The Great Aussie Nappy Road Test

"Not at all bad" isn't much of an endorsement for the Mother-ease one-size, but it does have many good features. The best feature is its stretchiness, which makes it easy to fit. It's quite soft and despite being a bit bulkier because it's a one-size, still fitted easily beneath the Rikki cover.
Mother-ease products are not presented as nicely as other brands (colour, style), such as BabyBeehinds, but their products are solid to use so I'm not surprised they've been in business since 1991. I can imagine there are many satisfied customers who swear by Mother-ease.

After 8 months of using re-usable nappies, I've found that the 2-layer system (nappy plus waterproof cover) is not for me. However, of the ones I've tried, the Sandy's nappy was the best.
Although it's bamboo, therefore very absorbent and slow to dry, it's nice and stretchy which makes it easy to fit. It's also a sized product, so more slimline and not as bulky as the one-size cloth nappies. So, if you can make it work economically, this nappy would work well with any cover (I preferred the BabyBeeHinds PUL wrap with it).

I really like the one-size Swaddlebees, but the Organic is a sized model so just didn't last long enough for our test subject. Great product on a smaller baby, or if you use this brand of sized system 100% of the time and not in combination with other products - to make it economical.

In all honesty, I originally chose the Happy Heiny's because I liked the prints - I have a 'cheeky monkey' pattern - but it's been in regular use since then. It's 100% synthetic, so easy-drying, and easy to stuff. The only problem I've had with it is that it is not very flexible around the waistband and can be a bit leaky. 

It's among the more expensive options, but the Bum Genius one-size is a great product. It's very well-made and sturdy plus easy to use. As it's fully synthetic, it's quick to dry and easy to care for. As our test subject is a bigger baby, I've found the sizing more generous than some. It's well fitted and easy to adjust. It comes in a nice range of colours and can be purchased from a number of online suppliers. 

It's always nice to support an Australian-made product such as the Peapod, but unfortunately it's not one of my favourites.
The microfibre lining is great, but the colour scheme I have it a light green outer with dark green inner and this means the dark green shows lots of fluff. And although bamboo is fantastically absorbent, this insert/ booster was always the last thing off the line. Lastly, I'm not a fan of the popper closures on nappies. It's probably just me, but I find them very hard to pull tight and fasten.

On paper, the Tots Bots Easyfit is nearly the perfect nappy. It's a generous size, cheerful colour, strong but easy to use velcro close, and highly absorbent bamboo core (it also comes in microfibre).
It's only drawback is taking it apart for washing and reassembling. It has a bamboo inner that slots into a 'tongue' that folds into the pocket (yes, hard to imagine) but it's quite difficult to get the inner back into the sleeve.

Rumparooz have a couple of features that are slightly better than the 'average' pocket nappy, specifically the 'gusset' in the main body of the nappy to aid containment, like a disposable nappy, and the '6 hour soaker' insert, which is quite clever.
However, their main drawback is they are too small. Our test subject is only 5 months old, albeit on the 97th percentile for weight (he was 8.7kg at 4 months!) but he has outgrown the Rumparooz. I don't see how you could make it last into toddlerhood.
Not recommended.

We have been composting pee-only nappies, as I read an article in Gardening Australia magazine about a reader who had been using them as a mulch layer. I initially tried this, but the wood pulp core, and water-saving chemical, disintegrated too quickly.
How?
When we use disposables, any wee-only ones are kept in a separate nappy bucket. When it's time to compost, I make a cut with scissors at the top of the nappy near the leg edge, then tear down the leg seam. This allows the pulp core to fall out, into the compost. The plastic wrapping is then put into the regular rubbish.
This is a controversial thing to do for 2 reasons:

• human waste treatment
• water-saving chemicals

It is not recommended to use human, or pet, waste in compost. Why do we do it? Because the volume of waste is relatively small, and the composting process itself should break down the urine. And like greywater, you can use the resultant compost in such a way as to avoid contact with the edible parts of plants. It is recommended not to use greywater on leafy veg, for example, so I'd use this compost as a soil conditioner to plant tomatoes in - which don't come in to contact with the fruit.

What about the nasty toxins in water-saving chemicals? Well these are effectively the same chemicals used in water-saving crystals anyway, so I figure, 'what's the difference?'. I'd like to hear from anyone with a different view.

So far, all the nappies are still composting, so I'll let you know when we start using it.

I'm very happy with this approach as it helps us deal with one of the two significant issues with disposing of nappies - volume of waste in landfill. The result of removing the pulp core is that more than 50% of the bulk is removed.

I have read that for "eco" disposables, you can compost the entire nappy as some of the other construction materials are biodegradable - but we have not yet tried this. If you do this, you need to remove the non biodegradable (plastic) parts of the nappy from your compost. Or leave them there I suppose ... they won't hurt.

One thing to note is that all the urine makes the compost acidic - you may get 'vinegar flies', so add basic garden lime to counteract the acidity.

Here are a few websites on different approaches and opinions on composting nappies.

Nature's Child - disposable nappies, use and disposal
Sydney Morning Herald - Child's play: turning nappies into compost
EnviroComp Ltd - NZ joint venture between Huggies and EnviroComp to commercially compost nappies

This does not resolve the other significant waste problem of disposables - human waste in landfill. All the pooey nappies are still going to landfill ....

We've used four kinds of disposable nappies so far:

• Huggies
• Moltex
• Bambo, and
  
• Pampers

I'd classify them into 'Huggies' and 'the rest'. The Huggies appear to be the best-constructed with the stretchiest elastic and best velcro-like tabs. However 'the rest' were all equally as efficient.
We have used disposables consistently for night-time and outings plus my husband prefers the Moltex when he does changes (he has a free pass on cloth nappies).
I have read in multiple places 'not to bother' with cheaper brands, but anecdotal evidence from mothers' group plus using these four products suggests there isn't much difference between them.
When choosing an 'eco' disposable, we slightly prefer the Moltex over the Bambo but given the Bambo is slightly cheaper, I would definitely recommend either. However, if you use 'eco' disposables you need to compost them for any real environmental benefit. See the Moreland Energy Foundation 'Energy for Babies Kit'.