Cloth Nappies

My mum and my husband's mum had both used the traditional square towelling nappies on us.

When I was pregnant with our son we decided to 'invest' in some modern cloth nappies for daytime sleeps. After my sister-in-law 'test-drove' a few different types I decided we'd go with her recommendation and buy 16 small peapods. It cost a fair bit to get these but it has since saved us thousands of $s and reduced landfill by hundreds of disposable nappies.

The compromise we made was that cloth nappies would be used for all the day sleeps but we'd use more absorbent disposable nappies for sleeps to encourage longer sleeps.

The nappy comes with an insert which is really absorbent. You fold it into thirds and slide it into the pocket. The nappies are adjustable with snap fasteners and even after 2 children they haven't deteriorated!

I don't soak the nappies. I dry-pail them which means I scrape off the poo (if any), give them a quick rinse and put them straight into a bucket ready for washing. It takes barely any extra effort! (and, trust me, I don't like washing!)

A very important thing to remember is that poo should NEVER go in to the bin. It goes into landfill and gives off gases. Poo should always be flushed. We bought these soft peapod bamboo nappy liners that we fold to fit inside the peapod. When we change a nappy we just pick this up and throw it into the toilet. Any extra bits of poo that may have escaped can be scraped off with an old knife (my mother in law's tip!) You can pick up a bone handled knife from virtually any op-shop and they seem to be a very effective scraping tool!

Our son has only just stopped using Peapods since he toilet trained two weeks ago so that's a good 2 and half years only buying disposables for sleeps. Our daughter is using the small ones now too.