Disposable / reusable diapers ??

[starjasmine]

I use cloth diapers. A service is an unnecessary expense. There are lots of amazing styles to choose from and they're not your mamma's cloth diapers, they've come a loooong way. Try these sites: heinyking.com; cottonbabies. They're easy and great for the environment. When we travel we use cloth or the G-diaper. The diapers from heinyking come with instructions but basically you just rinse of any solid waste; wash in a cold cycle; then wash in a hot cycle. No bleach ever (bad stuff, anyway) should be used on the diapers. They come in so many styles: one size, all in one, hemp, organic cotton, with snaps, or velcro.... We love ours. I would say you need about anywhere from 10+ a day. Get more than you think you'll need. If you're registering for a shower, put those on your registry because the initial investment is not cheap, but over all you save tons of money and our planet.

[Sarah_]

Barf. I know it's good for the environment but I should think scooping a bunch of baby crap out of a cloth would make me ill. I don't care if it's my kid-it's crap and I won't touch it. What do you use to scoop the poop off the cloth? Where do you put the poop afterwards? Do you just rinse it off in the sink? If so, how disgusting. What happens when you're away from home and you need to change a diaper? Just hang on to a diaper full of poop for hours? Also, when it's time to wash them I wouldn't want anything NEAR my washing machine that had once had crap all over it. I'd have to hose it off outside first on the driveway for a few minutes and then wash it separately from everything else and then run the washer a few more times with nothing in it to make sure it was clean for my other clothes. It seems quite disgusting to me, and the amount of water I'd waste cleaning it would so not be worth it.
I guess it's a good thing I'll never have children.

[vava]

I am very biased in cloth nappy favour - see my profile and webpage for info - it is illegal to put human poo in the dustbin - so even if you use disposables you should be putting poo down the toilet before disposing of the disposable nappy.

Cloth nappies nowadays have fleece inners and poo just drops off this fabric into the loo and the nappies can then be stored in a bucket within a mesh bag dry pailed until they are ready for the wash. Disposables really stink because of all the chemicals in them. The only chemicals in cloth nappies are the ones the owner puts there! Cloth nappies do not stink whilst they are in the nappy bin waiting to be washed and then you simply take out the mesh bag with the nappies in and place the whole lot in the washing machine and they sort themselves out in the washer. If you want pleasant smelling dirty nappies you can add some drops of your favourite essential oil to the rim of the mesh bag in your nappy bin.:)

Cloth nappies are better fitting than disposables so if your child is leaking in cloth - it is a wrong nappy for the child or the fit is not correct. Try wearing disposables with breast fed poo babies and watch the clothing changes at every poo. A cloth nappy correctly fitted will not leak wee or poo. Unless it is absolutely sopping.

Cloth all the way!

I notice this thread was started a while ago - check out this link for current info.

http://www.clothnappyaddicts.co.uk/

loads more if you google cloth nappies....

[Gorilla]

it is illegal to put human poo in the dustbin - so even if you use disposables you should be putting poo down the toilet before disposing of the disposable nappy.

i didn't know that, and i bet most people don't bother! :eek:

[turtlemama]

Well, for one thing, after kids are past the infancy stage, they don't really poop every diaper change. :) If you're exclusively breastfeeding, you don't need to do anything with the poop. Until my son started solid foods, I just tossed all his diapers together in the dry diaper pail, and when the pail was full, into the washer it went. It's not like dealing with adult poop! Toddler poop is kind of gross, but eh. I think you get used to it.

We do use cloth diapers, both for our health (the chemicals in disposables kind of ick me out) and to keep from adding more to the landfill). They're super easy, not pins and plastic pants like in the olden days! If anyone wants more info about cloth dipes, feel free to pm me. :)

[snivelingchild]

I use cloth doggy potties in my house. I pick the poo up with toilet paper and flush it, then throw them in the machine. It's actually not that gross (unless you have a dog with health problems like mine) but I'm used to it. It's just as gross as washing reusable menstrual pads. It's natural.

When out and about, people often have to tuck used disposable diapers in the diaper bag, folded up of course, until later. It's not much different with wrapping up cloth diapers up to wait for the washing. Plus, with a baby, you do laundry much more often.

[Sarah_]

^ LOL, I'd never use a reusable menstrual pad either. Those and those Diva cup things just gross me out.
Perhaps I'm too squeamish for my own good? Does everyone else not have a problem with menstrual blood and feces?

[vava]

I feel quite sorry for you, must be horrible to be squeamish about a natural bodily fluid like a period, poo I can inderstand a bit more, cos it can be full of bugs, and you do need to be careful but periods.... ;)

[x-SaRaH-x]

Yeah I use a mooncup and after the initial 'Eughh you can see the blood' there's no problem!

As with the nappies, I don't think I'd be too happy to change re-useable nappies but the I see there being no other choice. I don't ever wish to use disposables apart from maybe at night (if i needed to!)

[Sarah_]

I feel quite sorry for you, must be horrible to be squeamish about a natural bodily fluid like a period, poo I can inderstand a bit more, cos it can be full of bugs, and you do need to be careful but periods.... ;)

Well, to be clear it's not the fact that it's a period that grosses me out, it's the fact that it's blood in general. And while I do think that changing a reusable diaper is utterly repulsive, I understand that it is more environmentally friendly and I am glad people use this option. I just never plan on having to deal with these things 'cause I never plan on having kids. I find children to be just as gross as poo.

[turtlemama]

Poop isn't nice to deal with, I won't lie. But neither is the cost of diapers (and menstral pads) that just get thrown away. I can't stand throwing money away like that. :) I think it's all just something you get used to.

[veganf]

We started out buying Nature Boy biodegradable disposables, very expensive, but we liked them. When #2 came along, we couldn't afford those for 2 babies (#1 was still only 15 months old). So I bought some regular disposables. Luckily I got some hand-me-down cloth diapers, not the best, but they turned me on to cloth when he was 2 months old and we've done cloth ever since, with the exception of disposables sometimes at night (and during my bad morning sickness with the others when I could barely stand up much less face scraping poop into the toilet). I've had 2 in cloth diapers for quite a lot of time, and it works out just fine. I run a load of diapers in the washer every 2-3 days.

[Ms_Derious]

Ancient thread bumpage.

What sort of wraps do the cloth users here favour? I can't say the idea of plastic fills me with joy, by fleece sounds kinda leaky.

If it wasn't for the whole 'It's from sheep' thing wool would sound good to me, but obviously that's not a direction I'm prepared to go in.

[not2ez2bgreen]

There is another option in place of or in addition to cloth diapers!

Elimination Communication (http://health.howstuffworks.com/pregnancy-and-parenting/baby-health/newborn-development/elimination-communication.htm). Its the idea that children, even from birth are aware of their elimination needs, and use body language as cues. Parents can tune themselves into these cues, and recognize when their child needs to eliminate and take them to an appropriate spot to do so, such as a training toilet. For many it's a crazy concept to have an infant or child go around pantless, but it really can work, if you are willing to give it a go.

We have used EC but we have also used cloth diapers, and disposables. We never really got into using the cloth diapers full time because we didnt have a big enough stash to last until we could get a whole load together to wash. We have also used disposables, for the convenience factor, but when we do we always use diapers with organic cotton fill, which is better for the enviroment than the gel fillings on the production end, even if they do all make it into the land fill.

[treehuggingmama]

jflj

[gx2]

I used cloth diapers for both my kids, and I found I handled poop less when I used cloth diapers than before I switched to cloth. Disposable diapers didn't seem to keep the poop contained as well and it would end up all up the back and on the clothes and on whatever the baby was sitting on (or me!) But all the poop stayed in the cloth diapers. I had a diaper sprayer hooked up to my toilet to spray out the diaper to make it easy to dispose of poop, and then I'd put the wet-but-not-poopy diaper in a diaper pail and wash every other day. It was much easier than I thought it would be!

[riddlebox]

I second what gx2 said, we had massive poo blowouts until we switched to cloth. We're talking all the way up the back to the neck. Since we made the switch over a year ago we've never had that happen. They're really not difficult to use at all. We used to have some fancy ones where the poo slid right off into the toilet. We've switched to 100% cotton but it's still not as disgusting as everyone thinks. We just rinse in the tub if it doesn't all come out, and we throw them in the washer at night. Easy for us!

[BeetIt]

We use cloth nappies with our 7mo and we think they're great.. Also I have read that they are better for teaching baby when she needs the loo as she can feel her wet bum in cloth nappies x

this was the case for us. The disposables have the technology to wick away the moisture from the skin, which sounds great except when you're potty training you need them to feel it! Went went cloth for expense and environment. In the end it was just easier. (Get it? In the end? See what I did there?)

[rainbow]

I just ordered GroVia nappies. Most of the time, they're completely reusable. But you can also use a disposable insert within a reusable shell. My parents will be providing two days of childcare a week and my Dad doesn't want to deal with reusable nappies. So this was a compromise; the disposable inserts create less waste than fully disposable nappies, because the shell still gets reused, and the rest of the time we will stick to the washable inserts.