I’m working on the assumption that you’ve got this bit sorted (and if not I can recommend Itti Bitti, so the next thing you have to consider is what additional accessories you’ll need? I’ve listed these in priority order to help you out…

Nappy Bin / Bucket
This is pretty much a must-have (although I did meet a lady at one of the Baby Shows who wrapped her nappies up and checked them at the bottom of the stairs until she had a wash going on!!!) You need a decent sized nappy bucket to hold at least a couple of days worth of nappies (or up to 12 / 14).

Wet Nappy Bag
Again, this is pretty much a must-have as you’ll need to transport mucky nappies home if you’re out and about. You’ve got lots of choices for these and as long as it’s waterproof you’ll be fine. Our Large Nappy Wet Bag is very practical and will hold a LOT of nappies – at least 10, so it’s great for using at nursery etc. If you fancy something a little more stylish, our Monkey Foot Wet Bags come in a variety of sizes, with the medium to large ones being perfect for carrying your nappies when out and about.

Sanitiser
There are LOTS of different ways of ensuring that your nappies stay clean and hygienic. If you wet-pail (soak your nappies after use in your nappy bucket until washing) theen nappisan etc are a good idea. But no matter what you use for wet-pailing, it’s always a stinky, messy job when emptying. Which is why I dry-pail and then occasionally add a sanitising agent to my rinse cycle on my washing machine (in the fabric softener). Most of the time I use a few drops of our Mucky Wipes Tea Tree & Tea Tree Lemon oil as it smells great but is also anti-bacterial. However the Milton Fabric Solution is fabulous for using safely on all fabrics and can be used from 15 degrees.

Mesh Bag
Mesh Laundry Bags are usually used when wet-pailing however even if dry pailing, it can make transferring your mucky nappies into the washing machine just a little bit easier. Worth considering, but not a must have.

If I’ve missed anything from my list, or you disagree, please let me know!

(courtesy of www.rlv.zcache.com)

I sat down at my desk this morning and started working my way back through my emails, only to stop at this one:

 ’I'm another happy customer! I bought my Cheeky Wipes kit from Born in Bristol on the morning of the day my son arrived and I just wanted to write and tell you that I love, love, love our Cheeky Wipes! I am actually sad that they weren’t around for our first and second children. My third child is now 4 weeks old and we have used these wipes from the start. Even my husband who was a totally paid up disposable wipe fan has been converted and uses / raves about them. What a fantastic idea and well worth every penny.’, Natalie F

This has absolutely made my day!  As you all know (whether you work for someone else, work for yourself, or are a stay at home parent) it’s hard keeping your head down to the daily grind.  Feedback like this is just amazing, really motivating and reminding us again why we do what we do.

This particular piece of feedback is even more amazing because the lady in question has just had her third baby, so how she found the time to sit down at a PC and drop me a note is astonishing.

So, this is a plea to anyone reading this blog.  If you’ve had good service anywhere, or found a fabulous new product, then spare 5 mins to let the people behind it know.  It will be appreciated and you might even get a little something out of it yourself!

Sure, it’s convenient to be able to wrap up a stinky poo and chuck it in the bin, never to be seen again (just don’t think about it rotting SLOWLY away in your local landfill site.  Nice.)  But it’s not that much harder to flick poo off a cloth nappy, into the toilet and flush it away!

When you’re out and about the only minor inconvenience about using washable nappies is that you’ve to bring them home.  Most modern cloth nappies (like my lovely Itti Bitti’s) have a popper or velcro closure which keeps the soiled nappy closed and makes it easy to transport home for washing.  Even on occasions when I’ve forgotten my wet nappy bag, I’ve been able to throw the dirty nappy straight into my bag until I got home, with no problems.

Itti Bitti Bum

It does take a little more planning to use washable nappies successfully in that you have to get a bit more organised in terms of washing (and drying) your nappies, but once you get into a routine of doing so, it becomes much easier.

In fact the only time that I can see that the ‘convenience’ of disposable nappies wins is when you’re on holiday and don’t have access to washing / drying facilities.  Even then though you’ve still got to either lug your disposable nappies away with you (and if you’re going for 2 weeks, that’s quite a lot of nappies).  Or you need to find somewhere locally that sells them.

But…I did a bit of reasearch online anyway and realised that cloth nappies had moved on a bit from the bad old days.  5 years later, with no3 in her Itti Bitti’s, I thought I’d share a few of my reasons for going cloth (and staying with cloth…) 

• Saves money.  If not for the fact that I had a little girl and was vain enough to want a trimmer nappy on her, then my Motherease nappies would have lasted 3 children
• The cute factor.  Snuggly baby bums in fluffy nappies as they’re learning to crawl are just the cutest thing ever
• No nasty chemicals from disposable nappies against your baby’s bum
• The environmental thing….better for the environment as long as you don’t boil wash and tumble dry every time (as if??)
• Comfort – after all would you rather wear cotton or paper pants?
• Much less household waste (and less smell too!)
• Emergency help for unprepared mothers.  I have been known to flick poo off a fleece liner , turn the liner over and put the nappy back on again.  You couldn’t do that with a disposable!
• Smug Mummy feeling…for when your lovely clean white nappies are blowing on the clothes line
• Extra bottom padding.  For those upsy-daisy learning to walk by falling over days
• Great conversation starters – particularly the Itti Bittis!

If you’ve got any reasons you’d like to share, please feel free!

There’s no doubt that you do have to wash your nappies, unless of course you use a laundry service.  But to be honest, it’s not that much additional work (if it were I wouldn’t be doing it!) you just need to be a little bit organised.

Storing Cloth Nappies

So where do you start?  Well wet nappies are easy.  Just take it off your baby and pop it in your nappy bucket.  There’s no need to soak the nappy in water, this is known as ‘Dry-pailing’.  For a dirty nappy, just shake the poo off the nappy into the toilet.  If it’s a squishy poo, hold the end of the fleece liner (or top layer of your nappy) and put the other end in the toilet and then flush.  The running flushing water will wash off the worst of the poo.  If it’s a REALLY mucky one and you’re close to your shower, then use the shower to ‘power-hose’ the poo off.

What temperature should you wash your cloth nappies on?

When you’ve got a nappy bin full, it’s time to put a wash on, anywhere between 40 & 60 degrees.  I usually wash at 5o degrees, but (and this is a top tip) I do a COLD rinse wash first.  By rinsing them in cold water, you’re stopping the stains from being set by the warmer water.  I only have to do this nowadays because no2 sons nappies are so completely disgusting and messy because he eats loads of fruit.  If you were just dealing with normal poo, you wouldn’t need to do this.

Now and again, I wash at 60 degrees to keep my nappies free of bugs and I try to line dry them in the sun where possible which also helps keep them clean.

What should I use to wash my cloth nappies?

Anything you want aside from fabric conditioner, which can damage some cloth nappies.  Most manufacturers recommend non-bio liquids.  I use eco-balls.  I was a little sceptical at first that they would work, but amazingly, they do!  And trust me, if they can get my nappies clean, they’ll clean anything!

Drying Cloth Nappies

Which brings me to the trickiest part of using cloth nappies – how to dry them?  Obviously line-drying in the open air is best, but not everyone has access to an outdoor washing line. If it’s raining outdoors, I usually try to get my nappies over the indoor airing rack.  Depending on the weather and whether the central heating is on or not, it takes about 24 hours for my nappies to dry like this.

If that’s not do-able I will use the tumble drier but I really try not to.  Most cloth nappies can be tumble dried, but the manufacturers usually say to avoid repeated tumble drying as it can shorten the life of your nappies.  If I am tumble drying, I’ll take the wraps / shells out of  the wash first and dry them on the air drier, which only takes a few hours.

Getting organised for cloth nappies

You can see that washing and drying your cloth nappies isn’t difficult.  The difficult part is that you’re adding an extra 3 loads of washing per week to your already busy ‘to-do’ list.  So how can you make it easier?

The timing of when you wash your cloth nappies makes a big impact.  Every evening (or every other evening if you’ve just got one babe in nappies), after you’ve put your little one to bed, stick your wash on.  Then, just before bed (if you’re drying indoors) hang the nappies up to dry.  That way they’re drying overnight while you’re tucked up in bed.

If you’re drying outdoors, your nappies will be ready to hang out first thing in the morning, meaning they get all day to dry in the air.  And every (other) evening, you can fold your dry nappies for use the next day.  Easy…or at least not that difficult if you’re just a little bit organised.

Would love to her if anyone has any other top-tips to share?

WOW! They’re amazing. From the moment you touch the bitti D’Lish you’ll be in love. They have a soft ‘Minkee’ (which is like a longer soft velour) outer shell which is laminated inside so that it is waterproof. The beauty of this is that if your baby has just wee’d you can just swap out the inner booster for a clean one which means that it’s a relatively economical ’sized’ option.

Inside the nappy there are 8 absorbent layers of bamboo which cleverly fold in place to minimise bulk, but which can then be unfolded for washing and drying.   Just genius.  The top booster has a microsuede layer (like the inside of the shell) which means that wetness flows away from your baby and doesn’t come back through again, keeping them feeling dry.

Now, it’s not necessary to use any sort of liner with these nappies, but old habits die hard and I’ve been using one of my normal fleece liners with them.  I think I’ll probably continue doing this, just so that it protects the nappy from the worst excesses of F’s explosive poo’s!

I’ve tried these nappies on both F (almost 2 years and about 28 pounds in weight) and J (6 months and about 18 pounds).  They’ve been pretty much leak free, bar one very disgusting poo from F which nothing would have contained.  They look amazingly cute and are nice and slim fitting – J can wear little girl trousers and leggings over them no problem which makes a nice change.

But at the end of the day, it’s not me who’s wearing the nappy is it?  So what do the nappy wearers think?  Well J is too little to tell me, but F isn’t.  I wasn’t originally going to use the Itti Bitti’s on F, but then tried them the other day.  Next morning, when I told F it was time to get him changed and dressed he went over and picked out an Itti Bitti, saying ‘Nice Nappy’.  Since then, it’s been all I can do to stop him raiding my stock to pick himself out another nice nappy!

I think there can be no higher recommendation than my little boy choosing the Itti Bitti’s over his usual Motherease.  He’s been wearing them since he was born and must be so used to them by now, I didn;’t think he would know any difference.  And I’m sure that he can’t appreciate the aesthetics of the nappy, so the bitti’s must be much more comfortable.

The one thing I haven’t worked out yet is the optimum number of nappies and boosters you’d need.  I’m just waiting for new boosters to be delivered early next week and then I’ll get more of an idea, but I’m guessing that 4 per child per day, with the same number of boosters would be plenty.  I’ll keep track and come back to you…and will give an update on the Itti Bitti Challenge too, as I have my disposable nappy guinea pigs lined up now..

I reckon I can convert at least 2 to part-time Cloth use.   What do you think?

They’re here if you want to take a look at them:

http://www.cheekywipes.com/itti-bitti-dlish-nappy

If you’re interested in taking part and sharing your experience, drop me a line to helen@cheekywipes.com and I’ll be in touch.