If you have a baby or you are expecting one soon then you are probably learning quickly about nappies! You are probably using, or plan to use, disposables but there is an excellent alternative; cloth.
Why should you consider cloth nappies? Aren’t they old fashioned and require lots of effort? Not at all. Forget the image of terry squares folded into complicated shapes and secured with a big safety pin. Forget the images of a housewife boiling her nappies in a steamy kitchen. Modern cloth nappies are easy, fun, economical and comfortable for your baby.
A baby who wears disposable nappies will require around 4000 nappy changes between birth and potty training (typically about two and a half years). Cloth nappies will not only save you a substantial amount of money – around £500 during this period of time – but will help the environment at the same time. Did you know that 8 million disposable nappies are thrown away every day in the UK? It’s not known precisely how long it takes for the plastics in disposables to decompose, but it’s likely to be hundreds of years. Using cloth, which contains no nasty absorbency chemicals, is much kinder to the environment.
The fabrics used in modern cloth nappies are incredibly soft, comfortable and breathable, particularly those made with bamboo, and are gentle on your baby’s skin. A common misconception is that wetness in cloth nappies causes nappy rash, however, a recent independent study showed that the type of nappy a baby wears makes no difference at all to the incidence of nappy rash among babies and toddlers.
Another misconception is that cloth nappies are messier than disposables. If you get hold of the right nappy and get the right advice they are, in fact, more leak proof than disposables. Modern cloth nappies are shaped, and fasten with Velcro, poppers or little clips, so they take hardly any more time to put on and come in lots of lovely colours that look so nice, you’ll want to show them off!
