly on the radiator for a short while.

We used bambinex (or whatever they are called now!)- had no drier and often unable to dry outside, as we live in a notoriously rainy city.

It was fine. Just buy plenty so you don't run out of dry ones (20 did us fine). Also, am not too hot on terminology, but I gather that all-in-ones (where the nappy, booster and wrap are, well, all in one) take longer to dry. Bambinex had separate nappy, booster and wrap, which would obviously be quicker to dry as fewer layers.

They are bamboo, incidentally, and as I recall took around 36 hours to get completely dry if just air-dried, less if on the radiator.

It wasn't a problem so long as we remembered to do a wash regularly! You get into the swing of it very quickly.

I can now link in case you had no idea what I was talking about from my explanation.

octopuss

This is so handy as we don't have huge amounts of space and it means the nappies aren't taking up space on the proper clothes airer.

My favourites are Flips (stay dry) from BG for this very reason - you can line up the inners on a radiator and they're dry in a couple of hours if the heating's on, maybe four if it's off. And because you only use about 2 outers per day, it's easy to find somewhere to hang those to quickly dry. They also take up much less space than AIOs which I really appreciated in our cluttered 2-bed house!