Need to save? Use traditional diapers

The most common complaint that parents have today is the amount of money they spend buying disposable diapers. With the recent trend of using disposable diapers, one asks, what happened to the traditional nappies? Chantal Uwamahoro, a mother of four and a resident of Kimironko, said that she used traditional nappies while raising all of her four children. “I would use disposable diapers only when I was visiting or taking a child to the hospital. But at home I used traditional nappies. I remember when I gave birth to my first child, I bought two dozens traditional nappies which I used until he was 11 months. Along side traditional nappies, you need to have many liners as well which you can cut from new soft bed sheets. I have heard several misconceptions that traditional nappies are not favourable for a baby because they cause heat rash, but this is not true,” Uwamahoro expresses. “As long as you constantly keep changing the baby’s nappies each time they pee and clean them up and dress them up in clean and dry nappies, then they won’t get any rash. Even disposable diapers can cause heat rash if they are not changed frequently especially if the baby’s caretakers are careless. The beauty in using the traditional nappies and liners is that you just wash and dry them. Its funny how young mothers’ today continuously think that traditional nappies are not good for babies,” Uwamahoro explains. “Instead of spending money on disposable diapers on a daily basis, you lose nothing washing and pressing the baby’s nappies daily. It is a fact that they are durable. Realistically speaking, most of us young mothers wore traditional nappies and liners as babies. I don’t know why we despise them now,” she reveals. She concludes that the money spent on buying disposable diapers can be saved for other initiatives. How to use a traditional diaperAfter washing the traditional diaper and it’s dry, iron it and fold it in a V-shape as well as the liner. Apply some powder in between the baby’s thighs and dress them up in the diaper. Constantly check if the baby has messed up the diaper. If they have, change them immediately and dress them up again just like you do with the disposal diapers. Soak the dirty diapers in warm water with any detergent and wash them after an hour. And the cycle continues until the baby is old enough not to use diapers.