Best practices - part 2

Nappy care
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Are you ready for this? We wash LB's nappies in the machine with our other washing. Yes - at the same time. Any friends of ours reading this will no doubt be re-evaluating their closeness to us.

A few reasons why we do that.
Cost. We don't want to put the machine on half empty, and it takes several days to have a full load of nappies. Regular washes also means you need to buy fewer nappies.
Smell. We don't want to leave dirty nappies hanging around too long. Neither will you.
Ecology. We don't want to put the machine on half empty - less water used etc.
It works. Quite honestly, if there was even the slightest hint of nappy smell in our clean washing then I would have contested this practice - but there isn't.

What we do is to use the pre-wash feature of the machine with a tiny amount of detergent so all the wee etc is washed and rinsed away before the main wash. Again, we're not extreme about it, so really soiled stuff goes in a separate wash and of course we scrape off any solids into the loo before washing.In fact I emptied the machine last night following a wash which contained post-apoocaliptic fall-out, and the only non-LB washing in the machine was a pair of my socks.... which are obviously at the bottom of the laundry hierarchy.

Detergent
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We use as little detergent as possible for very practical reasons.

Beading : Detergent residue makes fleece repel water, and so the fleece liners in the nappies don't let the wee through and it just runs out the side instead. This is a Bad Thing. Use less detergent and the fleece works acts as a permeable membrane (flash-back to GCSE Biology...)

Nappy rash: Detergent residue can cause nappy rash, which is a misery for everyone. Less detergent also helps here.

Stains : Breast-fed babies have green/yellow poo which even Ariel Ultra has a hard time with. The best way to get rid of these stains is to leave the nappies out in the sun for an hour or two. Even the winter sun is more effective at clearing these stains than strong detergent. Amazing, but it works.

Of course using less detergent is also a good idea for the eco/cost reasons, but that wasn't why we started doing it.

Smell
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We have a pedal bin (Brabentia, I think) for dirty nappies, and this does a good job at keeping the smell in for a couple of days. We throw them in dry - no soaking etc. We found a tip of putting a cloth with a few drops of tea-tree oil at the bottom to combat the ammonia smell and it does seem to work.
We have some washable net bags which we use to line the bin, and then we can just throw the whole bag into the wash without having to handle the dirty nappies a second time. The nappies fall out of the bag during the wash process - the bags in question are designed for this. A quick Google tells me these are called 'Nappy Mesh Bags'. Here's one: http://www.babykind.co.uk/nappyessentials.htm#nappymesh


Wraps
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Cotton nappies have impermeable wraps which go around the outside. We rotate 2 or 3 of these for about 3 or 4 days as they generally don't need to be washed every time. We put the ones not being used to air. We found the One Life size 1 wraps enormous for a new born, and so we got some smaller ones for the first three months.

Boosters/fillers
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We only have experience with the former, but the exact configuration of boosters in the nappy depends on whether you have a boy or a girl. Boys need more absorbancy at the front for a fairly obvious anatomical reason. Quite often the front of the nappy is totally soaked and the back is completely dry.

Wipes
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We also use cotton and fleece washable wipes, rather than disposable wipes. Same reasons as why we use washable nappies really. We use a bowl of water to wet the wipe when changing LB. No need for soap or any products - although we do clean as throughly as possible to prevent any skin irritation. My neighbour who is also a stay-at-home-Dad just sticks his daughter under the tap of the sink/bath to wash her. Even less washing!
Thought that a useful photo for this post would be a picture of our nappy draw with everything labelled - then you can get an idea of volume of stuff we have....

Top left > Bibs. You can never have enough - even when you think you have loads, you will need some more.
Top right > One -life cotton nappies (rolled for storage)

Middle left > Liners. Roll of paper liners at the top, and a stack of fleece liners underneath.
Middle right > Just visible are the HuggaBuns hemp boosters that we find the most effective.

Bottom left > Cotton boosters. These clip into the one-life nappies, so very easy to use.
Bottom middle top > Stuffable nappy pile
Bottom middle bottom > Wipes. Cotton ones underneath with fleece ones on top.
Bottom right top > you can see a one-life wrap poking out.
Bottom right bottom > just a box of bits, like thermometre etc.

That's a big post, so I'll leave the best practices there for now. Will come back with some more on baby carrying next.

General update for today is that LB had melon for breakfast, which was a remarkable success. I also thought I would share my latest nanny-Dad top tip. This one is called 'how to get the housework done while just putting your feet up and watching Top-Gear you-tube clips...'.


:-)