Terry Nappies

I’d forgotten about the Pippa Dee parties! All of the washing lines had the kids striped pjs on them!

Goodness, that’s a blast from the past, Daddima!

Franbern, this is how I folded my nappies -

youtu.be/NMUJJEZ6HCk

Same here, Calistemon I stopped work in 1975 with our first child, and my friends were all at home with children for a number of years. None of us were well off, but everybody was in the same boat. A Pippa Dee party was a big night out!
I managed fine with terry nappies, and the bucket with Napisan didn’t smell. I used paper nappy liners, and for a while there were cloth ‘ Marathon’ liners, which claimed to keep baby dry.
I remember using disposables in hospital, and, as you took home everything which was in the cupboard under the baby’s cot, the nurses advised us to fill it up with nappies the night before we were due to go home!

Play groups (2 or 3 hours a day) were run by mums and children were not allowed to start until after their 3rd birthday.
There were no nurseries that I knew of and, unless you had the luxury of family nearby you looked after your own children 24/7; some of us had husbands who were away for months at a time too. We set up babysitting groups so that you could have an occasional social evening.

I can just imagine what would have happened if I'd taken a new baby with me into my previous workplace!!

No one I knew when my boys were born in the 70’s went back to work after having a baby. There was almost no daycare for babies or toddlers back then. A few mums eventually got evening jobs or did Tupperware/Avon parties but that was mostly about it. I did a little bit of childminding for a neighbour with older children who had a PT job, I do recall that.

I think most of us lived in a different world to you paddyanne
I only know one person who went back to work straight away in the 60s and 70s.

Calendargirl You obviously live in a different world from me,I dont know anyone who stayed at home with children for more than 8 weeks ..that was in the 70's.I left work at 12'30 on the Thursday ,baby was born 7 hours later.We stayed in hospital for a full week because she was jaundiced and I was back at my desk on the Friday with her beside me in her pram .My best friend had 7 weeks off before going back to work and she thought that was a long time .

PS I lived in a caravan on a RAF site. I washed everything by hand and dried everything out doors and my babies never had nappy rash.

I used towelling nappies with soft muslin lining nappies. I sluiced the solids off them and soaked them in a bucket outdoors so no smell.

Putting families in gardenless flats is no way to make people live their lives. It would be nice if this epidemic caused government to build adequate social housing.

I’m so surprised Tickledpink - I would have thought that cloth nappies were still the norm 35-ish years ago. That would have been about 1985 - I didn’t know anyone at all who used disposable nappies at that point (unless say, on holiday) - they were just too expensive.

Perhaps your health visitor covered a very affluent area?

So a bit of common sense perhaps? Those who have a washing machine and a garden use them, and those who don’t carry on as you were.

Of course if you can’t get any and you’re stuck at home then if the child is old enough (12 months?) perfect time to start potty training,

I used terry nappies for my children who are in their mid thirties now. No disposable nappy was efficient enough especially for my eldest child, but the terry was. I had a Berco boiler and I recall the health visitor remarked how unusual it was to see terry nappies.

My daughters have used "real" nappies for all their babies - my son and wife have not.
The new style ones have done 4 babies each and are "dry-pailed" unlike the terry nappies of my day. This means almost no smell. Certainly not the horrible ammonia smells described above.

Both my "girls" bought or were given second hand ones so one lot had already done 3 babies ahead of my grandchildren.
Neither daughter had a tumble dryer at the time and although both have used disposable nappies when camping I don't think either have had any problems with them. One has a clothes-horse in her spare room/study where she drapes them if it's raining.

Regarding the old terry nappies, I can honestly say I didn't find them any real bother. Like franbern I have washed a fair few- and although we didn't have central heating and have never had a tumble dryer I don't remember ever running out. I think it suited me to be honest. I have just one left now which I was using as a floorcloth only yesterday and it's still in reasonable shape. It's at least 30. Could be 40 this year (depending which "batch" it was) - either way, it's never been out of use!

Renting??? Trying out that should read!

Everything about the old terry nappies was grim, except them fluttering in the breeze and no contributing to landfill. I hated the drudge of the twin tub out every 2 days, the smell, the leaking overnight, the sore bottoms, the difficulty of going out and about and carrying the used one around TIL you got home.
I used them for child one and 2 in the early 80’s and think I remember renting out paddipads, were they on a roll that you cut a piece off to size? I folded the terries in the kite shape as I had all boys.
Child 3 was born in 1991 and I used disposables.
The disposables my grandchildren have all used are brilliant, thin, no leaking and last for hours with no sore bottoms. The littlest grandchild (2) has disposables that last about 8 hours if just wee, so not that expensive, from Aldi or Lidl. If I had a baby now I would use them. If you add up the laundry and electricity it is not that expensive.
It is very worrying about the landfill though, I read somewhere that it Henry V111 had worn disposables they would not yet have decomposed!

*NotSpaghetti" - yes, she starting trying to get them produced around 1947 and got a patent under the name PaddiPads SueDonim. I must say I can't claim Valerie Hunter Gordon as a friend as she was one of what we up here in the north of Scotland call "the landed gentry". Herself and her husband did a lot of good work for the local community - there is an interesting Wikkipedia page on her and her family. Her grandfather was a great inventor and founded the "Ferranti" company.

Were not where.

Where they Paddi Pads? I remember using them for holidays with little ones in the 70’s. They weren’t really much cop because any solids that were...um...less than solid ran all over the place and onto clothes. www.paddi.org.uk/paddi-garment.html

No! I'm wrong. It was Johnson & Johnson!

jacq10 my mother in law used disposable nappies (like fat sanitary pads) for both my husband and older sister considerably before your friend in Scotland. Maybe your friend made shaped ones? I think my mother-in-law said they were Proctor and Gamble but I could have mis-remembered this.

Fennel, your story about your young son not wanting to continue wearing his nappy brought back memories. In 1973, I had two young children toilet trained, aged 4 and 3, and another one just over a year in nappies (terry towelling, of course). For speed I would still use the potty for the older two if necessary and the baby would watch her older sister use this and one day, sitting at just over a year, started to cry and scream whilst sitting in her highchair. Nothing I did seem to appease her, and it was her older sister of 3 yrs old who told me ' She wants you to take her nappy off and let her sit on the potty'. I thought this was absurd, but to prove it, I did that,- screaming and crying stopped and 14-month old smiled as she used that potty. She never needed daytime nappies again after that.
I had six children and fostered another thirty plus babies over the years. Only ever used terrytowel nappies With liners, and plastic pants - never caused any problems. With my first child did not have a washing machine and would rinse them out in the kitchen sink each morning, with others I did have washing machine and outside space to hang them.
I know I had a special way of folding these different for boys and girls, for smaller babies - as they got older just into the usual kite shape. Can't remember how I did that folding now - it gave much more folds along the centre of the nappy.
I was disappointed that none of my adult children were willing to use terry towel nappies with their children, but one did show me figures which seemed to prove that those were as bad for the environment as disposables.
Way beyond any nappy use in the family at present,thank goodness.

I used terry nappies for mine but then once the disposable ones improved I used some and some.

I was recommended to buy Harrington’s nappies when I was expecting my first. I remember they were quite expensive but they lasted for all of my children and my husband still uses them for cleaning the cars!

Yes, I think modern reusables are much better, especially if you mix & match with disposables for holidays/emergencies. Some of my wider family have used them although they baulked at them when twins turned up!

Sorry, I meant "used more than once in my first paragraph.