Caring for your Butternut Baby Nappies

We recommend following advice given by Clean Cloth Nappies. For more thorough information please have a look at their website: https://cleanclothnappies.com/

Storing Dirty Nappies

It is recommended that you store your wet and dirty nappies in a airy 'dry pail'. The reasoning is that open and free flowing air is less likely to be an ideal environment for growing bacteria. Other methods such as in a wet bag or bucket do also work, but are more likely to be smelly and could cause more issue.

Wet nappies can be places straight into your dry pail. 

Poo nappies need to have the majority of the poo scraped off into the toilet. The exception for this is newborn nappies, where poo is water soluble. It is recommended you have a rubber scraper or some other scraping method next to toilet so it is readily available when you need it. You don't need to scrape poo straight away, you can do it just before washing if this works better for you. Prior to washing, if there are still some sticky bits you can rinse these off with water before sticking it in the machine to wash. 

Washing Nappies

Cloth nappies need to be washed twice to ensure they are clean. A first wash removes the bulk of the soiling and a main wash ensures things are properly clean.

It is recommended that you perform a first wash every 24 hours, especially if you are using night nappies. This helps to remove the ammonia which helps to prolong the life of your nappy. Clean cloth nappies provides lots of options for what you can do here based on your circumstances but ideally a 40-60 degree celcius wash, for around an hour is ideal. You can also choose to add bleach in the correct concentration to help with ensuring you get a great clean!

A main wash typically occurs every 2-3 days, or when you have a full drum for your wash. You are able to bulk this up with other items, I put in all my baby burp towels to help bulk up the wash, but you don't want to add in large items. This should be the longest setting that your machine can do, on a 40-60 degree celcius wash. 

For both a first and a main wash you want to ensure there is a good level of suds in your machine, as this helps to ensure your nappies are getting properly clean. Clean Cloth Nappies provide feeback on this on their Facebook page if you require direct help with your wash routine.

Stains

If you have stubborn stains using bar soap to scrub the area should help. If needed re-wash these items in a hot wash to try and help lifting the staining also.

Clean Cloth Nappies have a beach calculator which they have developed which allows you to treat stains (among other things) safely with bleach and is very effective if you are needing more advice.

Drying

It is ideal to be able to hang your nappies out to dry. Octopus hangers are great for getting everything out without taking up too much line space! Over winter inserts can take a few days to dry due to the multi-layer nature of them, so do account for this in your cloth nappy routine.

If the weather is poor, you can put your inserts in the dryer, however PUL shells shouldn't be put in, or only on very low heat so the PUL doesn't get damaged. 

Modern cloth nappies have rise snaps (the domes on the front of the nappy) as well as waist snaps (around the tummy).

Rise snaps are what allows a nappy to fit most babies. By clipping these domes down on the front you are able to make the leg holes smaller for smaller babies. This allows you to get a good seal and prevent leaks. The excess fabric that is created when snapping these down should be tucked upwards toward the waist to help reduce risks of leaks. It is best to have the rise snaps preset before use, and they can stay done up when being washed. 

The waist snaps should be a relatively loose fit. When sitting up there should be enough room to put two fingers inside the nappy. If your baby has a muffin top over their nappy while sitting the waist saps are done up too tight. The fit around the legs should however be tight.

The leg elastic should sit right into the undie line. If you are struggling with this bit, just grab the middle of the crotch and squeeze to bring the leg elastics closer together before doing up the leg snaps, or push it in after doing up the snaps. 

Ensure that there is no fleece poking out at the front, back or legs of the nappy - and you are good to go.