A nappy’s a nappy, right? Wrong! Like everything nowadays, we have our pick of nappies, from disposable to cloth and everything in between. Welcome to my ultimate nappy guide, where we’ll talk about which type to go for – are you a disposable user, a cloth nappy mama, or somewhere in the middle? What are the pros and cons? What’s it really like using cloth nappies?
The Disposable Nappy
The most popular, easy to use, absorbent and you throw them away after they’re finished. The downside is they end up in landfill and take 200-500 years to decompose! With the average baby using close to 3000 nappies per year that’s a lot of landfill. Brand names and supermarket own are much of a muchness to be honest, just don’t buy the ‘value’ or ‘basics’ unless you’re desperate, they’re just not worth it!
Eco-friendly Disposables
These nappies use sustainable and allergy free materials and are often compostable and biodegradable. Naty is the most popular brand, sold in most supermarkets and on amazon. They are just as effective as the disposables but are more expensive. I would use them all the time if I had more disposable income (pardon the pun).
Cloth outers with biodegradeable/ compostable liners
gNappies are a nice inbetweener nappy, if you like the idea and the look of cloth nappies but don’t want to wash and soak poopy nappies! They do a nice range of ‘pants,’ they can be really funky, they’ve just launched their new glampers range which look awesome. What I love about cloth nappies are the fabrics and cuteness of them, especially in summer when they can wear a t shirt and a cloth bum, so cute! I don’t like the mess though and the scraping of pooh.. With gNappies you have a plastic liner that poppers in the pants, then a biodegradable liner which you can either flush or compost or throw away.
Cloth nappies
These are reuseable, washable nappies. There are different kinds and brands you can get, most have an outer waterproof wrap, an inner towelling aspect and a fleece liner. When baby poohs you chuck or scrape the pooh down the toilet and then soak the liner and nappy in a bucket or just chuck straight in the washing machine and do a load a day. You can also get disposable biodegradable or flushable liners. I sometimes use cloth wipes, and I’ve used cloth nappies in the past but I can’t cope with the pooh scraping and separate washing, plus their clothes look bulky too, although some people like that and you can get special clothes for cloth nappies or just buy bigger size bottoms! There is an initial cost outlay but you can buy second hand (I know it sounds gross but really, it’s ok – especially the cute wraps) and once you’ve got them you no longer have to buy nappies, which the cost of adds up. Other benefits include saving the earth from landfill, transport pollution and plastics generation, but you do use your washing machine a bit more than you would normally.
I now use a mixture of disposables, gNappies and the odd cloth (if I run out of the others) with the odd use of cloth wipes. What’s your preference? If you found this useful, why not share this post?
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