THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT THEY ARE EASIER THAN YOU THINK! (Bambino Mio Pure Cotton Nappies)

Member Name: Parsley

Product:	Bambino Mio Pure Cotton Nappies
Date:	22/04/02 (2834 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheaper than disposables, less environmentally damaging

Disadvantages: cleaning pooey ones LOL!, extra washing

I never thought that I would ever use cloth nappies as I was very adverse to the idea of scraping out pooey nappies!, as far as I was concerned I was quite happy to sling the used nappies in the bin and forget about them! However, things changed since the birth of my second child.
I started to get a bit worried by how many nappies were going into the bin at the end of every day with 2 children under 2 and also the cost started to really mount up with them both using a packet of nappies each a week!

I started to think about cloth nappies when my son was getting very bad nappy rash and I thought that a cloth nappy would let his skin breathe a bit more than disposables just to get him better. I dug out some old terry nappies that my mum had given me "just in case". When she gave me them I never thought that I would ever actually use them other than as sick cloths or to protect the furniture!
My first experiment was done only while at home when I put my son in a terry nappy and as I didn't have any plastic pants I used a Sainsbury?s bag with two holes cut in the bottom for legs! I used the handles to tie it round his waist!!!! It looked really funny, but it worked pretty well for round the house and his bum rash cleared up quite quickly. (I know that you will all think I?m insane now!)
Anyway, this got me thinking about properly using cloth nappies.

I saw a new set of Mio Bambino prefold nappies on ebay with a wrap, nappy pins & liners, so I thought that I would try it out properly!

Prefold nappies are like a thick soft cotton pad with an extra padded panel bit down the middle for those who of you who don?t know! You can then fold the sides of the nappy inwards to make it fit your baby. It then does up with two nappy pins, one at each side. Mind your fingers as well as the baby LOL!

I find that the prefolds are best boosted as it makes them hold more wee. You can use booster pads or a bit of absorbent thick c
otton material (I have got some material from the carboot sale similar to the nappy material & it works really well to make the nappy hold more & last longer. My son wees for England so I have to put the extra material there!

You need to use nappy liners to catch the solid bits (eurghh! this is where I go all squeamish and long for disposables.) The solid bits go down the loo with the flushable liner and the dirty nappy goes into a bucket to stew (sorry soak!)
I think if only I could tell what my son was going to do, he would get a disposable for the poo & cloth nappies for wee lol!
Anyway, joking apart, dealing with the nappies is really easy. Weed ones (my favourites!!!) can go straight in the main white wash as its only a bit of wee (urine is harmless & sterile) and the pooey ones need to go straight in a bucket of water to soak as you don?t want nasty indelible brown poo-stains lol!
At the end of the day round up the pooey ones from your bucket and do them at 60 degrees with normal detergent & they will come out sparkling and white. I have been told that fabric softner makes them less absorbent and that vinegar can make them more absorbent, but I haven?t yet dared to add vinegar for fear of smelling like a fish & chip shop!
Another foible of cloth nappies is that after you have washed the prefolds 5 or 6 times, they actually work better and look softer and more fluffy!

The last important thing to note is that if you use cloth nappies, you will need a nappy wrap or plastic pants to prevent the inevitable leak without them.
You can get a wide variety of wraps but I use the Mio Bambino diaraps which are shaped like a disposable nappy. They are rubber lined with material on the outer bit, they have elasticate waist and leg cuffs and they do up easily with velcro. I also use plastic pants sometimes if all the nappy wraps are in the wash as they work very well too (wash the wraps at 40 degrees not 60!)

Anyway, cloth nappi
es are a great idea, a lot of us were brought up in them before disposables! They aren't so damaging the environment. OK they still need washing & detergent, but at least they won't be filling up a landfill tip site. They also are much cheaper on your pocket in the long run (my main incentive!). You also don't have to buy them new, you can buy them off friends who have finished with them, or there is a big buying & selling cloth nappies forum on Ukparents (www.ukparents.co.uk) where people sell reusable nappies & wraps and you can also get good advice off other mums who use them. (You might even make a few friends too!)
I got mine off ebay (www.ebay.co.uk) which is another good source of reuseables.

The bottom line (pardon the pun) is that if I can do it, anyone can LOL!

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