cloth diaper question

[lori]

I'm pregnant with my first baby, and really want to use cloth diapers. I've bought a few different brands so we can try them out and see what we like. I have a few questions for you experienced cloth diaper mamas:

How many diapers do you need?

Do you really have to buy the special detergents or would others work too? I'm allergic to lots of detergents, so we already use a hypo-allergenic, unscented, environmentally friendly detergent. Would this be ok?

I keep hearing that you shouldn't use diaper cream with cloth diapers. If you need to use it, do you have to switch to disposables for a while or are there any acceptable creams?

Are there any benefits to wet diaper pails versus dry? The whole concept of wet diaper pails sounds so gross, but I'd like to understand why some people choose it.

Thanks girls

 

[FemmeEnceinte]

Hello!

I'd say you need a couple of day's worth. In the beginning this might be about 20-25 but after a month or two will settle to about 12-15.

You can use whatever you like to wash them really, some people use soapnuts! You might find that it's not great on tough stains but a little bit of sun is all you need for those anyway so it's not too much of a problem.

Most of the time people use fleece liners in nappies anyway to protect them from stains and to provide an extra layer of dryness against baby's bum. This is also useful with nappy cream which can be quite greasy and leave stains. I, however, don't really bother with them as much any more and never use them with nappy cream and have never once had any staining issues, we use bepanthen fwiw.

As for nappy pails... we dry pailed for a long time and then I decided to try wet pailing to see if it reduced staining at all as soiled nappies sit in my nappy pail for a couple of days sometimes and... OMG... I was nearly sick. I have a strong constitution and I retched the whole time I was emptying the bucket. It was disgusting and, worse still, it made no difference to staining so, honestly, never again...

HTH x

 

[Rachel_C]

^WSS.

I wet pail and dry pail. Dry pail for the wet nappies and wet pail for the dirty ones as I was getting stains just with dry pailing. Plus, I only normally wash at 30 degrees so I like to add an extra germ-busting step! When we have a dirty nappy, I rinse as much poo off as I can (or tip it down the loo now she's being weaned so poos are firmer) then put any soiled bits in a pail that has Napisan in. Not sure if you have it over there but it's a germicidal non-bio nappy cleaning powder that you can use for soaking or as washing powder. I only put inserts etc in there, I don't like to soak anything with PUL in it.

When it comes to washing, I wash every three days or so, so I don my trust rubber gloves and pour off as much of the water as I can into the loo. Then if I've used a mesh bag, I give it a quick squeeze out or squeeze out the individual bits and chuck it in the washing machine with the rest of the nappies. If I wasn't wet pailing the dirty ones, I would feel like I should put them through a rinse first before adding the wet nappies.

Since I added in the wet pail I've had less stains but it's not for everybody!

 

[Gingerspice]

I was looking into the pailing options recently as I'm really taken by the idea of cloth nappies. I'm going to be a bit slow on the uptake of it though as they're already overdue, but I hope to start soonish with trialling a couple of systems.

Here was a link I found which seemed to show the pros and cons of wet and dry napy pailing. I quite like the look of partially rinsing inserts and then putting into a dry bucket rather than leaving til later remaining completely dry, or having a wet pail. I've also read putting lavender oil and tea tree oil in the dry pail on some cloth is a good way for smells to be reduced:

https://babyproducts.about.com/od/clothdiapers/bb/wet_dry_pail.htm

 

[sugarpuff]

i'm lazy and dump all nappies, wet or pooey, into an empty bucket (though i do use fleece liners on everything). i wash every other day - 40 degrees with ariel bio - and all my nappies are spotless and shiny

 

[princessellie]

i always used to wet pail, but that was when i was handwashing all my nappies so it seemed more necessary then, like the first bit of wash iykwim, now i use my washing machine i just dry pail, even poos, i just knock them off because theyre never runny now, then put the rest of the nappy into my nappy box, and leave there for 2 days until i do my wash

i use fleece liners on some of my nappies but not all, some are fleece lined anyways so not much point unless your LO does have runny poos in which case i would personally line everything, would rather chuck away a dirty fleece liner than try and wipe all the poo off sometimes lol, also better for nappy creams as its the liners that get clogged, not the nappies

i use bold 2in1 (naughty i know lol) its the only detergent with softener you can use, any other softener should be avoided because it stops the nappies being so absorbant, id say your one sounds fine tbh

i would have about 20 nappies to start with, now i have about 10 which means i have to wash every day and half, im lucky most of my nappies are microfibre, i do have some bamboo ones which take a day or two to dry since you cant put them in the dryer or on the radiator, if you want all bamboo ones id get quite a few more

x

 

[celine]

https://www.ethicalshoppingforbabies.co.uk/2010/01/cloth-nappies-getting-started/ here is a great starter guide written by a wise bnb friend of mine
We dont do cloth but I am considering for no 2 maybe

 

[littlestar]

Thanks Celine, Nice to see you in this section.

There two linkies in my siggy you might find interesting and may answer some of your questions. But do pop back with any other q's you might add!