Due to Covid-19 Nappy Leaks was unable to have our usual live audience, so we have a special guest, Keryn. She is Bubblebubs' Cloth Nappy Support Specialist and comes across all sorts of questions from families starting out with cloth nappies through to those who have used it across multiple children. She calls in to join Vicki and Vashti, discussing with the ladies the top 3 questions she gets enquiries for.
- How many nappies for full time use?
- How many night nappies do you need?
- Are there any detergents I need to stay away from?
Transcription: Live Nov 2020
Andrew: Welcome to Nappy Leaks with Vicki Simpson and Vashti Wadwell. I love that opening music. Such good music. How are you doing, Vashti?
Vashti: I’m good…
Vicki: [noise]
Andrew: Wrong person. It’s ruined, it’s ruined, the whole thing is ruined.
Vashti: What?
Andrew: We’ll have to record six hours again. Love that music. Don’t you love that music, Vicki?
Vicki: Do you like it as much as my outfit?
Andrew: Yes, I like the music as much as your outfit.
Vashti: Really?
Andrew: How are you doing, Vashti?
Vicki: That’s it, I’m done. You didn’t even say hello to me.
Andrew: I did say hello to you.
Both: No, you didn’t.
Vashti: You asked her if she like that music.
Vicki: Andrew, are you just put off by my outfit?
Andrew: Yeah, I probably am.
Vashti: Vicki’s wearing a very revealing outfit today.
Andrew: I’m going to get emails about this now. You stuffed up the opening.
Vashti: We should put Vicki’s selfie up on the show notes.
Vicki: Yeah, I think it would end up on other sites. Internal use only. Put it this way, I think I need a safety pin. I’ll just leave it at that.
Andrew: Just one? Keren, how are you doing?
Keren: Yes, I’m here too.
Andrew: But Keren can’t see anything because she’s on a skype call, aren’t you Keren?
Keren: I got the photo.
Vicki: She got the selfie.
Andrew: That’s right, you sent her a selfie.
Keren: I sent one back, actually.
Andrew: Oh, she sent one back.
Keren: I’m a bit similar today.
Vicki: What, wearing clothes?
Vashti: That’s a new one for you, I’ve heard, Keren.
Keren: No, I’ve been very much track suiting it up in these COVID times, so wearing something that’s not a track suit is, yeah, I think I need a new wardrobe.
Andrew: Cool. What are we hear for? Let’s do a podcast.
Keren: I think so.
Andrew: Let’s do some questions, because…
Keren: Answer my questions, yeah.
Andrew: Today’s questions and answers, and we’ve got Keren here again because we still don’t want to get a live audience. It just scares us a little bit.
Vashti: Right, having mums and babies here, or having lots of people here?
Andrew: Having throw up babies here.
Keren: No, we love all your babies, we do.
Andrew: We love all the babies, yeah.
Vicki: It’s just there’s not enough room.
Vashti: Got to keep safe.
Vicki: There’s not enough room for the one and a half metre rule.
Andrew: No, probably the limit is about five people up here, actually.
Vicki: Yeah, possibly.
Andrew: So when Rachel came up before to get some paper…
Vicki: So I’m going to go home. On that note.
Andrew: So you’re here, let me properly introduce Keren. Keren is our cloth nappy expert. She answers the thousands and thousands of questions that she gets online. Actually you get so many questions now you’ve got a helper, haven’t you, Keren?
Keren: I sure do, we’ve brought Kat on board, which has been amazing, to have someone else bounce ideas off, and we get the curly ones.
Vicki: Yeah, because she doesn’t talk to me. I just send her back random stuff. I know, I hear these things.
Keren: It is highly random.
Andrew: Yeah, I’ve heard about your random stuff you send back. So Keren, why don’t you get things rolling? Let’s ask your first question.
Keren: So this week, one of the questions I had was how many nappies for fulltime use? I’ll leave that one with you.
Vicki: We disagree on this.
Vashti: We do.
Vicki: I say 24 and Vashti says 30.
Vashti: I say three days worth. For a newborn, you’re changing about 10 to 12 times a day, so having three days worth of nappies means that you can wash every second day and you’ve got that third day of drying time. It helps if you get a run of cold, wet weather or something like that. So definitely if you’re in a cold or a wetter environment where things take longer to dry, having more nappies gives you more breathing space.
Andrew: There’s a question. You’re down in…
Vashti: Orange.
Andrew: …Orange at the moment. Is it taking you longer to dry your nappies down there, than it did when you lived in Queensland?
Vicki: On her toilet trained son?
Keren: No, I still use night nappies with him.
Vicki: Do you?
Keren: And, which take a lot longer to dry than say a trifold type nappy. And they dry really quickly actually. Because the weather is so dry and it’s often quite windy and sunny, there’s no humidity to contend with. It is cold, but it’s, they still dry really quickly.
Vicki: I think there’s more issues in the tropics actually.
Keren: Most likely.
Vicki: Than down south.
Keren: I had more trouble drying on the Sunshine Coast, than I did here.
Andrew: Cool. Why don’t you ask your second question, Keren?
Keren: Well, funnily enough, about night nappies. So how many night nappies do you need?
Andrew: For, let me throw that question back at you. How many night nappies do you own?
Vicki: Ha, notice there’s a difference between need and want.
Andrew: That’s right, that’s true.
Keren: I kind of like having about six actually. You could probably get away with four, if you’re washing every three days. But just to contend with drying times, or if you miss a day’s washing, I think six just means that you’ve got some spares. And also night nappies get a lot of wear and tear in that they are subjected to wee for very long times. So spacing that wear and tear out over half a dozen, I think is ideal. It is just another expense. So minimum, four, I would say. What about you ladies?
Vashti: I normally say to do it fulltime, you only need three. But having four or five definitely gives you that breathing space.
Vicki: That’s actually a question that I’ve never answered before, to be honest. See, when we’re doing expos and stuff like that, and, WHEN we’re doing expos, the one thing I do not talk about with pregnant women is night nappies. Because you’re changing so often overnight anyway, don’t let it overwhelm you.
Vashti: We get that a lot at the shop. It’s like…
Vicki: Worry about it once you’ve had the baby.
Vashti: Yeah, don’t worry about your night nappies until around about that three to four month mark. So that’s when we find that people, they can’t use their day nappies boosted anymore. They’ve stopped changing overnight, and their output is a lot higher, so they definitely need something that is going to do 10 to 12 hours plus.
Vicki: And also there’s such a big variety of night nappy requirements. Are you talking about a baby that’s sleeping for 8 hours or 13 hours? Do they feed overnight? What’s their output like and stuff like that. There’s too many variables to say, well here’s a solution that’s going to suit everybody. So I tend to not talk numbers with people until… it’s very specific, I customise it. Well, you customise it now, I don’t.
Vashti: That’s why a fitted with a prefold or some extra boosting over the top is the perfect solution. So you can turn your newborn fitted nappies into night nappies if you need to. Or you can turn your one size fits most fitted nappies into a night nappy. You don’t need to do a dedicated night nappy, and that’s definitely going to have a lot less wear and tear on your nappies as well.
Vicki: As long as you’ve got fitteds. There’s a bit difference between fitteds and…
Vashti: All in ones, all in twos.
Vicki: All in ones, all in twos, there’s only a finite capacity to boost. So just want to…
Keren: Yeah, the leg seal gets compromised.
Vicki: Yeah, so confirming here, we’re talking about fitted nappies with extra boosting, not all in ones, all in twos.
Keren: Flats work really well again, with a fitted cover. But I’ve had a few varieties of night nappies that I’ve used. My first night nappy that I used on my son was a very heavy weight sustainable hemp product fitted nappy, and it was absolute overkill for what I needed for my son. I found the drying times in Queensland were really hard for that actually. So then I went looking for something that I could layer and pull apart, and I’ve used flats with prefolds or flats with another flat and then fitteds with boosters or a prefold, and that works really well.
Vicki: With a heavy wetter, like Hayley’s little boy, she couldn’t even get a night nappy to contain…
Vashti: No, Sonia.
Vicki: It wasn’t Hayley?
Vashti: No, Sonia.
Vicki: OK.
Vashti: Yeah, Hyler. But then again…
Vicki: Yeah, see that’s what I’m getting confused about, OK, cool.
Vashti: But Hyler, yeah no, Hayley’s managed to get away with a pocket nappy with two prefolds in it for her boys. But Sonia, yeah, she did struggle for quite a while. But then…
Vicki: To get something with enough capacity to…
Vashti: She was boosting dedicated night fitteds with heavy weight prefolds over the top, just to get ten hours, because Hyler just weed like there was no tomorrow.
Andrew: There is a tomorrow.
Vashti: Apparently.
Keren: [inaudible, sound issue, 09:52] disagree on the amount of night nappies you’d need, but I guess it depends on the type of night nappy as well, and how long it does take to dry. But I do stick by having half a dozen, particularly as I’ve moved into toilet training, I’m washing a lot less. So I do a prewash and then space out that main wash a lot longer than I normally would. So it gives me a bit more time.
Vicki: And it also depends how many kids you’re going to have. Clearly, if you’re using a night nappy that contains wee for 12 hours every night, it’s not going to last as long, if you’re wanting it to last two or three kids. I know night nappies really do cop a beating.
Keren: Next question, Andrew?
Andrew: Question number three, yes.
Keren: Are there any detergents I need to stay away from, was a question I received last week.
Andrew: Can I refer you to the last podcast?
Vicki: Soap nuts and just remember that if you’re using Tri-nature that it’s actually, it seems to be rogue consultants that will tell you to use a teaspoon, or what have you. Actually look at the packet, and the packet tells you.
Keren: Norwex, is it?
Vicki: Norwex, what did I say?
Vashti: Norwex, Tri-nature.
Vicki: Tri-nature. They’re the same though, aren’t they?
Vashti: No, they’re different brands. But they’re similar.
Vicki: Look at the box. Look at the box.
Vashti: I think the only detergent that I would say to stay away from is anything that’s got fabric softener in it. And even then…
Vicki: Is it fabric softener, or is it water softener? Talk to Amy.
Vashti: Amy at Cloth Nappy Help.
Vicki: Yeah, she’s actually got a whole database of…
Vashti: Detergents.
Vicki: Detergents up and how they perform.
Vashti: And we did a podcast.
Andrew: Yeah, that published just before this one.
Vashti: Yeah, there you go.
Andrew: That’s why I say, listen to the last podcast.
Vashti: Yeah, but any of your detergents will work fine, you just need to use the right amount of detergent.
Vicki: And plant based, you’ll need to use more. Whereas your mainstream detergents you can get away with just whatever the heavy load is. Also depends on the size of your washing machine and all of that. And do you know what, Amy really is the expert on it. And we’ll link in the notes her detergent database.
Andrew: We should thank Amy again for coming on the podcast, because she’s such a wealth of knowledge about detergents, she’s fantastic.
Vicki: Yeah, she is, hugely. And it’s why I’ve actually stepped back, to be honest, I don’t really, because I don’t do much customer service anymore and stuff like that, I’m not as up to date with that sort of stuff. You’d know more about that than I would. It’s like there’s experts in the field, so why…
Vashti: Why reinvent the wheel?
Keren: When you’re first starting out with nappies, there is a lot of overwhelm with everything to do with the baby and nappies. So if you have a detergent that you absolutely love, by all means give it a go. If you start noticing that the nappies are smelling or you’re getting stains or anything like that, then that’s maybe step back and have a review of the quantity that you’re using and the temperature that you’re washing at. But don’t get hung up on it.
Vicki: It’s not rocket science.
Keren: No, exactly.
Vashti: There’s way more things to worry about than washing nappies.
Vicki: That’s right. Keep it simple.
Andrew: Nice, I think we’ll finish there. Thanks, Vicki.
Vicki: Thanks, Andrew.
Andrew: Thank you, Vashti.
Vashti: Thanks, Andrew. Bye Keren.
Keren: See you later.
Andrew: Thanks , Keren.