Nappy Woes

I am a cloth bum mum. For the most part I love them and have written about my love of cloth savings here.

But.

There is always another side to the story, a flip of the coin. 

My current most pressing nappy woe is this. Dry time.

I, like any parent I think, puts her washing machine on every day of the week, leaving the weekend free from washing chores. Be it a full load of adult and baby clothes, a quick wash of soiled clothes or the sheets and towels. I recently joked about naturism with J just to cut down on the washing and I see my pj days as a massive help in the quest to wash less clothes.

But nappies are a different story. If you have read my previous nappy post you would have read about my washing habits. This means that in my house at any one time a 1/3 of my nappy stash are drying. We don't own a tumble dryer but use an airier and putting them outside when the weather allows.

Have you looked outside recently? Rain has featured quite heavily. So no quick drying nappies of the days during our heat wave. Heat waves were not good for happy babies but were very good for dry white nappies! So my nappies dry inside, eventually. I do put liners on the radiator to finish and when I need the airier for my other washing.

My stash is varied and growing as I buy preloved (or win them!) and discover what works for us and L. So far the quickest drying nappies are:

Fuzzi Bunz Elite - a pocket nappy with a microfiber booster. They come out of the wash almost dry! Amazing. Dry in a few hours.

TotsBots Easyfits - dry in a day! Horray. Super easy.

Charlie Banana - dry in a day and a bit. The shell is dry very quickly it is the booster which takes time. I can use disposable insets while the booster dries if we are off out.

Little Lamb OSFA - both the cotton and bamboo boosters take at least two days to dry inside, the shells are dry much much quicker. I wish I could afford to buy additional boosters for these as I could use the shells twice while the boosters dry. I will look out for sales.

Little Lamb Bamboo - I lose count of the days! The flip side of their super absorbency is the fact they take so long to dry back out. The boosters dry quicker then the nappy. The wraps dry in hours though so you can have half the number of wraps to nappies. I am not sure I can find a nappy to match the Bamboos absorbency which dries quicker.

So there is my nappy drying run down.

I am looking into solutions. I am loath to buy a tumble dryer, they are expensive to run and bad for the environment. I have looked into heated airers and also small portable dryers. I am not sure if these solutions will work for us. Do you have any experience of drying reusable nappies inside in the winter? Any top drying tips?