Why do you use cloth nappies?

Apart from them being much prettier, softer and less smelly of course. This topic has got me thinking

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What bothers me about these discussions is that they are always only obsessed with the environmental impact of nappies. However, when I was pregnant and trying to decide which nappies to buy, although that was important I discovered there were other reasons too. I was convinced that I was going to have a boy so I didn't like the idea of his bits sweating away in a disposibles leading to fertility problems. Also cloth nappies protect the babies spine and hips when learning to walk. I'm sure there are many more reasons which I have forgotten. I just wondered what anybody else considered that made them choose cloth.

I commented on the Daily Fail website. My reasons are comfort, absorbency, health, environment and cost. Obviously, I am also an addict and think there are super cute too.

My ds started off in sposies due to horrendous nightmare with poo explosions in some poorly purchased prefolds (and not folding them properly) Initially I had been environmentally led. The thing was though that buying sposies is actually a pain, they are very expensive, if you run out you have to find a supermarket to go get more as you need the right size and our local shop never had it and you end up with a stinking bin full of shite, not to mention them all going into landfill. Also in my experience they don't work very well, we had loads of leaks (as do my friends now) and they SMELL

I love the convenience of cloth, I never need to go out and buy more I have the all here ready to use. The other thing is my dd is very skinny, with a sposie on her clothes hand off her terribly, in cloth she looks great!
Nicky

Cloth is MUCH more convenient for us and just much nicer and softer too. With cloth nappies it's just so much easier. Shove them in the washing machine, we use a dryer as well on low. 5 minutes making them up and that's it. We started with sposies up until 3 or 4 months I think. I got so sick of paying about £16 a week on nappies I then chucked in the bin and having to hulk about 2 packets of nappies on the pushchair, along with shopping and up 2 flights of stairs. The fact cloth is all self contained within our house and the furthest I have to travel is to put them in the wash!

I really had a problem with chucking human waste out in the bin. There were bags and bags of disposables every day and it seems so unnecessary, incredibly gross and really just disgusting putting poo and piss in the bin (down 2 flights of stairs). I went and bought enough size 2 organic cotton nippa tots bots and I didn't tell DH, just told him I'd ordered and we were switching. The other thing was all the chemicals in disposables, again completely unnecessary when there are better fabric based solutions, like organic bamboo or cotton velour, hemp. Even synthetics like PUL, fleece and minkee seemed a miles better solution than the unknowns in a disposable. I did a bit of research on what disposables contained and that made me even more uneasy. Wish we had switched earlier. The landfill bothered me too considering the amount of nappies you get through per day in the early days.

The thing I'm really sad about is that I think we will have to use disposables in hospital as we have no transport to take cloth nappies home to wash and I doubt the hospital will wash them for us. I would love to use cloth on next LO from birth and never have a disposable sully their bottom and the inevitable newborn poo up to the armpits accidents. We only ever had poo accidents with disposables and that just led to more washing and more nappy changes. Disposables just always seemed akin to using plastic cutlery and paper plate, plus they stank so badly as well. I feel sorry for people who don't or can't understand why cloth is a far superior choice. Cloth nappies are just so incredibly soft, squidgy, comfortable, yummy and attractive.

Mine was initially money based - with a little environmental concern thrown in, but they are so cute!

We do still use sposies over night but I am looking forward to after Christmas when I am going to start my night nappy search!

i think my main reason is i feels more natural, we were in terry's and dont understand how disposables ever became the norm? totally baffles me. I was originally going to use terries (which we did at first and liked them) but then realised there was a whole other world

I like the cost difference and as we use cloth wipes too never have to buy nappies or wipes which are such a major expense what else? i love the way izzy can fall on her bum from quite a height i like being a cloth nappy geek and i love how wonderfully cute they are. I liked it in summer when she just slept in her nappy and was kept nice and cool

It really annoys me that people try and say that it is even with regards to environmental effect FFS what about landfill!!!!!!!!!! grrrrrr

so do sposies smell that bad guys? we did use them for days 1-3 after our unexpected hospital stay but cant remeber even using them or whether they smelt, what i do remember is not being able to tell if bubs had weed and they kept hassling me about how much she had weed and i didnt have a clue

Initially the cost. I just couldn't have afforded sposies and have no idea how people do tbh

so do sposies smell that bad guys? we did use them for days 1-3 after our unexpected hospital stay but cant remeber even using them or whether they smelt, what i do remember is not being able to tell if bubs had weed and they kept hassling me about how much she had weed and i didnt have a clue

I think they absolutely HONK!! They have a horrible chemically smell mixed with wee

Nicky

Initally, before we had Millie it was cost and environmental concerns. With Millie we used cloth on and off, but the nappies we had (Bumbles) were bulky and getting clothes to fit was a pain. Barney went into cloth from birth but we switched back to sposies when he outgrew his size 1's (he was really sicky and I just couldn't keep up with the washing). When he was about 11 months it became clear that the chemicals in sposies were triggering his excema so he went back in cloth, firstly just in the day, then at night as well which was something we'd never done before. Now there is no way I would ever use sposies again (unless I absolutely had to on holiday). We use pockets in the day now and I love them, they are no thicker than a sposie and they save us a fortune (well they would if Weenotions didn't exist ) they also look fab!!! So I guess we have been through pretty much every reason there is for using them at some point!