When I talk to people about cloth nappies or tell them that I use them on my daughter, I get the same reactions pretty much every time! They either gasp in horror and ask why or just ask why I want to give myself so much extra work.
I honestly, hand on my heart, can say that using cloth nappies gives me very little extra work.
When I was pregnant I knew that I wanted to use cloth so I researched lots and lots of different websites that sold cloth nappies and that offered advice too. I joined parenting forums and posted questions in the relevant areas and got answers from mums that were using cloth on their baby.
From this I discovered that if I was to have around 25-30 nappies in my "stash" I would not need to wash everyday it would only be every 3 days. I also took advice from another mummy that suggested taking 10 minutes once the nappies were dry to put them all back together and then at changing time things were ready to be used.
In my opinion, using cloth is like a lot of other things, in that they are much work as you make them. I personally do not find 3 extra loads of washing a week hard work. I do not find the pegging out on the washing line work at all - I love to see all our lovely fluff blowing in the wind. Putting the nappies all back together is a job that I leave until little miss has gone to bed and I am sitting watching TV.
But, people still picture cloth or real nappies as terry squares that need to rinsed, soaked and then washed. My poor washing machine is the one that does all the work in our house!! I still have not managed to convince many of my friends to give them ago though.
