Biodegradable Nappies

[MousematsRule]

I'm looking into options at the moment and wondering if anyone has any experience/recommendations for eco-friendly disposables?

There isn’t any really. They all end up in landfill and there isn’t the air to make them degrade.

The “best” you’ll get is something like kit and kin or beaming baby. Have you considered cloth?

I am definitely considering cloth and Im definitely going to go that way when baby is a little bigger. I was originally thinking I'd do cloth from the very beginning, but I'm just thinking of the sheer volume in those early weeks, lack of space and already limited laundry capacity, so I'd prefer a disposable option for the first few weeks if there's a good alternative

Naty nappies x

We used kit and kin until ds was around 8 weeks old and had stopped pooping in the night and pooping 6-8x per day. Now we use bambino miosolo reusable nappies and they are fab. Keep their value pretty well too if you can keep in good condition x

We tried cloth nappies from the start and they're a nightmare. Have to remember to change her every two hours else they leak and if she does a particularly big wee then they leak even sooner 🤦🏼‍♀️

I really wanted to not make so much landfill but cloth nappies just aren't practical. Not the ones I've got anyway.

I can't help you with eco-disposables but would highly recommend cloth nappies. Contrary to PP we get far better containment from cloth for both wee and poo. DS is 18 months and he's been in cloth nappies since 4 months - I just couldn't get my head around it all before then.

I highly recommend doing the Nappy Lady questionnaire once your baby has arrived and things have settled down - things like how long they are and how chubby will affect which nappies will fit best.

I'm having DC2 next week (eek!) and both the newborn and my DS will be in disposables for a couple of weeks until I/we feel up to handling the laundry again. It's just one less thing for us to think about when we've got a newborn to deal with - doubly so when it's your first and you're learning so much on the go.

Biodegradable nappies don't tend to end up in the conditions needed to break them down so you will spend a lot more to make very little if no difference. I second the nappy lady questionnaire. I didn't switch to cloth until about 8 weeks but actually the wash routine is so simple I wish I had done it sooner. If I have another baby I will go cloth from birth

Don't forget cheeky wipes op - they are brilliant! I just use mine with water and it's saved us from using so many baby wipes (which are all made from plastic).

A lot of places have a cloth nappy library where you can hire a newborn kit (ours lets you keep it for three months so they’ve usually grown out of it by the time you give it back and you can use birth to potty ones. It lets you try out what suits your baby too without investing too much money and they’ll usually show you how they work. We found the newborn time the easiest as you have plenty of washing anyway (!) and are regularly changing anyway (poop!). Once you get into a routine it is really easy. If you’re going to use disposables don’t worry too much about which ones - they all end up in the same place, not doing much and you can really pay through the nose for “biodegradable” ones that don’t actually degrade!

Thanks everybody, I've come back to this late as I couldn't find it yesterday.

One of my worries about doing cloth from birth is whether they would be too bulky for a newborn, particularly as my DD was quite small and this one is looking like she will be a bit of a dot too.

I know you can get two sizes in some makes but I thought it would be better to wait until she is a little bigger and then invest in a set that would last.

Did any of you find cloth nappies too bulky if your newborn was small?

Try the nappy lady Facebook group OP, I'm yet to have my baby and want to cloth from as soon as possible, the FB group is so friendly and helpful!

I expect some of the cloth I have bought will be bulky on a newborn, but there are so many different types of nappy out there that I'm sure you will be able to find something streamlined if that's what you want

You can sometimes hire a set of newborn sized reusable nappies to use for the early weeks - we bought a set of size 0 Bimbles because I knew I wanted to use them with more than one child, but could have hired them.

Having said that we also just used normal disposables for the first week or so for both DC, as found it easier to keep track of output in disposable nappies while feeding was getting established. My thinking was that compared to the normal disposable use we would be making a big dent in consumption anyway, so tried not to feel bad about it.

I used cloth from a month (used ordinary newborn size before that) I had prefolds and separate wraps. One set did two kids

Ps the hospital I gave birth in (in us) used cloth nappies on newborns, they do exist

I'm ancient. In the early days we used muslin squares as much less bulky than toweling.

They’re all naff and they stink as well. I use reusable nappies which are the only truly environmentally friendly option. I did buy ‘biodegradable’ ones when we went on holiday and disposables just stink, they’re horrid.

OP, also consider what childcare you'll be using if you go back to work. We used reusables with our oldest to 9 months but had to stop when he went to nursery as we couldn't find anywhere which was willing to faff around with rinsing and storing cloth nappies for collection by parents. We swapped him to Sainsbury's eco nappies which were good but not as soft as the standard commercial nappies and ££ compared to discount brands like Aldi and Lidl.

You don’t need to rinse them @SoCrimeaRiver