Nappy segment on Nationwide

doctor evil

Did anyone catch it? I was shocked at the number of nappies a child would go through.

Fairplay to Monica Nugent who started a business in this much hyped recession. I never knew bamboo could be used for nappies, I know they are used in knitting.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0821/nationwide_av.html?2597767,null,228

deisemum

Yeah I saw it but if I still had babies/toddlers in nappies I'd be hard pushed to switch from disposable nappies due to my abiding memory of the smell of nappies soaking until you have enough for a wash, all the extra washing and drying.

Also as a childminder I wouldn't welcome someone with cloth nappies, don't want my house stank out of it anymore than when they soil their nappy, nor do I want a lot of containers to put each child's used nappy taking up room as well.

Ickle Magoo

I had two babies 15 months apart and they were both in cloth nappies - the pocket nappies are a doddle to use. I used disposable liners & then put a drop of lemon & tea tree oil on nappies, no soaking, in a sealed bucket until I had a load ready to go. They didn't smell too badly tbh. The creche took some ready made up & just handed me a wee bag back at the end of the day - no more hassle than if the child had soiled their clothes, really.

deisemum

I think some people that use them just get used to the smell where as someone else can smell them from a distance, same as going into a house where there is a dog the owner is so used to the smell and doesn't notice it but others do.

I've gone into a couple of homes where there are cloth nappies and even though I've got chronic sinusitis I can smell them yet the household are only aware of them if it's really bad.

Ickle Magoo

LOL, obviously I disagree.

I think the nappy smell thing is a throwback to the days when nappies were soaked for days & often uncovered. Modern nappies, liners, sealed storage bins, etc, have eliminated the issue for all but the very squeamish sticking their nose in the bin.

I know from other parents & parenting sites it's a commonly circulated complaint from people who don't really want to deal with clothies - which is fair enough, they take a lot more effort & can certainly be yickier than wrapping a disposable & binning it but it's unfair to propagate the myth that they stink the house out & that families who use clothies are just immune to it. I did leave the house occasionally from the fug of nappy stink into the fresh air & I'm pretty sure I would have noticed an offensive smell on my return & my husband would certainly have commented if he was greeted by the smell of rancid baby poop whenever he came home from work.

I can't comment on anyone you know, obviously. I guess if you don't use a sealed bin it could be smelly - and any house with babies is going to get a bit whiffy if you never open the windows, regardless of what you do with the offending nappy. With the proper equipment and a reasonably well ventilated house it's not a noticeable smell at all - my mum even commented on the distinct lack of smell & she's a bit of a clean freak.

NB I have a dog & I have to bath him regularly cos I can smell him a mile away. :P

Birdie086

I read somewhere - in Pregnancy and Birth magazine I think (I was mad into research when I preggers, little did I know theres no research like on the job training!) that cloth nappies cost the same in long run both finacially and in damage to the enviroment when you take into account the cost of washing them.

Ickle Magoo

Oh, more myths. :pac:

They definitely don't cost the same...my two went from birth to toilet trained for less than €300 - that's for both of them.

There are some arguments that clothies have to be made, use more water to wash & so on and that means they are no better for the environment. All the arguments with regards to production/distribution would apply to disposables too, any modern washing machine that is used efficiently (I did three cloth nappy washes a week) & dried on the line outside or on a drying rack in the house would use slightly more electricity & water but then ultimately wouldn't spend aeons sitting not degrading in landfill.

I think it was in 2007 that an English burgh council rubbished the claims that clothies are any more environmentally friendly based on washing a large number of clothies at boiling and then tumble drying them http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3299230/Traditional-nappies-no-better-for-environment.html
- which of course nobody who actually uses them would do.

Less than a year later they've done a complete u-turn acknowledging cloth nappies washed & dried with the environment in mind (& who doesn't, that's why people get them:rolleyes:) would reduce carbon emissions by up to 40% over the same use of disposables. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3353497/Nappies-terry-cloth-more-environmentally-friendly-than-disposable.html

With the wrangling over who uses the greatest resources in production, distribution and re-use to one side, the biggest & most undeniable issue is of non-biodegradable nappies in landfill sites - and is why most people I know choose cloth. I would willingly use 20 bath loads of water more a year, not to leave that kind of legacy behind. As an interesting side note, none of the reports that suggest there is no environmental benefit to using cloth nappies include any figures on the over all environmental impact of the mountains of non-biodegradable matter or the impact if they require to be incinerated as some suggest is the only way to get rid of them, they just use energy figures from the point of production to the point of disposal. :mad::mad::mad:

deisemum

The thoughts of having cloth nappies on drying racks or radiators and the place looking like a chinese launderette would put me right off especially after reading so many posts on another well known website where fans of cloth nappies say a certain brand take at least 2 days to dry. :eek:

From an environment point of view a recent interviewee on one of the national radio stations was saying no matter how much you recycle the outcome is nothing compared to one of the most effective ways of saving the planet and that is to consider having one less child than you're planning (if any planning goes into it lol) and also take into account the environmental saving would be when you consider the offspring from that child and their potential children and so on.

I've got a few sample eco type disposable nappies that I got as a sample a few years ago. They're meant to be biodegradable. I cannot remember offhand what the brand is but it's not one of the big brand ones.

caprilicious

I used cloth nappies first when I worked in childcare several years ago and since using them swore I'd definitely use them myself when the time came.

They were no harder to use than normal nappies, and the parents provided a sealed pail that we put the used one's into so no noxious odours either!

I don't doubt that there will be more work involved in cleaning them than disposables, though where I live there is no weekly bin collection either.
I'd much rather soak/wash cloth nappies than have to do a half hour drive to the dump every week with a bin bag of dirty disposable nappies!

Ickle Magoo

Oh there are lots of reasons why folks may not like clothies, I don't dispute that for a second- I'm just pointing out the ones that are misnomers. I had one of those foldy racks that sat upstairs in the airing cupboard - and that's only if it was wet outside, hardly a Chinese laundry, lol. I don't think I'd really mind the laundry look if the alternative is less landfill sites & really bad alternative disposal such as incineration.

Yeah, if everyone could stop having children & we could reduce the number of people on the planet it would certainly have a knock on effect of reducing carbon emissions - not the most realistic solution but certainly you can't argue with the logic.

The most recent degradable nappies are only actually degradable in a wormery and can take years to break down - not ideal if you don't have an enormous garden & hardly suitable for anyone who thinks clothies are too much effort/take up space/smell. Outside of a wormery they are no better than your average pack of 'sposies. It would be great if they could develop an actual degradable disposable but I can't see the big nappy companies allowing that any time soon - they'd rather put their time into perpetuating myths that using less nappies, that don't go to landfill & can be used by numerous children are as/more environmentally damaging than their super-duper absorbent with a half-life that matches plutonium nappies. :rolleyes: