a fantastic friend of mine met up with me today to pick my brain about cloth, I'm not sure how much a help i was to her so I thought i'd pass her questions on here and see what you guys come up with.
My friend volunteers with an organisation that help fund an orphanage in Belarus. They spend I think she said E12,000 a year on disposable nappies so she's helping them switch over to cloth. Not just for financial reasons though. The economy is very unstable there and they often can't buy currency to buy nappies, or their suppliers often don't have them .
The staff at the orphanage are over stretched time wise and are a bit resistant but they did get fitted nappies and trialled them on 5 children. The children are aged 5 to 7 and are for the most part bed bound. They get changed a maximum of four times a day but realistically more like 3. She had a sample nappy which was a fitted with sewn in soaker and velcro closure made of some sort of terry. She said they had been sucessful but they were using them super stuffed with a HUGE cotton sheet folded up and no cover. She said they looked akward and uncomfortable on the children and splayed their legs alot. She is getting the fitteds through an eastern european friend at a very good wholesale price of around E5 each. They are calculating on buying 9 nappies each for 60 children they would be washing at the end of each day. They have tumble dryers but would only need to use them in winter i think as the summers are very warm.
so the questions....
is there a way of keeping the huge aborbancy of the massive cotton sheet but without the bulk and still managing to keep them coverless?
she's concerned that if they wore covers and got changed so seldom that the kids might get rash or the nappies might get very smelly?
does anyone know of a supplier of nappy liners that come unperforated on rolls? or of liners for nappies this size?
we were talking about trying to sew the inserts ourselves maybe you could point us in the direction of the cheapest material suppliers?
any other advice, tips, opnions etc greatly recieved.
i'd really love to be able to help this amazing lady in her work. i got awful sad thinking of these kids who only get changed three times a day
