eviesmummy wrote:I find it so much slimmer and more absorbant than cotton, as you say is more sustainable and it has anti-bacterial properties too. I tend to wash our nappies at 50o only doing a hot wash when D had thrush to get rid of any nasties - all our nappies have been fine
For pockets, I see the point of the trimness. We don't use that much, though, it's largely been fitteds + wool here. Then I find (eh, found, when we did have kids in nappies previosly) that the bulkiness comes as much from the wool as from the nappy.
stormflowers wrote:There is also no need to wash your nappies at 90 degrees. If you're worried about germs, then 60 degrees is more than hot enough to kill anything nasty. Most nappy manufactures don't recommend washing hotter than 60 with bamboo as the fibres will 'cook' and the pile will become flat, crunchy and nard to nippa. For the same reason, you should avoid drying on top of a radiator or tumble drying too hot.
Yeah, I did experience that "cooking" first hand, with a couple of nappies I had
. Lovely nappies, except I finally threw them out yesterday when I sorted through the size 2's in the attic, realising that I'd rather sew some new ones than keep having my nippas slip. I'm curious to see if our new washer washes at a more "true" 60° than the one we had previously. There, we did have to wash at 90° every once in a while to avoid slight smelliness. (What's the English word for the stains and smells you get when something lies damp/wet over time, say if a towel is forgotten in a bag? It gives an earthy, cellar-y smell.) mudita wrote:just a note, the processing required to make bamboo fabric is very chemically intensive so while bamboo is a sustainable crop, the processing is not very eco friendly.
Thanks - I had heard that but forgotten about it. A really useful tidbit as I'm a science teacher in high school and one of the topics we discuss every year is the sustainability of our textile shopping habits here in the west. You don't happen to have seen something discussing organic cotton vs bamboo?
mudita wrote:I agree re: preloved cotton!I did a home made test for absorbancy of all my mf/cotton/bamboo inserts, as well as terries in various fabrics. There was negligible difference in absorbancy tbh. I think it is a matter of preference and taste in the end, and some people like fluffy white cotton bums, others like lovely died obv.
Ah, a fellow geek? When I first started using cloth nappies, in 2006, a friend and I did the same. What we found with what we had available then (cotton in various shapes, hemp inserts, microfibre) was that mother-in-law's old, washed-in terry towels had the highest absorbency relative to weight. Reduce/reuse/recycle! (Makes for less
, though.)Oh, and it's so good to see other people who line-dry. Sometimes we feel like we're a bit freaky - even before we take the CD-ing, co-sleeping, babywearing part into consideration. How can we possibly manage without a dryer?
