In my last post, I was running out of nappies (and clean clothing!) while travelling in Singapore due to the closing of laundries during Chinese New Year.

I had no choice, so I did something for the very first time: I bought a pack of disposable nappies.

44 + 4 nappies for S$16.40 at Giant VIVOcity, Mamypoko brand, size M (as suggested by a friend from Malaysia).

I found them slightly cheaper than Huggies, made in Thailand, very absorbant and best of all, none of the funny chemical smells everytime my daughter pooped or did a wee in them. Apparently, Malaysian and Singaporean mums rave about them, many using them for night time due to their absorbancy.

It was interesting going voluntarily from full-time cloth to full-time disposables on a toddler, even temporarily. I was in completely unfamiliar territory, having only used them while bleary-eyed with a newborn, who had been gifted a big carton of NB size Huggies nappies.

First impressions? They looked so ugly on her bottom compared to cloth! LOL

I guess I really had no choice this time, without a reliable laundry service @ soma-samui

However with time, I found them extremely convenient, not too expensive considering my daughter could use the toilet, and the leftovers were sooooo tempting to use in the first week back home, simply because I didn’t have the energy to do the laundry. (course I did go back to cloth! So pretty and effective   )

They were lightweight, disposable and my toddler didn’t seem to notice them very much.

I didn’t end up using too many of them, as my 16 month old would wee or poo on cue at the toilet by that stage.

But then again, if we didn’t use cloth in the first place my daughter may not have learnt to use the toilet, no?

Some days I only used 1 or 2 simply because she didn’t soil in them all day by using the loo. I had to throw out completely unsoiled nappies as well, when the elastic around the legs gave out from wearing them all day (what a waste of a good nappy!).

By the end of the week though I could see she was getting a bit lazy… Poo was easily disposed of using the Eenees flushable liners.

There was one evening she developed a very painful rash as she had done a poo and I didn’t catch it early enough. When we got back to the Y, it was very red and sore to touch. I had no choice at the time but to put her in a fresh new disposable nappy overnight and hope for the best, as the laundries hadn’t opened after Chinese New Year yet.

So relieved when the next morning her rash healed up and it was no longer sore.

Suffice to say she went back to doing it on the loo.

I continued using disposables after the Chinese New Year holidays were over, as

1. I had only used about 10 in 4 days and didn’t want to waste the rest
2. by that stage we were weary of travelling, and
3. we only had a couple of days left in Singapore.

One drawback I found with the disposables was, my daughter’s toileting habits went from being almost fully toilet aware to only toileting in the nappy within 5 days.

On coming back home I had to reorientate her mindset back into using the loo, which had been a very natural progression for her before Singapore. She picked her favourite cloth nappy and all was back to normal again.

My daughter's favourite nappy - 'flower nappy' (first prototype of ecobumba one-size pocket nappy)

In conclusion: would I do it again? Only in desperation and when I cannot wash nappies. I still prefer the look and feel of cloth nappies any day. I am a bit concerned about the long-term health effects of disposable nappies on my baby to think about using it as a permanent ‘waste collection’ system!

I won’t be able to find Mamypoko in Australia anyway

How about you?