Bum Genius

My sisters and I were brought up in terry toweling nappies.I knew when I had children that I had no problem in doing the same for my children, no disposables for me. However, researching what to do when pregnant opened up a minefield. It took a long time to grasp exactly how these clever reusables worked (we’d decided to opt for next generation on from terries).


I scrolled through many, not necessarily user-friendly, reusable nappy websites. A lot assumed prior knowledge and talk of outer liners, inner liners, wraps, bamboo, cotton and so on were frustratingly inaccessible. I didn’t want to have a nappy that added more work to my soon to be new Mum life and looked for the most straightforward design.

The bumgenius nappies came up time and time again as the most simple, logical design.

Three things convinced me:

1. Seeing a video of a wriggly baby being changed quickly with the bumgenius nappy (see You Tube for 1000s of examples, e.g., a four year old changing her sister's nappy),
2. Finding Fill Your Pants, a clear, straightforward reusable nappy shopping site and
3. My American nanny friend singing the praises of bumgenius when I said that I was thinking of going for them “They are the best, I’m so happy for you! They’re no. 1 in the States”.

I bought the bumgenius starter kit from FYP, complete with nappies, nappy liners, wash bag and waterproof carrier. This was really helpful so that I had all the components needed to begin. We also had 2 nappy buckets, one for dirty nappies, one as a bin for discarded liners and wipes etc. We also got a £25 cashback voucher from our council (Derby County Council) on presentation of our receipt, one reason being that “…a baby will use upto 4,000 disposable nappies or between 25 – 30 cloth nappies. 3 billion disposable nappies (around 1/2 million tonnes) are thrown away every year in the UK that is 8 million every day!“ I'm pretty certain that all councils do this as well.

My daughter is now 13 months old and we’re still going strong. She uses about 4 a day, one double up for nighttime. The nursery she goes to are happy to use them, I just take 3 or 4 for the day, along with a waterproof bag for them to deposit the dirties, and pick her and the nappies up at the end of the working day. We normally do a wash every other day. We’ve got about 20 nappies (buying extra as we went along so we had spares for nursery). We have a couple of each colour in their range and I think they’re beautiful! Despite all the use over the last year they aren’t stained and nasty looking either. Still presentable!

TOP TIPS

• Get starter kit.
• Use environmentally-friendly washing powder/liquid (supermarket own is fine so no more than standard stuff)
• Read user guides, e.g., FYP website has a bumgenius guide which I started off with
• Washing them at 60 degrees with half advised level of detergent is fine. We haven’t bothered to do a pre-rinse or post rinse and been fine.
• We use liners (helps separate poopy from the nappy for easy plopping into the toilet bowl)
• Biodegradable, flushable liners are best, though these aren’t easy to get on the high street (e.g., Boots, Mothercare only stock non-biodegradable, non-flushable) so bulk buying online is better. That way you can plop the whole lot down the loo instead of having to split them.
• Newborns only need the newborn liner (smaller one)
• As they get older you use the larger one, un popping the poppers to make them longer as the nappy is made bigger.
• For night times, we double up with a newborn and standard liner (this is particularly useful until your child stops feeding in the night).
• They dry quite quickly on the line/ on radiators (normally over night), tumble drying is speedy.

Enjoy!

[Written August 2010]

Stop press: See new blog for washing instructions [June 2012].