My OH didn't want me to use cloth as he had memories of his childhood home having buckets of smelly nappies around all the time (his mum was a childminder and there were always lots of babies and toddlers around). He wanted us to use disposables and get the poo out of the house as quickly as possible, preferably in a scented plastic bag...
The eco-friendly argument didn't hold a great deal of water with him, neither did reminding him that these nappies may be out of the house but they're sitting festering in a wheelie bin for up to a week in high summer - lovely. And neither did explaining that little boys' genitals should be kept at a cool temp and disposables heat them up too much do me any good. So I just had to insist, appealing to his money-conscious nature. Once I'd explained that second-hand nappies were not disgusting, as all cloth is second hand when it's been pooed on and washed, even if it's just the one time, and once I'd bought a bunch of gorgeous pre-loved fluff and explained how much I'd saved on the full cost of the nappies, and how much we would save against the cost of disposables, and how I could even get some money back if I sold them on after - well, let's just say, I got my way
He didn't like the idea of washing all the time but I don't, just every 3 days. He didn't like the idea of poo sitting around but as it happens Adam only does one pooey nappy every 2 days usually, and I rinse that in the loo, so there's no smell at ALL. I don't think he loves seeing the clean nappies hanging round the flat but he can live with it.
And he's definitely come around to it. We do have some disposables in the house as he insisted on it for use if we go out, but *I* insist he use cloth while we're home. Apart from at night - but I'm working on that... Part of me does think he's humouring me in a way, but I don't care. He just wants an easy life and the nappies don't detract from that, IMO. He even came with me to a "nappuccino" (cloth nappy coffee morning thing) so I could use my real nappies for London voucher, and he was the only man there... and the lady asked his opinion and he chatted away about how good they were, easy to use, etc - so I think I converted him good and proper!
It's quite a turnaround - I was very very surprised when I managed to get him to use my cloth wipes as well, as he thought that was a step too far when I told him I was going to make some... that was the moment I knew he'd be ok, he was saying things like "nappies, fine, wipes no way", but when it came to it and he saw how much cleaner it is to wipe up poo with my wipes, he followed suit.
We did use disposables in the first month, I agreed to that, simply because I wanted to be sure I had the rest of everything fairly under control so he wouldn't have an excuse to say they were a bad idea. Then I phased them in, let him put on a disposable if he was doing a nappy but of course he ended up seeing me doing the cloth and raving about them, and he saw it is no extra work that is a chore for me (the opposite, I love looking after my nappies!) and eventually he was doing it as well. I think being flexible is a good idea, it's ok to have some disposables around, use them when you need to, etc. It's got to the point where I think my OH dislikes disposables as much as I do (apart from at night, but then he isn't the one always taking it off...)
good luck. the softly softly approach might be a good one
would he wanna use cloth n he said hell yeah i wouldnt use sposies!! so thats gotta be a turn around!!
One of the main things that did it for us was when we found out a disposable nappy takes 500 years to decompose!!!
I think because she HAD to use terry's for us three she thinks that disposables are the best invention in the world and according to her she would have had LOTS more babies if they were around when she was having babies.
