Before I even got pregnant I knew I wanted to use cloth nappies with my children.
As an environmentally conscious person who had already been using reusable options in other areas of my life for years, it just made sense to follow the reusable route with a baby too.
Plus, they are cheaper (or can be – more on that below) and are SO much cuter!
Today I wanted to share with you how we spent just £150 on our nappy kit that will last our now-six month old baby until she potty trains, as well as talk about the benefits of cloth nappies, and discuss the overall costs involved when taking into account electricity and water usage.
The benefits of Cloth Nappies
Better for the environment
Inarguably the biggest, and possibly the most important benefit (in my eyes anyway) is the environmental benefit of choosing cloth nappies over disposables. It is estimated that an average baby will go through 5,000-7,000 nappies by the time they are potty trained. That’s a lot of landfill!
It’s estimated to take hundreds of years (possibly more than 500 years) before disposable nappies in landfill even begin to break down – and when they do, because they are soiled, as they rot they release methane into the air. Methane is about twice as bad as Co2 as a greenhouse gas emitter, and it is estimated that one child’s amount of disposable nappies could account for as much as 630kg of methane, according to this.
But what about the water and energy used to wash cloth nappies, I hear you ask? Well, I go into that further below in my own study, however something to keep in mind is that there is a LOT of water and energy used to create, package, ship and distribute disposable nappies (Which of course there is for cloth nappies too, however they are a limited number, which are reused over and over again, rather than used for hours or minutes and then thrown away forever).
Side note: A lot of studies that try to claim reusable nappies are just as bad for the environment take into account energy used for washing AND drying cloth nappies. It is not recommended for most modern cloth nappies to be tumble dried, as it damages the PUL (waterproof layer) of them. So that’s one misconception that should be busted: Most modern day cloth nappies are lined dried by their users because they simply have to be. I personally have never used the tumble dryer for our cloth nappies, and hang them to dry on a rack inside instead (I live in an apartment with no outdoor space).
Better for baby
What would you prefer to wear on your delicate nether regions for three years: Underwear made from paper and plastic and full of bleach? Or fabric underwear? It’s an easy answer, isn’t it? The same goes for our bubbas.
Cloth options are hands-down a more comfortable option for their soft little bottoms, and many mums report less (or even no) instances of nappy rash compared to when using disposable nappies.
There are also arguments that cloth nappies are better for baby’s health due to the chemicals used in disposable nappies, but I don’t have any hard evidence to back that up – however I’m definitely inclined to believe that to be true.
READ MORE: Find our baby’s birth story here
They’re cheaper
This isn’t a black and white statement, but yes it is true that cloth nappies CAN be a cheaper option overall than disposable nappies – and I am going to get into the mathematics surrounding that below. However, there are some grey areas with this.
For example, we only spent £150 on our initial supply of cloth nappies and accessories (nappy pail liners, wet bags for on the go etc). However if you buy a huge swath of brand-name cloth nappies straight up, of course your initial outlay for supplies could be quite substantial.
In addition, as modern cloth nappies can be quite a fashion item, and many mums in the cloth nappy community (“Cloth Bum Mums”) are known to be a bit addicted to purchasing every new-release or limited-release pattern that hits the market, costs can extend there too. However, if you keep things basic your costs are going to stay low.
They’re easy to use
Gone are the days of bulky terry towelling and hazardous nappy pins that threaten to stab your baby if you make one wrong move.
These days, modern cloth nappies can be shaped and put on just like a regular disposable nappy, with snaps or Velcro to attach at the hips just how the paper and plastic tabs do on disposables.
Of course, many different varieties of modern cloth nappies exist, but the most popular are arguably all-in-ones or pocket nappies, which look architecturally just like disposables.
I’ll let you in on a secret too: For my baby’s newborn days, I used muslin squares folded in the same way old-school terry towelling nappies would be used, with waterproof covers. I thought it would be difficult to learn how to fold them and secure them around my baby (these days sans pins, but rather with safer ‘snappis’ or ‘nappy nippas’) but in fact it was so easy!
Washing cloth nappies during the newborn stage is as easy as throwing them in the machine, then hanging them on the line to dry. Once they’re eating foods, any ‘solid matter’ (aka poop) can be plopped into the toilet as an extra step before chucking them in the washing machine – it doesn’t take near as much time or effort as many people seem to think.
They’re cute
As stated above, many “Cloth Bum Mums” can get a bit of a shopping addiction when it comes to cloth nappies for their children, and it’s easy to see why. When new styles and patterns are always being released, from Harry-Potter and Disney themed pocket nappies to Marvel or Star Wars all-in-ones, it’s hard not to get tempted to click them all into your online shopping cart. When a nappy can be the centerpiece of an adorable, Instagram-worthy baby outfit, that’s pretty cool.
Personally, I’ve kept my cloth nappy stash secondhand and simple, but I will admit I’ve had to fight the urge to buy some of the cute patterns on the market! Instead, I’ve promised myself that if we do need to add to our stash at any point I’ll allow myself to search for some of the cute styles I’ve seen if they are being sold secondhand.
How we managed to keep our costs so low
As I stated in my Minimalist Newborn Baby Essentials Checklist post, our family choose to buy secondhand wherever possible because of the environmental benefits – and the financial benefits are a bonus! When it came to baby of course we continued on that path – and that included purchasing cloth nappies secondhand.
I know some people may cringe at that thought, but honestly once cloth nappies have been properly washed and sanitised, there isn’t going to be any residual grossness sticking around.
We used Facebook Marketplace to source our Birth-to-Potty (BTP) sized pocket nappies (we purchased 24 in total, scored in 2 different bundles of 12 nappies). We then found by chance 3 thicker, fitted two-part, nighttime BTP nappies at a charity store. In total those nappies cost us £84.
For the newborn stage, we knew baby most likely wouldn’t fit into the BTP nappies straight away, so we bought 20 muslins from the same charity store previously mentioned, for £15. We paired these muslins with seven newborn-sized wraps we bought secondhand on eBay for £28.80, and a pack of snappis to hold them in place for £9.75 (we purchased these new).
Side note: We now use the muslins we used when our baby was a newborn folded into rectangles and used to boost out her BTP size nappies so they continue to be very useful.
In addition, we purchased 2 nappy pail liners for £15.49, and a pack of 3 wet bags for £13.49 (both purchases were new as I was unable to source them secondhand at the time, however I’ve since seen both available at times on Facebook Marketplace so I wish I could have come across those then!).
We got given our nappy pail for free with one of the cloth nappy bundles and we chose to make reusable cloth wipes for free at home using old t-shirts – they’ve worked great so far!
So tallying that all up, that brings our total cost of actual supplies to £153.53 – A small cost to pay in comparison to the price of disposables over the average three years a child is in them.
We also plan to use the same set of nappies – provided they don’t wear out – for any subsequent children we may have, so that will bring our family’s overall cost of nappies down further.
The cost of disposables
Using prices of both brand name and home brand disposable nappies at a major UK supermarket (accurate as of Friday, April 24 2020), I did a little study of my own. Working out the price per nappy of each size (as the price per nappy increases as the nappies get bigger), I then worked out a daily cost of disposables, and therefore a cost over three years, the average time a child is in nappies.
To make the study as accurate as I could, I reduced the number of nappy changes per day steadily over the three years – as a newborn baby is likely to go through more nappies than a toddler – starting at an average of 12 nappies a day and ending at approximately 7 changes per day. I also added in the price of the same brand’s baby wipes, at a rate of 1.5 wipes per nappy change, to try to find out how much, approximately, a family might spend on using disposable nappies for their child.
I found that, if using the brand name nappies (which, in this case, worked out at 13-26p per nappy dependent on size, and 2p per wipe), a family could spend £2,160.29 on nappies and wipes over three years.
If using home brand nappies (which, in this case, worked out at 3-10p per nappy dependent on size, and 1p per wipe) a family could spend £709.87 on nappies and wipes over three years.
So, if taking into account only supplies, our family has no doubt saved hundreds of pounds on nappies already.
If using disposables for two children in one family, that’s £1,419.74 for home brand nappies, and £4,320.58 for the brand name nappies.
If using disposables for three children in one family, that’s £2,129.61 for home brand nappies, and £6,480.87 for the brand name nappies.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
But what about the water and energy used to wash the nappies?
As already stated above, we must keep in mind the resources used to create every single disposable nappy that is used for a limited time and then is left to rot in landfill for up to 500 years.
But I digress.
Let’s look at how much energy and water is used to wash cloth nappies (and therefore, how much this costs a family).
I studied our own water and energy bills for the same three month period from this year (with a baby in cloth nappies) compared to last year (with no baby in the house).
A few things to note before I go on:
- I am unable to separate general baby water and electricity costs from our cloth nappy related water and electricity costs. Obviously your water and electricity bill will increase just from having a baby in the household, whether you’re using cloth nappies or not, because you will be doing extra washing of baby clothes, burp cloths, bedding etc, plus bathing an extra person, so please keep that in mind.
- We wash nappies every second day due to the amount of nappies we have in our supply kit. If we owned more cloth nappies, we wouldn’t have to wash as often, which would therefore lower our costs of washing.
- I’m currently on maternity leave still so I’m in the house all day rather than at work, so electricity would also be increased from that as well.
- Taking those above points into account, to be a bit fairer (but unfortunately not exact), I’m using 60% of the figures of increase in our bills to represent how much of our increase I garner to guess would, in reality, be cloth nappy related, rather than just general baby-related.
- It must also be mentioned that over the years our water and electricity bill will decrease as baby’s amount of nappy changes per day decreases, therefore reducing the need to wash as often. However, I don’t have enough data to make a figure prediction regarding that decrease in nappy changes per day, as I was able to do for the disposable nappies. So once again the figure for the cloth nappies cost is probably inflated unfortunately. But I’ve tried as best that I can to get as close to accurate as possible.
- Our energy provider is a green provider, and by choosing this, our tariff is slightly higher than a ‘regular’ energy tariff, so may be different to your own expected electricity costs if planning to use cloth nappies.
Study findings
What I found, for this three month period of study, was that our electricity bill increased an average of 43% per month in usage, resulting in a 24% price increase, averaging £8.25 per month. Using 60% of this, as explained above, that means that over three years cloth nappies would cost us £178.20 in energy bills.
Over the same three month period, our water bill increased an average of 49% in usage per month, equating to a 38% price increase, averaging £21.87 per month. Using 60% of this figure, that means that over three years cloth nappies would cost us £472.39 in water bills.
So, for us, that means three years of cloth nappies will cost us:
Initial costs: £153.53
Electricity: £178.20
Water: £472.39
Total: £804.12
Yes, I’m aware that’s £100 more expensive than the cheapest, home brand nappies. However, as also stated above, for our subsequent children we already have our initial supplies, and will only need to pay for electricity and water, bringing the total to cloth nappy any subsequent children for us will reduce to £650.59, which is now cheaper than the home brand disposables.
In my eyes, all things considered (environmental, comfort, ease of use, and the financial aspect too), cloth nappies are the better way to go by far, and I couldn’t be more pleased with our choice.
What about you? Do you use, or have you considered using cloth nappies? Let me know what you think in the comments below.