Talk to me about reusables please!

[thepartysover]

My questions are mainly over smell and staining.

• surely every time the nappy pail gets opened it unleashes an unholy stench?

• doesn't everything get incredibly stained, especially liners / wipes? Or is there some miracle solution that bibbity bobbity boos them back to being white?

We already use cheeky wipes for lots of things but they have ended up stained and pretty awful to look at.

Any advice very welcome!

Yes the smell can be pretty minging! I washed at least every other day to reduce the pong. Plus night nappies were rinsed in the morning as they stink.

Sunlight bleaches them white again. If you use fleece liners the actual nappies barely stain.

I've used cheeky wipes too but mine just look faded rather than stained. Do you dry them outside? I think that bleaches a lot of stains out.

I used to have the pail full of napisan, so that the nappies went under the water, which reduces the smell. I also used flushable liners, so the solids went straight into the loo. I guess I washed the binful of nappies every other day.
In terms of staining, the napisan does get rid of a lot of it, and as a PP says, sunlight very effective.

We used a dry bag (Karrimor) instead of a pail as it meant I could hang out up away from little hands on the floor and hang it outside to air between uses.

It stank to hell when it was opened but it was sealed in the rest of the time!

I was never much good at keeping things sparkling clean and strain free but I did get the worst of it off so they didn't look too bad. I put everything on a cold rinse then a 60 wash with full dose bio powder and extra rinse.

I'd thoroughly recommend joining The Nappy Lady Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting Group on Facebook and asking the same question there - it's full of very very knowledgeable people who can tell you all about nappies and washing protocols! They may well be able to help you with your wipes problem.

I haven't had my baby yet so don't know the answers from experts, but my understanding is that because you dry pail nowadays (i.e. don't soak the nappies in water the way people did 20 years ago or so) the smell from the bucket is minimal. In terms of staining the advice is to do a cold rinse cycle first, and to hang any stained nappies out in the sun. I'm on quite a few buying/selling pages for preloved nappies and you very very rarely see any stains.

Ok, looks like I might be naive about the smell from the nappy bucket. But it can't be worse than the smell of a landfill bin full of disposables...?

Our bucket doesn't smell, but she's only four months and breastfed so breastfed poo just smells kind of like off yoghurt. It'll smell more I guess when it's proper poo, although if you're using disposable (ours are compostable) liners then not so much will make it onto actual nappy. I just have a laundry bag in it and it's full, the whole laundry bag comes out and goes in washing machine. We use a nappy sanitiser powder and haven't had any staining (breastfed poo is water soluble) but sunlight gets out any if there is.

We have about 20 nappies and do a wash whenever the bucket is full really.

I use mainly all in ones and the odd pocket nappy. Worth getting plenty of boosters - my DD is in her nappy for about 12 hours overnight if she hasn't pooped and the boosters mean we never get any leaks and she's not soaking in morning. Bamboo boosters are good but do take ages to dry.

I use reusables and my bucket doesn’t stink. Again he’s breastfed though and doesn’t smell. I’m sure that’ll change!

Also using cheeky wipes and they’re not stained at all? I’ve got the rainbow microfibre ones.

This is brilliant, thanks. Sounds like I just need to be a bit more diligent with washing... the cheeky wipes (which were white to begin with, in fairness) generally just go straight in the machine on a hot wash.

Any brands people recommend?

What about washing solutions / liquids? I'm in a hard water area so perhaps that doesn't help.

Great advice on the online groups too... will investigate.

His poo didn’t start to smell unpleasant until he was eating a good amount of solids so that wasn’t an issue for about 6 months. Even now at very nearly months, in a well ventilated laundry basket it’s rarely more than a little bit whiffy and a drop or two of essential oil in the basket masks it. We wash every 2-3 days.

We only use fleece liners at night (I don’t bother with liners in the day as I don’t find them that reliable at catching poo and we mostly use pocket nappies which are fleecy inside anyway) but I can’t say anything of them are stained. Nor are our wipes, although I will admit that half of our wipes stash is black cheeky wipes so that might help. I tend to find with a good wash routine and hanging in the sun stains are very uncommon and usually disappear in a couple of washes.

A note on napisan - it is not recommended for the materials made to use modern nappies and will void most manufacturers guarantees. Disposable liners are not flushable, despite what the packet might tell you.

We use Bambino Mio all in ones. A lot of people don't like them but they fit my (chunky) little girl very well and I like the quality. We've tried TotsBots but I found the quality of the wraps a bit lacking, although the Bamboozle inner nappy is good. Also I don't like the patterns as much, which I know is ridiculous but there we go!

We also have some Littlez and Bloomz pocket nappies which are surprisingly good for the price (about a fiver a nappy including inserts). Not sure what their longevity will be like, but I've been impressed with them so far.

TBF. we have a nappy bin for disposables because we are in a flat and I can't be arsed walking down four flights of stairs to use the outside bin every time, and it does release an unholy stench when you open it. But only when it's opened, it's fine the rest of the time, unless it's so full it won't close. Unless you have easy access to an outside bin, used nappy storage smell is simply a problem of having a baby whatever kind of nappy you use.

This might help, OP!

www.thenappylady.co.uk/news/using-a-nappy-bucket.html

Brilliant, thanks!

And yep - the pong is surely part of life with a baby...

Ooh, great tip in that link about the essential oil / muslin cover. Like that.

It was the wee that smelled awful for us. I think my child just has manky pee! Breastfed poo was fine to deal with, flush down the toilet to clear the liner a bit and then pop in the bucket.

I put a panty liner with essential oil on the lid of my bin to help with the stink. In the end I got used to it!

This is so helpful. I am also keen to try reusables. I've mentioned it to a few friends who think it sounds insane to try from newborn, but I'd like to - maybe after 2 or 3 weeks when things settle down from initial chaos. Did you all start using reusables from day 1? Also wondering how that works in terms of sizing? Do babies grow out of them quickly?

I am thinking about reusable nappies, so interested in what you guys are saying.

What if there is no sun or its raining?

I’m expecting my first, so I can’t comment on whether it’s realistic to use them from birth or not! But I’m hoping to and I’ve hired a newborn size pack from the nappy lady as I figured the newborn ones will only fit for a short time.

It was the teething pee and night nappies that got me, the smell was literally eye watering!

We used reusables from 9 weeks (she was a very skinny legged 9lber at that stage!) as I didn't have anything that fitted before then.

Start out by looking for a local happy library where you can meet other users, get demos and hire kits cheaply before you buy. The nappy last survey is also good for getting an idea of what might be useful.

Personally, we found different types worked at different times. We had a mix of gnappies, bumbles, little lambs pockets, bumgenius pockets, bumgenius all in ones, motherease onesize and prefolds.

I found sized little lamb pockets the best for daytime as they were the best fit with double elastic on the legs for containment and they came up longer than birth to potty ones. At night we used motherease onesize staydry lined nappies under fleece wrap.

Prefolds with a nappy nippa were our reliable fall backs and is consider just using these in future as they were so easy to maintain, versatile and cheaper than most.

RMarieClaire, we're hoping to cloth from birth. Close Pop-ins do a little newborn set that is really good value for money and really teeny tiny. We also have a few Baba+Boo newborns which are said to last to about six months so not bad! Finally have got some muslins (to use as newborn Terry towels i.e. folded!) plus wraps.

Think it's very much different strokes for different folks though -- for me I feel if we're going to do it we may as well go the whole hog and indeed get into the rhythm from day 1! But on the other hand lots and lots of people on the various FB groups I'm on use disposables for the first few weeks / months for lots of different reasons (not wanting to shell out on newborn size nappies, wanting time to get used to other aspects of having a baby etc!).

Another thought r.e. cost of newborn nappies is that good brands do hold their value - I reckon I could easily sell the Baba + Boo newborns for 3/4 their original cost once I'm done with them, looking at the going rates on the buying and selling pages.

If it's raining hang them out, it's a great softener and even if it's not sunny the UV rays will work it's magic on stains!

This also works through Windows too.

Did you all start using reusables from day 1? Also wondering how that works in terms of sizing? Do babies grow out of them quickly?

We cloth bummed from immediately after birth. I had an emergency C section so DH did all the washing for a couple of weeks! We used muslins and terry cloths (Jo fold) with Miosoft, Little Lamb, and Motherease Rikki covers (mostly bought secondhand) in size 1/Small. This is definitely the most economic way of doing cloth from birth as they do grow out of newborn sizes very fast!

Most of our nappies now are Birth To Potty and have fitted my chunky boy (9lbs at birth) since he was a couple of weeks old. He’s 9 months now and big for his age (22lbs+) and nowhere near growing out of them yet as we still have loads of poppers left.

The only sized nappies we use regularly are night nappies but the size ranges are pretty big. I’d imagine size 2 Bamboozles could be used pretty much the whole time and our large Sandys will fit until he’s potty trained I reckon. The covers we use (Motherease Rikki/Airflow) are smaller size ranges and we have gone through a few of those but you only really need 2-3 and they can be bought/sold secondhand very easily.

I didn’t cloth from birth.

I gave myself 6 weeks grace to establish breastfeeding and recover.

That's a great tip @fannyfeatures