Man said disposable nappies should be banned

[rainbowtoenails]

He was a friend of a friend so I bit my lip but I found it quite patronising for a man to be lecturing women on this. He has dcs but I dont think he's changed that many nappies. Easy, then for him to say disposables should be illegal. I tried reusables but it didnt work out for various reasons. I felt guilty about using disposables but they were very liberating. Im no fan of P&G but I think banning them would be a real step back for womens liberation.

Yes i am also agast at a loads of dishcloths and tea towels every 2 days. Also, changing every 2 hours, thats 24 nappies in 2 days, thats more than one washing load and at 10 pounds each a significant financial investment in all those nappies, which you have to also buy bigger sizes of later. Different brands suit different dcs but you dont know that until youve bought them.

To answer your question Gorionine, when out and about, you put soiled nappies in a wet bag. I use a zipped one, & it most definitely doesn't smell. As mentioned before, if you flush the poo, they're not really smelly anyway.

Interesting question about dog poo, but I guess it's different as it's not human waste, & there might be a potential risk in bringing it into the house.

No Swallowedafly, no scraping here, I just pick the poo out with a small amount of toilet paper. I do accept though that every dc's poo is different, I'm fortunate in dd pooing very neatly (ha ha!). I don't see it as any different to wiping my own behind!

But why would human waste be worse in landfill than cat or dog waste?

Is it because of risk of disease? Or what?

No idea, all I know is that disposable nappy companies tell you to flush the poo. I was just speculating about dogs. But yes, I suppose there would be a risk of disease from bringing dog or cat faeces into the house (although where that leaves litter trays I don't know).

no scraping here either. I use paper liners and just take them out and flush them.

Nappy goes in bin, then in wash every couple of days with other whites.

they dry on the line or on an airer.

I really don't get why this is difficult?

the disposables sit and rot in an outdoor bin for two weeks before the binmen/women collect them. The stench is vile.

Good point about periods vs crapping

No calls for men to "do their bit" and give up bog roll

Mooncups are fab though, having said that!

I used the paper liners too but the poo didnt sit nicely on it, they smeared all over onto the main nappy and liner and bed/clothes! And what on earth are you expected to do when the bathroom is occupied? Dispoasables absorbed all 5he goo and almost never leaked. And what happens when your washing machine breaks down?

sounds like you're making it very hard work for yourself rainbow

I use disposable biodegradables at night - no leaks and one nappy only. Then approx 4-6 reusables throughout the day.

If the loo is occupied, put it in a bag and then flush down the loo when it's available. That's not hard at all.

and how often does your washing machine break down? surely, in that very rare situation you buy a few disposables to tide you over for a couple of days.

fwiw, i think that part of reason people don't try reusables or stick with is because it's a bit of a minefield trying to sort it out and get the right nappies and system. once you've got it nailed, it's very, very easy.

in the MN census I asked for a reusuable nappies advice and talk area for MN, so that the kinds of questions/complaints etc being raised here could be put into an area on site to help parents who want to use them.

I don't at all think disposables should be banned, agree that they're enormously helpful for travelling etc.

But, Morebeta, & others, I think you're being very unreasonable to assume that anyone (male or female) who uses washable nappies is going to 'jump in a big car'. FWIW most of the washable nappy users I know are far more likely to leap on their bicycle & pedal off to the allotment towing their children in a bike trailer .

Also, while I would disagree with the OP's friend, its quite possible that he does all/most of the nappy changing & washing in his household and - like some of the people above - is a real nappy evangelist simply because he doesn't find them problematic. TBH I'd be quite surprised if anyone who didn't do a lot of baby changing had any particular opinion on nappies either way . . .

I think the issue of it being a minefield is key. I did try using reusables, but the ones I had inherited were very leaky, and I simply couldn't get my head round figuring out which of the many resuables on the market might work for me.

I know lots of people do do the research, and figure out a good solution, but I wonder how many of them are men? Is this just another thing that we are loading on women, and in the process turning them into full time domestic workers? I knew I was going back to work when DD was 9 months old, and didn't want to factor in the nappy issue in an already fraught situation of finding suitable childcare.

Of course it is brilliant - and undeniably better for the environment - if people get on with reusables, and are happy to put in the time and effort. But I think we should remember that the extra work IS borne mostly by women. Even the posters on this thread are mostly saying I put the liner in the bin and I put an extra wash on.

On the environmental side of things, flying is by far the most environmentally damaging thing any of us do. So unless somebody has given up flying (I haven't, btw) I am not inclined to take their remarks about banning disposibles/getting rid of their car/growing their own veg very seriously. One short haul flight is probably far more damaging that using disposibles for a year.

Takver - "FWIW most of the washable nappy users I know are far more likely to leap on their bicycle & pedal off to the allotment towing their children in a bike trailer."

Quite right too. I don't really have anything for or against people who choose reusable or disposable. Its a choice people make.

Just gets my goat that some of the most vociferous and pontificating environmentalists and global warmists have lifestyles that frankly are hideously bad for the environment. Swanning off to a conference in Rio to talkabout global warming while leaving a trail of CO2 from 4 huge jet engines in their wake. One particulalrly vociferous global warmist I know lives alone in a 6 bed house and drives a 4 x 4 (both bought recently with money earned from advising Govt on climate change) but dares to berate me about CO2 emisisions and building windmills.

Swallowedafly I use 1 dishcloth per day and 1 teatowel per day so that is only 4 items extra in the wash. I sometimes wash with hand/bath towels as well.
My washing might seem excessive but I have 4 kids so generally do 10 loads a week + bedding washes.
Tumbler dryer has gone on the blink this week and with the weather it is making drying of anything difficult but not impossible.

DD tends to be changed every 2 hours as she poos a lot, usually lots of little poos over the day then a big one then a day without pooing. She is a strange little one. DD2 could easily go for 3-4 hours in her reusable and I wouldn't keep either of them any longer in a disposable except night. DS in his incontinence pads only lasts 3 hours and guidelines sugest changing young babies every 2 hours. I don't go by the clock, I change when wet but with washables I don't have to eke out a pack until shopping day.

I don't have to 'scrape' poo either just change the liner and flush it. yes bits get stuck to the rest of the nappy but a wash gets rid of it and the sun bleaches whats left.
The nappies that are stored for incinerating stink much worse especially in summer and even in one of these sani store tommee tippee things.

10 loads a week with 4 kids sounds perfectly reasonable to me, I have 3 and do about 6 loads a week but all mine are small so you can fit an awful lot of their clothes in one load of washing.

Like to see the banners find washeables for. 7 yo or a 16 yo or an adult. And deal with them on top of the 24 hoir cari g.

Dd was in washeables for 3 years then i thought 'fuck it' as she will always be in nappies.

How does women's liberation come into this? We used cloth nappies for DS and disposables when away. With DD we used cloth nappies for the first year and then slowly switched to disposables because she kept drinking lots and leaking a lot, and also, I have to admit I we got lazier.

However, it would be great if all disposables were bio-degradable.

My husband wanted us to use cloth nappies. I didn't want to. He threw a massive paddy about it when I was pregnant, and couldn't see my objections to this (which started with a winter baby being born by cs, and ended with knowing I would end up responsible for most nappies for the rest of eternity). He swore blind he would deal with every nappy that needed changing while he was in the house.

In the end, we didn't use them and my suspicions were right - he hardly ever changed nappies.

He has also tried (unsuccessfully) in the past to tell me what type of sanitary protection I should be using

I totally agree with the comment about men not being asked to do their bit for the environment by using washable poo rags!

There are far bigger lifestyle issues than nappies (although much respect to those who do use them) that need resolving, I do feel it is used as a bit of a stick to beat women with. Can't make DH see that though.

i said I throw the liner, because I'm a single parent. If my baby's father were around, then he would be doing his fair share of everything (except breastfeeding... that would just be weird )

I (well, DH mainly) use reusables for DS2, and did for DS1 as well. They do smell (mainly of wee) in the (unlidded) bucket - I use tea tree oil to combat. We do have to scrape poo (DS2 is nearly 2 and still doesn't do nice solid poo - I'm sure DS1 did from much much earlier). And DS2 has excema, and gets nasty nappy rash if he poos secretly and sits in it for a while - in which case we stick to disposables until his skin clears up. We also use disposables at night, because his skin has reacted badly previously to being all night in a reusable, and I really don't want to test it again. (DS1 also got some horrible nappy rash from resuables, and we persevered trying different solutions for much longer than we really should have done.)

So I'm all for reusables - but I'm very glad to have easy access to disposables too.

The more I think about it, the more I think we should be happy about men who want to talk about nappies. Surely the more that baby /child care becomes a normal activity/topic of conversation for men as well as women, the better?

I think, OP, I'd have been inclined not to bite my tongue, but just go for it - ask what he did with his dcs while travelling, what style of nappy he favoured, et al (and, of course, say why I thought that it wouldn't be helpful to ban disposables).

riveninside i tried to get reusables in big sizes for my dd too , they dont seem to make them anymore . She in disposables too...which are crap and give her awful rashes .
Shes asd and 5 , so she will get out of them eventually , but id rather have the choice of nice pocket nappies for her.

Not sure if theyre more eco or not , with all the washing /electric/detergent/napisan ect.