As Reusable Nappy Week draws to a close, here’s the final instalment of my cloth nappy myth busting series. I’ve already covered laundry and looks and comfort, Today I’m going to finish up with a few bits and bobs, mainly cost and ease of use. So here we go with some statements and why I think they are myths…
They’re expensive to buy
If you look online at the nappy retailer sites it may seem a bit pricy to pay say £15 for one nappy. It is true that the initial outlay for a set of cloth nappies is more expensive than a pack of disposables – you could buy a big pack of sposies for £15. But the difference is that that £15 will in effect and up in the bin – once the nappies are used once, that’s it. But cloth nappies can of course be used again and again, on several children, so that £15 stretches over a long period of time. We had a set of fitted nappies that had been used on 2 children before mine, then my 2 boys, then I passed them on to another mum for her new baby when Andrew potty trained, so that’s at least 5 children, and they are still going strong.
Some nappies do cost £15 to buy, but not all have to cost that much. First of all there is the thriving pre-loved market, where you can find cheaper than new nappies in good condition – Facebook has several groups for buying, selling and trading nappies, eBay has lots of listings and you can get some real bidding bargains, and there are specialist nappy forums like Cloth Nappy Tree that have free-to-list classifieds sections. So if you don’t have the cash for the initial outlay by buying new, these are a great place to look, and if you do have the cash to buy brand new, you can usually get a fair bit of your money back once your kid(s) have finished with the nappies by selling them on via these sites, knowing that they will be going to another family rather than landfill.
There are certain types of nappy that aren’t so popular, and these can be found really cheap or even free on freecycle (for example). These tend to be flat nappies or pre-folds, and also some older brands of fitted nappy like Motherease and One-life. I’ve personally always got on very well with both of these for my boys, even though they aren’t the most popular, so it’s not like they are no good, just not the prettiest, but teamed with a funky wrap they work well.
One thing I would recommend before buying any whole sets of nappies that are more expensive than a real bargain, is trying a few different ones, either through your local nappy library or by buying a few cheap ones pre-loved. If you don’t get on with a particular style, at least you won’t have shelled out a couple of hundred pounds on a whole set of that style!
They’re too much of a faff – to put on / to take with you when you go out
Modern cloth nappies are nothing like the image that you might have of needing to be an origami master to get a square piece of towelling onto a baby’s bottom. There are so many different styles, and many are just like a disposable in terms of how you put it on the baby – an all in one piece with absorbency and waterproofing sewn together, and with velcro tabs that pull across the tummy to fasten, it really couldn’t be any easier. Some are slightly more complicated in that you have to popper or stuff the absorbency into the waterproof shell prior to use, but once it’s in, you just put it on like a disposable, and once you know what you’re doing, you can stuff nappies with a blindfold on. Poppers are an alternative to velcro, and especially handy if you have an older baby or toddler who likes to pull off nappies (including disposables) as poppers make it harder for them to do that!
It might seem a bit odd to be carrying around dirty nappies in your change bag, when you can just throw a disposable away where you changed your baby. If the nappy is just wet, you can easily pop it into a ‘wet bag’ – waterproof zipped or drawstring bags that are designed to hold nappies until you get home. If the nappy is dirty, then I just make sure that as much of the poo as possible is flushed down the toilet, and then pop it in the wet bag and sort it out properly when I get home. I make these bags myself, and I know that with a good zip closure and sealed seams these really do keep in smells, so there’s no need to worry about stinking out your bag. Or if space in your bag is an issue, then most wet bags for out and about (like mine 
) come with a popper-fastening handle that can be fastened onto something else like a buggy handle or bar. Or if you’d rather not carry cloth nappies around with you, there’s no reason why you can’t just use them at home.
There’s no point me buying and using them, I’ll be going back to work in a few months and my childcare won’t use them
I think the first point to make here is that any amount of landfill that is spared by using cloth nappies is great – whether that’s one nappy, 10 nappies, 100 nappies or 1000 nappies. So even if you do end up switching back to disposables, it will not have been a waste (in fact quite the opposite!) to have used cloth nappies for a shorter period than the average 2.5 years from birth to potty.
The second point is that you may be surprised by your childcare provider’s policy on nappies. Our childminder was perfectly happy to change cloth nappies (after all, she’d used terry squares with her own older children), and I know a few other childminders who use still cloth nappies on their own children so are happy to do it for others in their care too. I have less personal experience of nurseries, but I know a few friends who send their child to a nursery where the staff are also happy to change cloth nappies. I’m not saying that every childcare provider will be OK with it, but of the people I know who use cloth nappies and whose child also goes to a nursery/childminder, most have managed to continue using cloth nappies once they returned to work.
It’s all or nothing – cloth nappies or disposables
To tie up this post on myths, here’s one that I’ve touched on a few times above. Although it’s nice to use any cloth nappies that you buy as much as possible, it really doesn’t have to be full time. If you only use them at home, that’s OK. If you only use them until you go back to work, that’s fine. If you don’t start using them until your baby is a few months old, that’s great. If you only use them in the daytime, that’s not a problem. If you get behind on the washing and there aren’t enough dry, don’t worry. If you just have a bad day and can’t face another cloth nappy, nobody will think anything less of you! As I said above, if you just save one or two disposable nappies from landfill, that’s a help, and as the saying goes, every little helps.
We started using cloth nappies when Andrew was about 6 weeks old, once we’d got through all the disposables we’d got free and been bought, and once we felt stressful feeding issues has settled down to some extent. Joel was in cloth nappies from a few days old. Andrew was in disposables at night until he started soaking through them at about 18 months old and I had to do some research on night nappies that were absorbent enough for his super heavy wetting. Joel has always been in cloth nappies at night. Sometimes we use disposables – when we go away (about 3 weeks a year) is the main reason, or when Joel got a particularly sore bottom from teething wee (until I found out about charcoal boosters and these have been great for this), or if Andrew’s night nappies haven’t quite got dry in time depending on when I did the washing and whether I could get it outside. So even as someone who likes to promote cloth nappies, I’m not afraid to say that we occasionally use disposables, it’s by no means all or nothing. There’s also the eco-friendly disposable option, or cloth nappies that you can buy eco disposable inserts for that fit like a cloth insert into the cloth shell – another reason why it’s not black and white.
I hope that this series of myth busting posts has been useful for you. Please let me know if you have any further questions, I’m happy to chat nappies any time. There is still some time to join in all the fun of Reusable Nappy Week and try to win some nappy prizes. Check out the Reusable Nappy Association’s Facebook page. Happy nappying!
I love to get comments and always reply, so why not let me know what you think about what you have read here. If you liked this post, why not share it with friends using the various social network buttons below. If you would like to read future posts, please follow this blog by clicking on the buttons up there ^ on the top right. Thank you 
