The Herts North Branch of the National Childbirth Trust
tel: 0844 24 36 163 email: nct_hertsnorth@hotmail.com
Nappies - the Big Debate
This Big Debate includes opinions from mothers who have used cloth nappies, environmentally-friendly disposables and standard disposables.
Did you know that the local council will reimburse you for some of the cost of purchasing real nappies? You really have nothing to lose by buying a few and trying them for yourself.
Further details on real nappies and this scheme are at the bottom of this page.
Cloth Nappies
My husband and I only had a brief discussion when I was pregnant about which nappies we would use. We came up with cloth/real nappies, primarily because of the environmental impact of disposables, and secondly because I would be giving up work and they are much cheaper. We ended up buying a Cotton Bottoms birth to potty training system (all the nappies, liners, and wraps we will ever need, plus a bucket and some sterilising powder) direct from Cotton Bottoms’ website the day after our daughter Chloe was born – despite having the usual 9 months to think about which ones we were going to go with we left it to the last minute until a new baby girl forced us to find something to cover her bum!
In her first year, the only time we used disposables was when we went on holiday – we found it difficult enough to get all the baby paraphernalia in the boot of the car without having to fit in nappy buckets too, and it’s never easy on holiday to get anything washed or dried. Since Chloe turned one, we’ve also used disposables at night. She drinks so much water during the day that her nappy at night needs to be super absorbent, and even with the extra booster pads bought from Twinkle Twinkle there were still leaks some mornings. She now uses whichever disposables are on offer when we need to buy some, and they are so wet they are round her knees when she wakes up – something I don’t think any cloth nappy would be able to cope with.
The main reason we went with real nappies was the environmental impact of the production and disposal of ‘disposable’ nappies. The UK deals with the disposal of nearly 3 billion used nappies every year (8 million a day) at a cost of £40 million. This is approximately 4% of the UK’s domestic waste. For every £1 spent on 'disposables', it costs the taxpayer 10p to dispose of them! I find it amazing that there are so many people out there who religiously recycle their paper/glass/cardboard, etc but who think nothing of throwing away many soiled nappies every day. Of course, cloth nappies will still have associated production costs, and the argument that many people make is that cloth nappies use energy to wash and dry. Obviously there’s no denying this, but studies have been done which show the impact on the environment is still far less with real nappies. In 1991 The Women's Environmental Network commissioned a study, which concluded that disposables do have a greater impact on the environment than washable nappies. This study shows that disposable nappies use 3.5 times as much energy, 8 times as much non-regenerable raw materials and 90 times as much renewable material as reusable nappies. They produce 2.3 times as much waste water and 60 times as much solid waste. This even allows for the washing of cloth nappies! Disposable nappies require between 4 and 30 times as much land for growing natural materials as reusable nappies. The environmental costs of using cloth nappies can be substantially minimised by the parent in their decisions on whether to soak, how frequently to wash, whether to tumble dry etc, whereas parents have very little control over the environmental costs of disposables.
Our second reason for going ‘real’ was money. As I was giving up a well-paid job with a good employment package, saving money was (and is!) really important to us. It is common sense to think that disposables will be more expensive than real nappies but disposable users often argue that because of the washing and drying costs this is not the case. It is difficult to quantify, and there are many aspects to take into consideration:
I haven’t worked out the costs for this from scratch, but have taken the information below from www.twinkleontheweb.co.uk:
DISPOSABLE NAPPY COSTS for 2½ years:
A) Cost Of Own Brand Value Nappy @ 10.5p x 7000 changes per baby: £735
B) Premium Nappy @ 17.3p x 7000 changes per baby £1211
WASHABLE NAPPY COSTS for 2½ years
Total cost of least expensive nappy system, washing alternate days, line dried = £280
SAVING £930 against premium nappies SAVING £455 against own brand disposable nappies
Total cost of most expensive nappy options + daily washing + tumble drying = £802
SAVING £409 against premium disposable nappies
Total cost of most expensive nappy option, daily washing, but line dried = £638
SAVING £570 against premium disposable nappies
There are many things you can do if using real nappies to ‘prune’ the costs. Start using them when your baby is newborn to maximise your savings. Use washable wipes as you’re washing nappies anyway, thus saving between 2 and 4p per wipe! Dry pail your nappies – there is no need to soak them unless you want to, and this way you don’t have to buy nappy powder. Line dry them when you can, or go for a nappy system which will dry easily without using the tumble dryer and putting up the costs – though even with a tumble dryer the Women’s Environmental Network give the average yearly charge of laundering real nappies as £33. The more children you have the more you will save as you can reuse nappies and wraps you have already bought.
Aside from the money and environmental issues, there are a few other arguments that anti-cloth nappy parents usually fall back on to defend their choice of nappy.
Disposable nappies prevent nappy rash! Really? So, this means that I let my daughter suffer non-stop nappy rash and all the disposable users have babies who have never had it! Nappy rash can be caused by leaving a baby in any wet or pooey nappy, and sometimes it appears without us knowing why. Chloe is now two, and has only had nappy rash once in her life, despite being in cloth nappies every day, and I’m sure there are few of you reading this who are using disposables who can say that your child has never had nappy rash.
Cloth nappies aren’t as convenient as disposables! No, very true, but it only takes about 30 seconds longer to put on a cloth nappy than it takes to put on a disposable. They are more bulky, so if you are going for a big day out you need to pack carefully to get them all in your change bag, and if you run out you can’t just buy more at the corner shop. But, if this is your only reason for not going with cloth nappies, then on those rare days when you will be out for 12 hours without returning to your house or car, take a couple of cloth nappies, and a couple of disposables with you just in case. You can get washable waterproof nappy bags for putting the soiled cloth nappies in while you are out and about, and the bags can just be washed with the nappies in their usual wash.
Urgh! Your nappy bins must really smell! Nope. The poo is flushed away down the toilet before the nappy is put in the bin, and the lid fits securely on the bin so any smell there is is contained. Chloe’s buckets are in her bedroom, and if there was any smell at all they wouldn’t be there, they would be kept at the bottom of the garden! Plus, they are emptied for a nappy wash every couple of days. Compare this to the disposable nappies complete with your child’s poo (in their horribly scented little bags, which incidentally cost you more money) sitting in your bin for up to a week.
Cloth nappies are so much more work! You’ve got enough washing to do already with a newborn, so why add to it? I’ve been there, and although I knew I would have to wash my new babies clothes, I didn’t realise that my own clothes would have to be washed much more frequently too – either due to sick or milk stains or Chloe’s endearing habit of projectile pooing on me every time I took her nappy off. Yes, you have to do another wash every two or three days, but with the amount of washing you’re already doing I don’t think this makes much of a difference. If you are really against doing the extra bit of washing, laundering services are available locally which will pick up your dirty nappies once per week, but remember that these will push up your costs.
Cloth nappies are so complicated! A lot of peoples’ perceptions of cloth nappies are of the kite folded terries and nasty, scratchy plastic pants. Now, kite folding a terry might be complicated the first couple of times, but we’re all intelligent people so it’s not going to puzzle us for that long! However, there are so many nappy systems out there now that there is no need to go for the simple terry nappy if you don’t want to – but you may find choosing which nappy to go for complicated in itself, which is where sites such as www.twinkleontheweb.co.uk or www.thenappylady.co.uk are invaluable. The main types you can go for now are a two part system which is comprised of an absorbent cloth nappy and a waterproof wrap or pant, or all in one systems where it is all joined together, though some of these can be taken apart for easier washing and drying. Also, never underestimate the fun you can have buying new funkily coloured and patterned wraps – I must admit to buying these when I didn’t need to, thus pushing up the cost of my real nappies, but at least I satisfied my urge to shop (and have some brilliant tie-dyed purple pants for Chloe as a result!).
At the end of the day, as you may be able to tell, I am just passionate about using cloth nappies. If it makes sense, it isn’t so much that I am against disposables, but that I am majorly FOR cloth nappies. I suppose it isn’t very fashionable to admit it, but they just make me feel like a real mum, and that I’m doing things the way my mum did, and doing the best for my baby and her world at the same time. I guess you just have to do what is right for you as a family, and we’ve found that cloth nappies work for us.
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Environmentally-friendly disposables
When I found out I was pregnant I knew that I wanted to use reusable nappies because disposables take up a huge amount of space in landfill sites, and can take over 100 years to decompose.
However, when I tried reusables on my 7 week old son Thomas, then about 10lbs (the trial kit was supplied by “Get Real”) I found the majority of them to be too bulky around the waist. I decided to wait until he was bigger, and in the meantime switched to environmentally friendly disposables, “Nature Boy and Girl” available from Sainsburys, and Moltex, available from Little Green Earthlets.
The former are made from 70% natural materials, and much thinner than other nappies. However, I found their absorbency to be too low for Thomas. Moltex are made with 100% natural materials, and even the bag they come in can be used to store your kitchen waste and then go straight onto the compost heap, decomposing in just a few weeks.
I now use Moltex during the day and normal disposables at night, as Thomas needs a super absorbent nappy, and it seems that the trade off for being environmentally friendly is having to accept a slightly lower absorbency.
Now that Thomas is 4 months old, I am going to try again with reusables, but for those of you who don’t like the idea, I would thoroughly recommend the use of an environmentally friendly disposable as an alternative. There does not seem to be a huge difference in price, but there are significant benefits to the environment.
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Disposables
When Gabriella was born I was in two minds about whether to put her in disposables or whether to try and be environmentally friendly. I looked at all types of reusables, thanks to the NHS reception area presenting a wide range, and the internet and I even tried a couple of re-usables such as Mio and one type of environmentally friendly disposable.
There are many personal reasons why I have ended up using disposables (Pampers):
Although, yes, they do take 200 years to break down and there are mountains and mountains of them which makes me feel guilty, who says you are being more environmently friendly by using re-usable...you still have to chuck more chemicals down the washing machines pipe in order to clean them! And, even more so, if you use a cleaning company to come and pick them up and re-deliver....that takes a delivery van adding more congestion to the roads, possibly adding pollution to the air and what type of chemicals are they using to clean the nappies?!
I have to say, I do believe that the manufacturers such as Pampers (which I believe are the best brand, having also used own-label and Huggies) should take more of a lead in developing a nappy that biodegrades, even if it is only part of the nappy such as the centre lining. I feel there should be new regulations to insist that disposable nappy manufacturers make it part of their new product research process to find an environmentally friendly alternative.
I have used the environmentally friendly disposables found in Sainsbury's and Waitrose (nice white packaging and the nappies have green leaves on). These weren’t bad actually, a little bit rough in texture but ok for just wees. I would recommend you try them, particularly if you have a baby that's not chubby as I’m sure you will find them really suitable. I just found that because Gaby was chubby she didn’t have much room to move in them.
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Choosing and using cloth nappies / eco-friendly nappies
If you buy your own re-usable nappies or join a nappy laundering scheme, your local authority will reimburse you £40 towards the cost. You need to have the original receipt or an invoice, plus the child’s birth certificate. The child must be below two years of age.
You can go to www.wasteaware.org.uk/news/nappyleaflet3.pdf to print out the leaflet with the £40 claim form.
Alternatively your local Postnatal Coordinator should have some of the claim leaflets, or you can call WasteAware on their helpline number (08457) 425000 and they can send you a leaflet.
Other sources of useful information on the web:
The Real Nappy Campaign: www.realnappycampaign.com
The Women’s Environmental Network, www.wen.org.uk, or telephone (020) 7481 9004 can be contacted for detailed information on environmental issues and practical tips on using and washing real nappies.
UK Nappy Line, telephone (01983) 401959. Gives details of all your local cloth nappy contacts whether you want to wash your own or use a local laundry service.
For buying nappies and further information:
Trial packs with re-usable nappies of different types and styles are available for a week's free loan from a number of these sites so you can try before you buy.
www.thenappylady.co.uk (click on Advice for information tailored to your situation)
For buying clothes which are more roomy around the bum for cloth nappy wearers:
For information on environmentally-friendly disposable nappies, visit: