Cloth versus Disposable nappies.

[aendr]

It's real nappy week and I am in the middle of a dilemma




Cloth versus disposable nappies

We're currently trialling a set of cloth nappies, using them during the day and disposable ones at night and when we're out for a prolonged period. We're using sized nappies, and currently Alex is in size 1. He's going to outgrow them pretty soon and we need to decide whether to purchase size 2 or not.

Eco-friendliness:
Debatable - cloth nappies have a manufacturing and washing cost and ultimately a disposal cost, whereas disposables have a manufacturing and disposal cost. Using eco-friendly disposables reduces the manufacturing cost compared with standard disposables, though the landfill cost is still there as councils still landfill them despite their compostability and we aren't up for composting them at home. Our washing machine is fairly new, water efficient, energy efficient; which means I need to do extra rinses to get the detergent out of the nappies to prevent a build up effect which makes nappies stink of ammonia.

Space:
Cloth nappies take up a whole drawer of our three drawer chest; which is a very big proportion of the storage space in the rather tiny nursery. Disposable nappies take up much less of our storage. We could use the gained space to make Alex's clothes less of a squash and rummage situation. As he grows, his clothes are going to take up more space too, and he's growing fast.

Clothes:
While Alex looks very cute in his animal nappy wraps (no photos permitted by his father), most modern clothes are cut for the smaller disposable nappy bum. I either have to put him in clothes which would be obviously too big when in disposables and are too long for him in the legs, or buy the more expensive and limited options "cut for cloth" clothes; maintaining two piles of clothes - one for cloth and one for disposables is too much effort, too much storage space and too confusing. Fit will get more important as he gets more mobile.

Time:
A cloth nappy takes a small amount more time to put on and take off than a disposable nappy. I also have to spend time washing them, hanging them up and putting them away. Buying the eco-disposables is only possible in two shops in St Neots, and not at my usual supermarket, but I can walk to either of these shops and while on mat leave am doing so at least once a week. When back to work, I can still drive there on the way home from collecting Alex if required, though it's marginally less convenient than the large supermarket. While it is not a bit hassle while on mat leave, when I return to work I will be shorter on time and might prefer to spend it interacting with Alex or relaxing. The question is whether it's worth my added time to do the cloth nappies. Bear in mind that Ganesh isn't up for assisting with the laundering aspect so this time will be mine alone.

Financial Cost:
I've considered the relative costs of using cloth and eco-disposable nappies, where we use dispos at night and cloth during the day. I'm guessing at what age Alex will grow out of size 1, and assuming that a potential second child will be the same as Alex in terms of size and growth patterns. I've included the electrical cost of the washing machine running but not the cost of the water it uses. I'm not including the cost of more expensive clothes etc. I'm also assuming that with a second child we may start using cloth nappies sooner because of familiarity with them. It also assumes that we do not have to buy extra nappies or wraps for a second child.
Size 1 nappies for 1 child only is £90 more expensive than eco-disposables. Used on a potential 2 children they will be £20 more expensive. It's only when going to size 2 that there is actually a cost saving for us. We would save £235 with 1 child and £600 with 2 children using them. A second child is not guaranteed and may be a different shape, fitting the nappies we have less well.

Support:
Ganesh is not happy using cloth nappies - he finds it harder to deal with a pooey one, and doesn't want the hassle of doing anything other than dumping a wet one on the side (when he could just dump it in the bucket, a metre away). This means I have to take over for a pooey nappy and often find a wet nappy on the side waiting for me when I come tiredly up to bed. When back at work, although the nursery will use cloths if requested to do so, I'd have to collect a bag of nappies each day and maintain a stock of clean ones there. This might mean I need to buy more nappies than allowed for in the cost paragraph above in order not to do laundry more often than desired. Disposable nappies will also be easier for other visitors (grannies) to deal with.

Nappy rash:
Doesn't appear to be a problem either way.

Development:
Observation shows me that Alex finds it easier to roll over, which he is just learning how to do, naked or in disposables - he is trapped on his big bummed cloth nappy like a tortoise is on its back. I can imagine this will also affect the early stages of crawling and walking. He is small, so the bulk of the nappy has more effect than on a larger baby. On the other hand, cloth is known thought to help with earlier potty training due to the wet feel and getting him out of nappies entirely is quite possibly the most efficient thing to do in all cases above.
Edited to add: But though "on average" apparently cloth nappy wearers train 6 months earlier, the effect is apparently more to do with girls being fastidious, and there's no guarantees for any particular individual child.

Self:
Having had difficulties with breast feeding, feeling a bit of a failure there, there's an emotional side of it involved too. There's a sense of middle class snobbery I guess, feeling I'm doing something more, extra, to compensate. I guess as quite a few of my peers also use cloth, there's a bit of peer pressure too. I don't want to feel a failure at this too.


Other considerations:
We use washable wipes and water in preference to oodles of baby wipes or cotton wool. Baby wipes get used for a major poo explosion. Washing and storing these isn't particularly onerous and can be done in a regular clothes wash especially if we only use them on a non-pooey bum. I'd still do this, which would still be better for the eco-friendliness and financial cost aspects.

The support and time aspects of this are quite significant no factors for me. Ganesh is most likely to be swayed by cost and the cost saving is not really worth it for his time. The environment bit is arguable and I do do a lot of recycling etc., and if only they'd have a nappy-waste-stream in the bins for parents, which could then be used as known rubbish base for fuel then landfill and fuel problems would both be rather reduced.

Comments

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy to put the complicated nappies[1] in the bucket in toto, but I was under the impression they needed to be separated out and different bits put in different places so the wraps could be reused or something. Similarly I thought they needed assembling from multiple places.

[1] In view of the often-used vocabulary where cloth nappies are called "real", which has pejorative implications about the fakeness of disposable nappies, I have resolved to use the terms "complicated" and "simple" instead to counter-balance this.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Sounds to me like the situation could be made easier by arranging the nappy-changing place differently. Many people have met an analogous problem with our kitchen.
(Apologies if this sounds like interfering)

[aendr.livejournal.com]

It's a case of dumping the nappy in the bucket outside the door and leaving the wrap on top. If we wanted to spend more money on having enough wraps so we didn't reuse them between washes, then the wrap can't be just dumped in too because it needs velcroing together which I don't think Ganesh will remember to do; if not done the velcro damages the nappies in the wash.
The bucket is better not inside the nursery because it was right next to the cot, and therefore too close to Alex sleeping. There's not really much space to rearrange the thing.
I don't really want to do what one friend does and pre-assemble them just for Ganesh as that would be a significant amount more of my time, and they fall apart a bit when moved not carefully (so negating the work already done) and there isn't really the space to store them assembled. I did consider this.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

So the problem is Ganesh doesn't know what to do and you don't think he'll remember; stick a flowchart to the wall?

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

(I did this for using the electron microscope and it helped a lot!)

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

We're in more need of one of those for putting Alex to bed at the moment :-)

[aendr.livejournal.com]

Checklist rather than flowchart for that.

[aendr.livejournal.com]

If we continue with them, I will - for the grannies as well as Ganesh.

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

It's the disassembly I have a problem with, not the location of the bucket. Also I don't change complicated nappies that often because he doesn't use them at night or if we're going out or if he's a bit ill, so I often lose track of what the latest instructions.

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

Also, complicated nappies need changing more frequently as they hold less wee than simple ones.

[aendr.livejournal.com]

That's not true long term, just initially (and probably for the next 6 months). As he gets bigger we can also add in boosters as well.

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

And for a potential new set of size 2 nappies, and if we get any extra nappies at any point we have to remember which ones have a short weespan.

If we start using boosters I'll have to start calling them "very complicated". Hmm.

[imc.livejournal.com]

In my experience it is true long term, because disposables have the "stay dry" effect and cloth nappies don't, so it's best to change the cloth nappy as soon as possible when it's wet.

I once bought a pack of disposable boosters for overnight use, but once I'd used one I couldn't really see the point — might as well just put a disposable nappy on. I haven't tried cloth boosters but it seems to me they'd have the same wet-against-skin problem as the nappy itself. I suppose people do use them successfully though.

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

How do you tell when it's wet? Repeatedly half-undress him to check?

[imc.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yes — how difficult this is depends on how the child is dressed, of course. Once he is in trousers and t-shirts it's a fairly trivial exercise. You don't have to be constantly doing it, though — every couple of hours is probably enough unless there are other clues or he is drinking a lot. You can sometimes go by smell, and there will inevitably be the occasional damp-trousers incident (it happens with disposables too).

[imc.livejournal.com]

We had a certain amount of success with Kushies (also Boots own brand all-in-one nappies, which are similar). They have the waterproof wrap built in and fasten just like disposables (with velcro); the only assembly required is to put a sheet of lining paper on. However, they do depend on the child being about the right size for a good fit.

Even when we were on washable nappies "full time" we still used disposables overnight and when out of the house for any length of time. They were definitely more convenient and lasted longer between changes. And we went back to disposables when he grew out of the Kushies, so overall we haven't been a great advert for the (supposedly) ecological method. (None of this "wash at 30 degrees" either — they were washed at 60 on the full programme.)

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

I don't want to feel a failure at this too.

It's not your fault that I don't like complicated nappies, and viewing using them as an achievement is nonsensical unless you like challenges for the sake of it.

Their proponents have somehow managed to create the impression that they are somehow "better" in some nebulous way but it's simply not true. They're much less convenient, possibly somewhat cheaper and there's an environmental trade-off.

[aendr.livejournal.com]

The trouble is that the emotional reaction is not rational.

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

In that case my emotional reaction is to refuse to use them as the campaigns in their favour are annoying me.

[aendr.livejournal.com]

Another consideration is weaning - I don't know how this changes the poo, but solider and smellier is what I've heard. I don't know how this will affect the willingness to deal with pooey ones.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

As a non-parent, this is all a bit out of my league ;)

The one thing you may hwever want to look at when modelling costs is that apparently cloth nappies can help with potty training (or rather, the veryclever stay-dry effects of disposables can hinder, because the child is less aware of dampness!) - so I don't know whether that would mean that potty training would occur at a younger age?

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

If there was some concrete evidence that this happens by a significant amount, my opinion would probably flip towards complicated nappies. All we've managed to find is the odd anecdotal claim, though :-(

[scat0324.livejournal.com]

Have one (or two) the other way. We're not worried, but neither my eldest or his friend next door show any signs of even knowing when their nappy is wet - they're both approaching 3 at the moment and have both been in cloth nappies since the start.

Given all the problems listed, I think you (plural) really should just go with disposables, but I'm surprised you (Ganesh) have difficulty with what needs to happen with the various parts of the cloth nappy - it's not exactly difficult, is it?

Anyway, I'm more interested in the logic behind "no photos permitted by his father" - what's the worry?

[aendr.livejournal.com]

I'll let his daddy answer that one, he's the fussy one.

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

Assembly is more complicated and fiddly than disassembly, though both require remembering where to get/put things.

Would you generally consider it reasonable to publish photos of someone in their underwear without their consent?

[scat0324.livejournal.com]

To my mind, it's no more complicated than other day-to-day things, like setting and clearing the table for mealtimes, but I guess we see things differently :)

On the photo front, consent for an infant comes from its parents, so we're just going round in circles. With the way you phrase it, I guess you forbid photos from even being taken (s/publish/take/ in your question above and it's substantially the same). That, in my experience. is an unusual position, which is why it interested me, but also I don't want to sound like I think it's a wrong judgement, so unless you *want* to tell me more about why, I'll leave it there.

[hsenag.livejournal.com]

It adds extra complexity to an already potentially tricky process, though.

Consent is exercised by parents in the interests of the child, not their own interests or desires. Obviously the boundary is generally quite blurry, but in this case it's something that for anyone old enough would clearly require specific consent rather than just being understood, and I'm very skeptical that there's any benefit to Alex from them, though of course it might turn out that he likes them.

Re take/publish, I did object a bit at the time they were taken, but not very strongly. It then got published on the web because all our photos do by default and I didn't really think about it very much. Once I realised it had got to the point where a print had been made and was about to be distributed to family, I objected more strongly and they were unpublished from the web and the print was removed from the bundle and put away. As far as I'm concerned I don't really mind if more are taken if they are kept unpublished until Alex can reasonably decide for himself about what to do with them. (And if he wanted them deleted/destroyed I'd support that. Dunno at what age I'd consider him able to "reasonably decide" though.)