Baby Wipes

There's been a negative correlation between ease of dealing with nappies and age of toilet training. I was born in 1940, and my mother was expected to have me trained by three months, by regular routine, and 'holding out' with water running in the background. I was horrified to learn this, but with no washing machine or drier, and no waterproof pants or bedding, it must have been worth the effort.
With my children in the seventies, I had a twin tub and plastic pants, and the accepted time for training was 'second summer', and it was so good to get rid of the nappy bucket and droopy drawers.
Nowadays disposable nappies are so neat and convenient that training is so long delayed, that I wonder if at some stage it will extend till its time for adult incontinence pads!

Very good point Allule
Mine were born in the 60s, memories of nappies hanging on the line freezing solid in winter.

Oh beammeupscottie I've just had post sixties period trauma. I'd forgotten all about the small wrapped parcels shoved down the back of the fire. My French pen friend actually had towelling squares for periods which were soaked in a bucket in the cellar where the loo was. Need a strong gin. What we went through. And I just don't want to think about Nappy buckets and no washing machine. Need a double gin.

allule my mother waited until I was a bit older but I was apparently clean and dry day and night by 15 months.

Even now, the sound of a running tap has me dashing for the loo

I bought a pile of white flannels from TK Maxx when I was looking after the DGD and several small white towels from Ikea (19p each !)

Why is the pass-time of choice for small kids, pulling al the wipes out of the packet? Doesn't matter what else we have to play with........our younger ones just love doing that.

or all the tissues out of the pack
DD used to use toilet paper to make beds for her dollies and DGD just loves the tissues, the more the better.

I hate pull up nappies for babies. Once training I get it but pull up nappies when you have to take everything off from the waist down to change is just ridiculous. As for wipes its just a gimmic as always. If a child is allergic to a bit of soap then use cotton wool and water (unless affording these holy water things is a great option). Otherwise any wipe will do.

With modern disposable nappies and both parents busy at work it does seem that potty training has largely gone out of the window. DGS decided he was going to give up nappies at two and a half. His decision. He just copied the other children at nursery, but our neighbours little boy was about to start school before they could persuade him as he just couldn't be bothered to waste time stopping playing to go to the loo. Modern nappies are far too comfortable. You'd think the money saving incentive plus saving the environment, would encourage early training but apprentice not.

When I had babies we were encouraged to potty train very early in fact as soon as they started crawling and walking all mine did fine and were out of nappies (apart from night time) at 15 months I can't stand to see four year olds walking around with hanging nappies and a dummy in their mouths They are not encourage to potty train early now though why I m not sure .... health visitors etc say do it later why?
I always had a potty on the shopping tray underneath the pram and a loo roll in my bag

Yes we needed children to be potty trained to cut down on washing - no automatic machines then, and comfort for the child, terry nappies with their pins and plastic pants were not the most comfortable. I agree there is a correlation between the child's age and ease of dealing with nappies.
I used to have a potty in the pram tray too BlueBelle.

But we had proper prams in them days. Not these great padded things with scarcely room for the child and hardly space for all the paraphernalia or shopping.

Yes there is nothing like a beautiful coach built pram for comfort and space. Not so good for car travelling though.
Of course in those days we walked everywhere and it was safe to leave your pram outside a shop. No supermarkets then you could see your child from inside the shop.

My lovely DIL uses these `waterwipes` . I have to keep my mouth shut ! £2.49 for 30
I would like to say why not just buy the cheaper ones and run them under the tap lol or take them out of the packet , rinse them and keep in a plastic box ! My children do laugh at my money saving antics and this would just verify that Nanny is being cheap again . Saying that I would give them my last penny if they needed it but I do struggle with being conned which is how I see `waterwipes `

I don't know how we failed to instil the 'Look after,the Pennies' ethos into our offspring. I know I did my best, and I know mine used to. But I fear the advertisers methods are stronger.

So the virtue Thrift is now called Cheap. Nice attitude. Not.

Except when I was out and about, I used a washing-up bowl of water and washable flannels for nappy changes. So did DD. I hate baby wipes (well the water ones might be OK, but why not use a bit of rag?) because they leave me skin feeling sticky. My kids' skin didn't react too well to them either.

I think most people must have much tougher skin than I have. Perfumes and scents are hell!

You can buy packs of dry wipes on Amazon, Age UK, and other care sites, and use your own water. 100 in a pack and they cost less than those.

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Madness. Why not buy a tin of Scotch mist while you're at it.
They are devastating our planet
Do not buy.
Use a flannel or muslin cloth that you can wash and reuse innumerable times.
I jolly well hope that you do your bit to give our planet a chance.

Well it’s pretty obvious on this thread why we have mountains of plastic rubbish .
Haven’t the majority of you heard that our planet is drowning in the stuff and wipes are made of plastic.
I always take wet face clothes with me when out with children. Much more efficient too.

This is an old thread, but Gabriella I agree with you. Babywipes are a huge part of the so-called fatbergs which are clogging our sewers.
Not to mention so called 'disposable' nappies. I know people don't put those down the toilet (at least I hope not) but they're a large part of the non-recyclable rubbish which has to be incinerated.

DD used reusable nappies for her two and also bought little towelling squares from the same company. They were so much more effective at cleaning bottoms than baby wipes are. They just went in the washing machine with the nappies and were used again and again.

I do not remember terry nappies being such a chore. I used nappy liners in the nappy, took the nappy off, flushed the liner down the loo, put the nappy in a bucket and every few days bunged it in my my twin tub and gave them a boiling wash. the twin tub spin dryer was very efficient and the nappies were almost dry when they came out of it. Put them on a tidydry over the bath with the window open and the door shut and they were dry very quickly.

If they got stained, they stayed stained until the end of the month when I would bleach them and rewash them.

I used disposables on holidays and hated them. The packets were bulky and you had to keep going out to buy more - and they were expensive. Then there was the problem of disposing of them.Yuk.

Give me terry nappies anyday.

I did just as you, M0nica, when my three were little. I also recall how useful the liners were, wrapped around a wad of cotton wool, if I was unprepared when my period arrived .
But in hindsight, I wonder if we were right to flush the liners down the loo? I wonder if they too were made with a high percentage of plastic?

Baby wipes are great for cleaning leather furnture.

Maybe someone should start a game thread.
How many ways can we help to pollute the world with plastic wipes.?