Mother-ease really does what it says on the label (Mother-ease One Size)

Member Name: whatanoldbag

Product:	Mother-ease One Size
Date:	11/02/08 (222 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Eco - friendly, cheap, easy to use

Disadvantages: none that I can see, except for the start up cost

I started using nappies so many decades ago that we used terry towelling squares and nappy pins!

So when disposable nappies got good I used them with my daughter, now two and half, and thought how marvellous it all was.
But by the time I was stay at home mum with two children under two in nappies, I began to see some problems:

a) The local council moved to fortnightly bin collections and we couldn't cope with the nappies hanging around for a fortnight, also having to cut down our rubbish by 50% overnight without warning.
b) two babies in nappies was getting seriously expensive at the supermarket

c) I wasn't working so had more time and less money.
All of that meant it suddenly seemed a good idea to use re-usable nappies again. Ooh and how much better have they got (especially the wraps, as we have learned to call plastic pants. Wow - they are not even made of plastic any more!)

So I did my research and having sussed out all the different nappies on the market, I found that these motherease one sized nappies would suit me best, as I had two children and wanted to try and use the same ones to save money. You buy different sized wraps to go over the cloth bit, sized to fit your child.


SET-UP
As a starter little pack for myself I bought a dozen nappies and two medium wraps for my son (he was only 3 months but it seemed silly to buy small size, as he'd grow out of them so quickly) and two large ones for my daughter. not a generous amount but I didn't want to shell out too much to start with.
These nappies are really clever. They have adjustable poppers so you can wrap them more closely together for smaller babies and further apart for older ones. There is a booster pad which fits in for older babies, or overnight. I found they fitted my son really well, my daughter being old was a bit at the limit of them, and needed the booster pads all the time. I only used the booster pads for me son overnight.

You need to buy disposable liners unless you want to spend half your life scraping unmentionable stuff off the nappies, but with a liner these are easy to use. A wet liner can usually be washed and reused (depending o the brand you buy) and a dirty one just goes down the loo with all its contents. So in many ways they are easier to deal with than disposables. I keep a bucket with a lid in the utility room and soiled nappies go in there and get washed after two days now my son is the only one using them.
Motherease sell wraps which are actually the most brilliant part of the system - we used the ones with poppers which fit so well, we hardly have any leaks (not quite as good as a disposable but probably only one leak a week more. So so so much better than terries used to be!

COSTS INVOLVED
Each motherease nappy costs around £8 to buy, and you need a dozen for partial use, between 15 and two dozen for full time use and a bit more than that for full time use with two babies.

On top of that you'll need to buy a pack of liners (I buy mine from John Lewis for £4.95 for 200, but they are easily available on the internet for a not dissimilar price) and some wraps. Wraps cost about £7 each and for one child you might just get away with three, as you don't need to change the wrap every time you change a nappy, just when they are soiled. You will need to buy a larger size of wrap as your child grows though, so one child might need six or seven wraps in total.
In terms of running cost, I reckon they cost me about 5p a nappy, excluding purchase costs. This is almost a third of the cost of a disposable - they mostly come in around 15p a nappy. This cost accounts for a liner at 2p-3p each (about half get washed and reused at least once, so I reckon the average cost is 1.5p), plus 15p-20p a wash in washing powder and about 50p to run the washing machine and the tumble dryer.

WASHING ROUTINE
I can wash about 20 at once, with the wraps. I always wash on 60 degrees, and do put other things in with them, like towels, and underwear, unless there is a very soiled nappy (which there rarely is, due to the effectiveness of the liners). Everything always comes out fresh and lovely and clean. Occasionally I boil wash them, though it says they are only good up to 60 degrees, I can't help it - I always sued to boil wash my terry squares and old habits die hard. It doesn't seem to have done my motherease nappies any harm! The wraps go in the tumble dryer as well as the nappies.


A word on drying - I include the cost of tumble-drying in my price comparison because unless it is a really warm summer day with plenty of breeze and you get them on the line early, they won't dry. This is because they are really thick between the legs as they are shaped (terry squares dried much more quickly!) and they can sometimes stay damp right in the middle, so I use the tumble dryer on a load of nappies more often than other washing. They also dry a bit hard on the line. Sunshine seems brilliant for helping them stay white, but they are much softer out of the dryer.

USE
They are bit slower to change a nappy than using disposables, though, goodness me, it's a hundred times quicker than terry squares used to be. The nappy bit is just as quick as a disposable, but then you have to repeat the process basically with the wrap.
If I'm out I just take a supermarket carrier bag with me in my changing bag to pop a wet nappy in til I get home, though if I know I'm going out all day I'll just use disposables for that day.

My son doesn't seem to care what he sits in to be honest, but my daughter only started using them when she was 20 months old and I think it had a beneficial effect on her getting potty trained. She was dry with three months of using them, before she was two. Of course lots of children are, but I think being able to feel what was happening might have helped.
The only annoying thing, is what to do with baby wipes if you use them. With a disposable I pop the used wipes inside the nappy and wrap it and bin it, but with these the liner goes down the loo and nappy goes off to wash, and you get left with three soiled baby wipes I don't want to just put in the bin, so I end up wrapping them in a carrier bag before binning them, which is not exactly environmentally brilliant. The answer of course is to use washable wipes (i.e. flannel squares and I do do that when I'm round the house, just wet one in hot water and a bit of soap and then wash it with the nappy. It's not big deal, but I can't persuade my husband to do any of this. He thinks it is all too much faff.

One word of warning. Maybe it's just my children, but I do find a poopy nappy smells worse in a terry than it does in a disposable. No idea why.

Basically If I were pregnant and deciding what to do, I'd buy a dozen of these, with one small wrap and two medium wraps (maybe a mix between the rikki wrap which is velcro and the popper one, to see which I liked best). (NB, most of my babies are big at birth - i.e. over 9lbs - that wouldn't be right with a tiddler!) I'd not use them to start with, but once I'd got over the shock of giving birth and got into a routine at home with the baby, I'd give them a go. Especially once you've started weaning they are not more trouble than disposables. And even if you only use them at times ,at home, every disposable nappy you are not putting into landfill is a good thing. Lots of local councils do a scheme where they subsidise you to buy them, so that might offset some of the set up costs. It's just a bit more washing ,and it builds a better world. What new mum doesn't want that for her baby?

Summary: Really worth doing, even if you only use them part of the time