How many of you use cloth nappies for mindees?

[onceinabluemoon]

I provide, use and launder cloth nappies for all the babies in my care.

I also provide and use bamboo cloth (resuable) wet wipes.

Saves the parent a fortune, means I don't have a bin full of stinky nappies and satisfies that part of me which is eco-friendly as I'm not putting thousands of nappies in landfill every year.

I would be interested to know how many others do it and why?

I would be equally interested in responses from those of you who supply disposables or who feel its not part of your job to supply nappies

I originally started this because I got fed up with only having half a wheelie bin for our household rubbish and that bin stinking all summer as its only emptied fortnightly, before that I used disposables. Why did you start or why would you never do it?

[muffins]

I currently use them on my 2 children but not for mindees as my 2 create enough washing:rolleyes: BUT as soon as my DD PT's I'll offer them for mindees. I just don't have the drying space for more in cloth.

I use them because I hate putting chemicals & plastic next to my babies skin & to save having a stinking bin full of sposies! I send any used sposies home with mindees, not keeping those in my house:D

[PixiePetal]

I don't provide cloth nappies but am more than happy to use them - saves filling my bin with nappies :thumbsup: . Cloth seem to be quite popular where I live anyway so people don't give you funny looks like they used to! Parents take them home to launder.

Parents provide nappies - they all use different one but I always have a spare pack of something just in case.

Do you provide for parents to take home? obviously child would be wearing at the end of a day :) , or do parents swap to disposable at home time?

[onceinabluemoon]

Do you provide for parents to take home? obviously child would be wearing at the end of a day :) , or do parents swap to disposable at home time?

No, they get changed into a disposable just before they go home.

[Noomie]

I use them for my DD but have only had one parent come to me who uses cloth part time. The other parents just don't seem interested.

I hate the thought of filling up the land with masses of disposable nappies. Although on the other hand, I am using washing detergent and electricity to wash my cloth nappies. I just think that we can come up with better energy solutions soon whereas it is very hard to get rid of waste. I'm a big recycler too. My wheelie bin only gets picked up once a fortnight and is only ever half full. Unfortunately this is mostly mindee's nappies.

[Mouse]

If parents use cloth nappies I am more than happy to use them here (provided by parents). One family sends their children in them & I send the nappies home at the end of the day to be cleaned. They never use a liner, so if it's a poo nappy, it can be pretty disgusting, but I just put it in the bag & let the parents deal with it.

Another family used cloth at home, but didn't want to use them here as they didn't want a bagful of dirty nappies handing over at the end of the day.

I did consider using all cloth here, but decided it would be too expensive for me to buy enough nappies to last 3 children (sometimes 4 with a variation), in various sizes. I also had to consider the washing, drying and storage of them all and decided it wasn't feasible for me.

I do use reusable wipes, but they're easy enough to wash, dry & store. We also recycle a lot, so even though our bin is only emptied every fortnight, it's never full...despite all the disposables in it.

[little chickee]

All my mindees are in disposables and i must say i prefer it this way.
If a parent wanted me to use cloth i would but parent would have to supply and wash.

I have a large almost industrial size wood burner in my garage that provide our heating and hot water and all disposable nappy are burned - along with alot of my general household rubbish!

I am interested to know how you deal with reusable wipes. If you;ve used a reusable wipe to deal with a dirty nappy how on earth do you wash that?

[mushpea]

My bin is never full as we recycle loads,, I have a womery and a compost bin and the council now take away the food waste that i cant put in the wormery or compost bin ie bones etc,, we recycle plastic, cardboard etc

I used cloth nappies on my son as decided it would be cheaper and nicer for him having used normal on my daugher and even though he suffers badly from excema he never once had nappy rash or excema in his nappy area.
I dont provide them for the minded children as I feel its up to the parent to provide the nappies, I would use them on a child if they were provided though, also I have up to 5 under 5's each week (coming at different times) at the moment only 2 are in nappies but there was a time when all 5 where in nappies at the same time and this would have not only cost a fourtune in nappies but also washing powder and elect etc plus in the winter I would have struggled to dry that many nappies.

[gigglinggoblin]

What a great idea! It never occured to me to supply them but I might consider it in future.

There are schemes that supply the nappies and collect them to wash them, its not a huge amount of money so is something to consider if anyone is interested but doesnt fancy the laundry! Not sure how they would react to having a business customer but I cant see why it would be a problem, I guess it would be up to the individual company

[onceinabluemoon]

Some of the nappies I use are birth to potty, which means I only need to buy one size which made it cheaper to do. I also bought a lot of seconds from a well known fitted nappy company which made it cheaper again.

A lot of the time you can pick up nappies from ebay where parents have tried the idea and found it wasn't for them so are selling on almost new nappies. :)

Reusable botty wipes go into the nappy bucket and get hot washed in with the nappies. I use two different types for botty's and faces so they dont get faces wiped with botty wipes (hope that makes as much sense to you all as it does in my head!)

Unfortuntely with the recycling, the area in which I live barely recycle anything. :( We can do plastic bottles for example, but not yoghurt posts or plastic trays even if they are made of the same plastic! No cardboard, no drinks cartons etc. its hard to get used to after living in a place where we could recycle virtually everything including clothing!!! You are allowed to take the cardboard etc to the 'local' recycling centre but that's 20 miles away and I don't have a car and if I did, the petrol involves and emissions etc would probably cancel out the good it was doing :(

[Hebs]

i hate disposables and think they should be banned :panic:

this is something i might consider offering to any new mindees in nappies, never thought to offer this as part of my service

BUT

they'd have to be the good old fashioned squares :D

[mushpea]

do you mind if I ask how much you charge for the service? or is it all in your fees

[Penny1959]

I offer all parants a free reusuable nappy service - I provide the nappies and wash them - also provide wipes (mixture of wet wipes and washable ones).

I have found the Motherease ones best and fit all the mindess I have had so far.

However some parents do not want to use the service and provide disposables for their child. Personally I do not understand this as using my reusable nappies would save them a lot of money over the year - especially the parents of the full time twins. However I respect their wishes and never comment on their choice.

So far I have not had a problem of washing and drying nappies. Washing machine is always empty at begining of day - I throw away / flush liner - then put nappy straight in washing machine (along with any bibs, washable wipes etc) then at end of day add the washable hand towel that older children use put machine on rinse (to get rid of urine) then put on normal wash - i use Tea tree oil in wash. Then hang on airer overnight / on line depending on weather. Usually dry by morning - if not have enough nappies to manage without those still drying.


Penny :)

[snufflepuff]

I used resusables part time on my son. He's 26 months now and they tend to rub round the legs so I don't use them much anymore. We used bumgenius which are a birth to potty option, and reusable wipes too.
I never thought to offer to use them for minded children but it's a very good idea! My current mindee will be potty training fairly soon but it's something i'd think about for future mindees. And it wouldn't cost me anything (apart from washing costs) as I already have loads!

[Mel_Johnson]

I also use washable nappies on my son and will offer to all mindees in nappies. I really don't want dirty nappies hanging around for 2 weeks outside especially in the summer. The washable wipes are great. I can't use any other type of wet wipe on my boy as he get terrible nappy rash from all the chemicals. It has saved me a fortune.
I am also a real nappy agent and sell the washable nappies, wipes and accessories, so I have been trying to convert other Mum's in my area to the joys of cloth nappies.

[catswhiskers]

I've used cloth nappies for the past 4 years (or I should say a parent has for their 2 children). I bag the dirty ones up at the end of the day, although it still creates a lot of mess for my bins with the liners, wet wipes etc.

They take longer to change, especially when out and about and poo goes everywhere, and they only hold wee for a couple of hours.

Surely they are still bad for the environment with the hot washing and detergent and then having to tumble dry?

Maybe it's the ones my mindees use but I also find that they tend to hinder their movement for climbing etc. Even just to climb up to the settee, steps to a slide they don't have free movement.

Sometimes I feel like putting a disposable on them but would never do this as I know would be going against parents wishes!

Sorry to be so blunt!

[Hebs]

I've used cloth nappies for the past 4 years (or I should say a parent has for their 2 children). I bag the dirty ones up at the end of the day, although it still creates a lot of mess for my bins with the liners, wet wipes etc.

They take longer to change, especially when out and about and poo goes everywhere, and they only hold wee for a couple of hours.

Surely they are still bad for the environment with the hot washing and detergent and then having to tumble dry?
Maybe it's the ones my mindees use but I also find that they tend to hinder their movement for climbing etc. Even just to climb up to the settee, steps to a slide they don't have free movement.

Sometimes I feel like putting a disposable on them but would never do this as I know would be going against parents wishes!

Sorry to be so blunt!

no there is no comparisson when you take into consideration how long it takes for just 1 disposable nappy to rot away, times that by the millions in landfill,

I think disposables should be banned :panic:

[onceinabluemoon]

I've used cloth nappies for the past 4 years (or I should say a parent has for their 2 children). I bag the dirty ones up at the end of the day, although it still creates a lot of mess for my bins with the liners, wet wipes etc.

They take longer to change, especially when out and about and poo goes everywhere, and they only hold wee for a couple of hours.

Surely they are still bad for the environment with the hot washing and detergent and then having to tumble dry?

Maybe it's the ones my mindees use but I also find that they tend to hinder their movement for climbing etc. Even just to climb up to the settee, steps to a slide they don't have free movement.

Sometimes I feel like putting a disposable on them but would never do this as I know would be going against parents wishes!

Sorry to be so blunt!

You are entitled to your opinion hunny, that's why I asked for both people who used them and people who dont like them and why so no need to apologise. :)

WRT the tumble drier, mine are dried on the line so that's not an issue for us but I'm sure it would be for those with limited outdoor space, such as in a flat and it is a valid point, but a disposable takes something ridiculous like 300 years to disintegrate...

WRT taking longer to change, I used shaped ones so it's exactly the same as a disposable, just fix the aplix tabs across the front. They do need changing more often though, you are quite right about that, but personally I think the trade off for not having a load of nasty chemicals against (and possibly being absorbed by) baby's skin is worth a little extra work. It took a while to get used to changing nappies 2 hourly but it just seems normal now. You can also get boosters to pop in to make them more absorbent if out and about but personally I use a muslin nappy inside the shaped one of I know I'm not going to be able to change baby as often as I'd like :)

If baby has really runny poo, dont use the liner, that way the nappy absorbs better, not so nice for mum to clean up though...

I use three different brands (Mothercare smart nappy, Tots bots and Close parent pop ins) and have to say none of them hinder movement at all. Perhaps your mum uses a different brand that I have not tried?

Anyway, its good to have another viewpoint, thank you for taking the time to reply :)

[Hayley102]

I have used cloth nappies when provided by parent. But find disposable more convenient when out and about. Never crossed my mind to offer a nappy service. Always gone with the parents wishes.