Reusable nappies, good or bad idea?

[ShiftyEyes]

This will be our first baby, due in July and I'm looking for some advice on reusable nappies.

I have researched brands cost etc and it seems to be the way forward. Less chemicals, less landfill waste and cheaper in the long run.

But I'm worried I may be setting myself up for a fall. I mentioned reusables to my Mum and she had to contain a smirk / giggle and said "see how you go on with disposables for the first month or so..."

I'm trying to be realistic, from what friends have told me I can't begin to understand the tiredness / zombie like state I will be facing when baby is here. I wonder if I would be taking too much on with new baby and all the stress that brings combined with loads of extra washing and drying of all the nappies. I don't want to fork out approx 350 to find I just can't be arsed to use them and end up sending OH to supermarket.

I don't know anyone who has actually used them, so has anyone had experience of disposables and are they more trouble than they are worth?

Have you looked at gNappies. They're not cheap but you can get them easily preloved (through their preloved pages on Facebook.)

They are sized even with some lovely dinky newborn ones that popper down for the umbilical cord but they allow you to put a biodegradable disposable insert or cloth insert in. We use cloth 90% of time and then the disposable inserts when out for a long day, or going on holiday. Love, love, love them.

Ignore any negative comments. I got it all at the beginning when I started with DS at about 3/4 months as I couldn't bare the stink, leaks and waste of disposable nappies. We happily used them throughout till he potty trained and now DD has been in them from birth. I find popping an extra wash load on once or twice a week not that bad at all. We don't have a tumble drier either and it's not slowed us down at all!

I should've said ignore any negative comments from friends and family about starting. I wasn't implying ignore the negative nappy stories on this post at all, we all have our own experiences and they are all helping you to make your choice! Sorry if I first came across rude!!

Thanks for starting this thread. I thought about using reusables when DD was a newborn but ruled it out because we have no tumble drier, and no outside space, so everything is dried indoors.

DD is now 14 months and I'm wondering if it's worth switching to resuables now that she only needs four or five nappies a day? I guess it won't be too much longer before we're thinking about potty training but we are planning more DC so they would hopefully be used twice.

I met a lady recently who used reusables and she said it is worth moving into them before you start potty training as babies can feel when they are wet more easily. Does anyone have any experience of this?

And has anyone used reusables without a tumble drier or outside space?

I generally have plenty of nappies for a load on their own, but with a pre-rinse and some napisan you could put them in with other things. I just choose not to. The disadvantage is you can't use softener on nappies, so couldn't put that in the wash.

Just to say paper liners didn't work for us. Somehow they always ended up horribly twisted and seemed damp against skin. Washable fleece liners suited us. So easy to chop and change if you need to, but just if paper liners don't work it doesn't mean you need to ditch the whole idea.

I have heard the rumour that reuseables help with potty training, but neither of my two gave any evidence that that was the case.

By the way Shifty I am also in Lancashire, so you're not on your own!

We used bum genius flips and they were brilliant and will be getting them out the loft for the next 2 due in July. One of the reasons we chose them is as we don't have a tumble drier it's easy to dry the microfiber inserts we had maybe. 30 of these and 10 covers as the covers can just go on a quick wash and dry within an hour or so. The inserts and bamboo liners took a day and night indoors, I had a winter baby! We did use disposables for the first 8 weeks as they were a bit big but great after that, also make sure me indium is long gone!they were used non stop for 18 months and are as good as new so I figure they have easily made their money back already so next time round it's free nappies!

I was desperate to love real nappies and I did a trial with my DS at 10 weeks. I could cope with the washing of the nappies but not the clothes which got wet with every single nappy change. DS is very slim so perhaps they didn't suit him well but I really would advocate a trial so you can try them out before you commit. DS was (is) a lovely easy baby so if it was going to work it would have done.

On the other hand I LOVE the cheeky wipes. Yes you could use flannels but the cheeky wipes are perfect hand sized so you don't get a drippy wipe trailing everywhere and it's just so easy. You can buy those second hand on eBay as well but to be honest they're not much cheaper than buying new so I wouldn't bother.

I wash nappies with poo on them in a hygienic way, with Napisan-30 degrees if all white, else at 60 degrees. Wee-only items can be washed with anything else that goes in the machine.

I used cloth from 7 days old with my first (& from birth with later babies); this was fine for me.

My step-sis was one of those who sheepishly fessed up that she couldn't get on with cloth at all (she is a rabid eco-looney in some ways, too). Thing is, she's the sort who can't manage anything without her coffee or shower (whereas I am happy to be groggy & smelly). So I humbly submit it's a marmite thing, works fine for some, badly for others.

I earnestly bought when pregnant but didn't use them until she was about 6 weeks due to the mayhem and them seeming too bulky under her clothes. After this I have found them good but now weaning and the poo is more poo like the liners are a must.

Like you, I got eye rolling from older female family members (as with bfing) so I was determined to prove I could do old school too.

Realistically - I wanted to use them and bought them before the birth. I intended to use them after the first few weeks.

I started using them at 3 months.

I used them enough up to a year of age that I probably saved quite a bit of money.

At that point I stopped because madam kicked off every time I changed her nappy and the disposables last a lot longer and I just couldn't be arsed.

Also I returned to work and life became more about survival.

However I have them for next baby.

Like lots of things with babies, I think it's fine to be idealistic and just see how things go, as long as you don't put too much pressure on yourself. I also have friends who use reusables all the time, and friends who bought loads of expensive kit and never used any of it. I bought CHEAP nappies off ebay. £40 for 20. So I didn't waste money. I think if I'd got more into them I might have bought some better ones, but like I said I stopped.

Overall I still saved some money and some of the environment so no regrets.

They are also super cute and when I was serene-and-happy-stay-at-home-mum (well sort of ) rather than exhausted shift working mess, I LOVED how she looked in them, specially in the summer, crawling around in just a nappy.

We decided to go down that route but wanted to try out a variety of different sorts before buying - we were really glad we did as we ended up finding that prefolds were really easy to use for us and suited DS really well - if we hadn't 'hired' a mixture of different shaped and different flat nappies we wouldn't have known that.

Nursery used them too - but we found they needed shaped ones (and even then DS sometimes came home with the nappy on inside out and back to front - but normally it worked OK!)

We have a dehumidifier that runs in our bathroom and found that prefolds dried overnight, shaped cotton nappies took a bit longer, and bamboo (nighttime) about 24 hrs. We put a wash on every 24 hrs - which we would have had to do anyway. Nature Babies wraps were the best for DS for the day and we used a fleece wrap over a bamboo nappy at nights.

If anyone would like some pre-loved pre-folds (and possibly some terry squares if I can find them) please PM me - not looking for £££, just a bit plus postage.

I use Tots Bots some of the time and they're quite good. They dry quickly and come in one piece that opens out. They fit newborn to toddler so you don't need to change as baby grows. I've only got 5 though, but plan to get some more soon.

We didn't use reusable nappies for the first 8 weeks or so, bot my DS' s were too small. Also it was good to get to grips with a newborn without a load of extra washing too. We now use a combination of bum genius and disposables which work well. We have 5 reusables so tend to use them every other day which work great but I stick to disposables at night. This works well for us as I like the freedom of both. I do find when ds has a sore bum reusables are great at sorting the problem as they let the skin breath and you have to change the more frequently.

Haven't read all of this, prob repeating lots of previous posts... but we bought our nappies before DD1 was born and it felt like the biggest single pre-baby purchase ever. We have pics of them all white, lined up in the bedroom; DH putting one on as a beard, us wearing them on our heads... we were ridiculously excited! So when she did arrive we were mad keen to use them and I think if we'd had disposables we'd have been a bit put off switching. As it was, I had so much invested in using them that I put up with the newborn squirty leakage and bad fit thinking it was normal. We even used them on holiday in a house that had no washing machine. They were our precious-first-nappies. Well, they lasted us through DD2 and DD3 as well, albeit supplemented at newborn stage with better fitting newborn ones and in the latter stages of DD3's usage with disposables as we couldn't bear to shell out for more when she was so close to potty training. I cannot even begin to think of how much money we saved, and that wasn't even the main reason we did it. I think there are so many plusses to using real nappies. Quality, environment, common sense, cash...They are, for me, the real deal.

Oh and I dry them on the radiator as we have no dryer. No problem. I use biodegradable flushable liners with them.

I'm in lancashire too!

We use them - motherease in the daytime, mama knows with hemp boosters at night. I bought a lot of different second hand samples and found the right combo after a lot of trial and error. We also used emergency disposables for the first few months until I had a big enough nappy stash. DS them helpfully started crawling and developed a bad nappy rash to the disposable plastic. We now cloth nappy full time.

Little lambs are lovely nappies, but you don't always get a good fit around the legs, especially if you have a sideways sleeper and/or a slim baby. I would recommend buying a few different brands second hand and find out what works for you.

FWIW, cloth nappies are very little more work. One bucket, one extra load in the machine and drying overnight on the radiator.

sewing the v3s are on the 3 for 2 at boots at mo if you want to supplement

Well, of course we didn't just chuck poo-ey nappies in a loada with our dinner napkins.

The paper liners keep a lot of the poo away from the nappy. We'd just tip it into the loo and although in theory you can flush them, our flat's plumbing system was so pants (pun intended ), we didn't want to risk it so they went in the normal bin.

If any pooeyness got on the booster pad or the cover, we'd give it a damned good hot rinse, then put it in a hot wash.

BTW, even the coloured outers were OK with 60 degree washes. We didn't try, and didn't really feel the need for, 90 degree.

I was dead set on using them with dc1. Had them all lined up and ready to go. I didn't use them once. I didn't have time to eat let alone faff with disposable nappies. So if you use them great, but buy or borrow only a few and see if it's doable before forking out.

My MiL was also all 'oh you won't keep it up'. I use ye older terry squares. I used them from newborn with DD, right up until she potty trained at 3.5. When she was 1.5 I had DS and kept him in terries until about six months ago when he started weeing like a horse (2.5 and I'm told its a thing). Anyway we potty trained ASAP, but I still can't get over how much disposables cost! DC3 on the way and we're conducting a nappy audit to see if we need any more (terry squares are just too useful as cloths around the house and we've destroyed a fair few!). I've probably spent a couple of hundred quid and done three children in the same nappies and wraps. I did an extra wash every three days.

There are biodegradable nappies! That sounds like a wonderful compromise! Gonna try them out!

Xx

Hannah - Yes, semi biodegradable. But read RockChick's post. Only partially and over a very long period. Sadly.

There aren't biodegradable nappies hannah they are partially biodegradable, and still take decades to do so.

X posts penguin :)