If you're expecting twins (or more!) and are checking out this website, you're probably already aware that by using cloth nappies, even part time, you could save a huge amount of money. But then, there's all that extra washing - twice the amount, in fact. With the additional demands on your time when you have multiples, it's understandable that you might be a bit wary of trying out cloth nappies. A couple of mums recently posted on our Facebook page about their experience cloth nappying twins, and offered their encouragement to others in the same situation.
Daisy's Advice
I've got 8 months old twin boys and a 2yr old girl in full time cloth and I honestly don't find it troublesome. I have about 40 nappies in rotation, in all manner of sizes, but my biggest tips would be:
1. Use a kitchen rubbish BIN rather than a nappy bucket (25L). I have one with a pop up lid so the smells stay in the bucket but its easy to get in and out of with hands full of wet/dirty nappies. Put some bi-carb in the bottom of the bucket and that'll help with the smells as well.
2. LINERS! I cannot tell you how much time and effort these save me. I can just flop the whole contents of the nappy into the loo rather than having to stand at the sink washing them out. ANY WAY YOU CAN SAVE TIME, do!
3. MULTI-FIT/OSFM nappies. My twins were born with a 500g weight difference that is now 1.4kg, so chances are you will need a nappy that does multiple sizes.
4. You will probably need some smaller size nappies, and they will most likely be worth the expense, because chances are they will be in them for a while, especially if your babies are early. My boys are 8 months old and the smallest of the two is JUST outgrowing his small nappies.
5. Wash at night - get the last nappy into the machine, set the washing to go and then hang them out the night before, or first thing in the morning. They'll be dry by dinner and ready to fold and go for the next day.
ITS TOTALLY WORTH IT. It's too expensive to put your babies in disposables! Before the boys went in their cloth they were going through a bulk box of nappies in under a week. That's upwards of $30 a week (not using the most expensive brand nappies, either). When you consider that ONE child in disposables costs you $3000 or more, you will have two babies and possibly more children, so the $800 I have spent all up on all my nappies more than makes up for the $9000 it could have cost me.
I don't find the washing too daunting really, its quite simple. Its 2-3 extra loads of washing a week (washing every 2nd or 3rd day, depending on time) which you won't even notice, the folding is easily done in front of the telly at night. The truth is, cloth saves us so much money a week it'd be worth it even if I did find it difficult!
Loz's Advice
I have 4.5 month old twins in cloth (previously cloth nappied my daughter who is now 3 and TTd). We used pockets mostly with my older daughter as I had time to stuff/etc, but for the twins we use cotton prefolds and covers, because the laundry/assembly side of things is MUCH faster in my opinion, and also because prefolds are a lot more forgiving of frequent tumble drying (naughty I know, but saves so much time especially when you are running out of nappies), plus they are cheap and bulletproof. We have 36 prefolds and maybe 10-12 covers, hard to say as my son now wears larger covers than his twin. I prefer Bummis covers for durability (important when getting double use) but have rounded out our stash with Baby Beehinds covers and they do the job fine. We wash every other day and use sposies at night.
We just trifold/pad fold the nappy inside the cover. We don't pin or Snappi.
Hard to say about newborns. I didn't have the patience to reassemble boosters and shells constantly. We used prefolds from about the 3.5kg/2 week mark.
Prefolds are a no frills system but the nannas are happy to use them and I can count the number of blowouts we've had on one hand. Not so with sposies.
I find it much easier to do a load of nappies (on our front loader, a normal cycle + extra rinse does a pretty good job) than to be carting sposies out to the bin all the time. For the first few weeks we used sposies exclusively and kept overfilling our rubbish bin. Yikes! With twins you are washing all the time anyway, esp if you get a chucker like my son :)
Don't assume twins will necessarily be tiny. Ours were 3kg each at birth (36 weekers). My son weighs 8.5kg at 4.5 months! He outgrew newborn covers in a couple of weeks.