Laundry

Babies produce oodles of dirty laundry.

People tell you this before you have one but nothing quite prepares you for the horror of it. Especially because you have months of a beautiful, clean newborn (who only occasionally poos and vomits on clothing) before the full extent of the constant pile of washing actually hits you. I remember wondering what bibs were for.

When I first considered using cloth nappies people would warn me that there'd be enough washing to do anyway. I countered that with the argument that if there was that much to do anyway a few tiny nappies weren't going to make much difference.

Here's the surprise: cloth nappies are good for dirty laundry.

You see, bamboo nappies, such that we use, and presumably your common or garden terry too, need to be washed every couple of days. A bamboo nappy can't sit around wet for much longer than 48 hours or it will start to deteriorate. I imagine this is fine if it happens once in a while but as a general rule we wash our nappies every second day.

This isn't as onerous as it sounds. We have a reasonably sized laundry with a squirty hose thing, some buckets, a clothes airer and a tumble dryer. The drill goes like this: we take soiled or wet nappy (after having disposed of any lumpy bits down the loo) and squirt it with the squirty hose thing. Then we stick it in a bucket. Over the next couple of days the bucket gets full then we empty the contents into the washing machine and stick it on a good hot wash, usually overnight. Then, the next morning we pull the nappies out and stick them on the airer. In damp weather, if the nappies aren't dry that evening we stick them in the dryer. In the good old days when I was on maternity leave I hung them on the outdoor line and the sun bleached any stains. Thankfully we don't have so many stains these days.

This is why cloth nappies are good for dirty laundry. There is a wash going in every two days anyway so it's the perfect opportunity to throw in any towels, bed sheets, face cloths, burp cloths, muslins, bibs, or any other item that can withstand temperatures of 50-60C. This helps reduce the number of bibs and wipes thrown away because they are covered in black mould that no amount of soaking in Nappi-san will get rid of. Not the baby-friendly one anyway. Unfortunately this does not completely eliminate mouldy bibs. The only thing that does that is not having children in the first place. Although stripping them naked before each meal then bunging them in the bath afterwards does help too.