It's Real Nappy Week - time for a nappy update! I've used real nappies for quite a while - a nappy laundry service to start with for little M and more recently washing little L's myself at home. We'll be using them for the next year or so (unless little L's slightly unnerving attempts to potty train herself this week continue). Little L, who has just turned 1, now goes to a day nursery 3 days a week as I'm back at work. Seems like a good time to share my experiences of using real nappies when your little one is at nursery.
We actually have a pretty simple system. We take enough nappies for the day into the nursery each morning in a small wet-bag. We tend to leave them a few extra inserts (the absorbent bits that go inside a coloured, waterproof cover) and a roll of liners to make up extra nappies if they need to and one or two disposables as back-up. The carers happily use the nappies and then give us the wet bag back at the end of the day full of dirty nappies. It seems to work fine. You could easily take a bigger batch in at the start of the week - nurseries are usually acustomed to storing big packs of disposables. We find it more manageable to take small amounts each day as we're travelling by bike (post coming soon on this!)
I've found some differences to using nappies at home. At home I would rinse a nappy cover that had only had a tiny bit of wee on it and use it once or twice more throughout the day. The nursery staff don't do this as they have nowhere handy to dry them. I tend to make up the nappies for the day and they just use them as they would a pile of disposables. This does mean it's handy to have a few extra covers as by the end of the day, even if they have only been used once, the covers are not really in a fit state to rinse and re-use.
I guess the first step we took was to ask the nursery if they're happy to use the nappies. Ours was completely fine with it, as were others we visited when we were first choosing which one to send little M to. Our nursery actually had the large nappy bin from the laundry service on site for a while when one family found it more convenient to have the nappy collection from the nursery rather than their home. Whilst it feels polite to ask the nursery staff...really there's very little for them to get stressed about. The system we use means that little L has a nice neat basket of nappies, wipes, cream etc. just the same as all the other children. Modern washable nappies are pretty easy to use. AND nurseries pay to get rid of your kid's dirty nappies - if more parents use real nappies, they might be able to trim down their waste collection bills. I think, you should assume it's fine - it's a completely reasonable thing to expect that you can continue using real nappies at nursery.
Fancy trying out some nappies for yourself? Have a potter around cyber-space as there are few competitions on the go at the moment - try this Real Nappy Week Facebook page or the 'Go Real' site. Or if you're lucky enough to live in one of the eight London Borough's taking part, you can grab yourself a Real Nappies for London completely free voucher that you can use to buy yourself some nappies or sample a laundry / home delivery service.
I wrote about getting back on the real nappy wagon for my first green challenge when I started this blog - you can find the posts here. And about night-time real nappy success here.
Probably about time I stopped rambling on about nappies now!
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