A common word used by many a parent (and non parent) when they hear that a baby is wearing a cloth nappy – euwww! Is it often followed by a question or remark about poo. Some common ones include ‘you put poo in your washing machine? Gross’ and ‘yuck, I would hate to deal with the poo’. I am therefore making it my mission this week to dispel the ‘cloth nappy means more poo dealings’ myth.

Myth No. 2 – cloth nappies are gross

Have you ever had to deal with a ‘poonami’? You know, the one when no amount of baby wipes in the world would clean up the mess and you find yourself running with baby at arms length to rinse them under the shower! We have had a few of them. In fact the first time it happened Mr K ended up cutting baby boy’s vest off rather than deal with pulling it off him. I have to admit that I found it hilarious. The truth however is that baby boy was wearing a disposable nappy every time there was a ‘poonami’ incident. I can honestly say that I have never had to deal with one when he has been wearing a cloth nappy. The containment in my opinion is far superior and so straight away I would say that for this reason alone you are dealing with less and not more poo with cloth nappies.

Now, when changing a disposable nappy the nappy is just rolled up, put in a bag and thrown away. A cloth nappy is obviously different in the fact that it needs to be washed. This is where I say (very loudly) that I do not just put the dirty nappy straight into my washing machine! I use liners in the nappies. When I change a nappy, the dirty liner is flushed down the toilet and the nappy is put in the bucket ready to be washed. See, no poo in the washing machine! Of course some gets in but it is a washing machine – it is designed to clean. I refer back to the ‘poonami’ incidents here. If your child’s clothes get a leak on them do you just throw them away or wash them? Most of us wash them of course which is exactly the same as washing the dirty nappies.

There is no touching the nappies once they have gone into the bucket either. The bucket is lined with a mesh bag (no more wet pailing nowadays) and so when you are ready to put a nappy wash on you just take the bag out of the bucket and pop in straight into the machine. Simple!

Cloth nappies are gross? Quite simply no! I could preach about disposable nappies sitting in a bin for 2 weeks but as many of you already know we do still use the odd disposable when the need arises and so that would be hypocritical. I do feel though that once you have seen cloth in action you could never think that cloth nappies are gross. A little bit of education goes a long way and if people knew how easy cloth nappies are maybe more people would give them a go.

Have you noticed a difference between the reliability of cloth over disposable nappies?

Image credit – http://community.babycenter.com/post/a49325923/how_do_you_respond_to_the_thats_disgusting_comments