My disposable nappy experience

When my daughter was first born I put her in Pampers sensitive newborn nappies. I didn’t really think I had much choice in what nappies she should wear and being a first time mum, I didn’t have a clue. Pampers are a well known brand and so I just went on the presumption that if a lot of people use them, then they must be the best, right?

I swapped to Asdas little angels a couple of months in as it was becoming too costly to buy Pampers. I found that they were not as absorbent and my daughter had a few leaks when using them. We also tried Huggies for a while which were ok but they didn’t seem as good a fit, so I went straight back to Pampers and started using the baby dry ones as she got bigger.

I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Aldi own brand nappies but I don’t have a local store near me so I’ve never been able to try them. I did however swap from Pampers to Chicco nappies which were on offer at boots for buy one get one free for £7.99 (42 nappies per pack for midi size). At first Maysie got a slight bit of nappy rash because she wasn’t used to this brand, but after a few wears and blobs of bepanthen, they seemed to serve just as well as the Pampers.

I recently saw some mums posting on Facebook about cloth nappies. So I did a bit of research and was astounded that new mums aren’t informed of the benefits of using cloth instead of disposables. Here are a few things I found out:

• Cloth nappies save you money in the long term. Disposables will cost you about £800-£1000 per baby. Cloth will cost you between £100-£300.
• They look nicer
• You can use them from newborn to 3 years
• They are especially great for sensitive skin and those prone to nappy rash as they are chemical free. You’re so careful on what lotions and potions you put on your baby but you don’t think about the chemicals in disposable nappies!  
• Better for the environment. It takes 500 years or more (we don’t actually know exactly how long) for a disposable nappy to biodegrade – this means if King Henry the 8th wore disposable nappies they might still be around today, ewwww!

I was disappointed to only discover the benefits of using cloth instead of disposable when my daughter was already 8 months old. So I had to write this to share with expectant new mums.

My cloth nappy experience

 I contacted my local green group on Facebook and they put me in touch with a nappy library. I visited a lovely lady who showed me a range of different cloth nappies. I purchased a second hand kit from eBay of Charlie and Banana cloth nappies (pictured below). The Charlie and Banana ones were best suited to my little girl as she is quite petite and I liked the fact that they had a sizeable elastic side which can be adjusted like a bra strap.

 

I first started to just use one a day for 3 days to get used to fitting them. After a few days I became more confident using them and put them on her for a whole day. We have now been using them during the day for about a week and I couldn’t be more pleased. I literally shake the nappy over the bin then put into a laundry bag to wash when needed. I am washing them about once every two days as I only have 12 nappies and I was recommended to buy around 30. We haven’t tried using cloth at night time yet (using Chicco disposables still) as my daughter can be in a nappy for around 12 hours at night, but once I have been using them during the day for around a month I will give it a go and update my blog.

 If you are considering using cloth get in touch with your local nappy library. There are also some great Facebook groups for cloth nappies.