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Old style nappies/diapers made of towelling

Recollections from the webmaster of the use of babies' nappies before disposable ones became common

Babies have always needed nappies, also known as diapers, but the traditional terry towelling sort was very different from the disposable nappies of today. My experience is of using both, as my children were born in the 1960s and the only option were those made of towelling At that time, there was no shortage of recollections of previous years from grandparents, so my experience would have been little different from previous years. Now, I have six greatgrandchilden who have provided a good understanding of the disposables of today.

Nappy fabric in the past

Traditionally nappies were made of the most readily available cheap, absorbent, soft, flexible and durable material - cotton towelling, also known as terry towelling or just towelling. No-one ever called it just 'cloth', which I understand to be an all-encompassing term when applied to the disposable nappies of today and meaning a blend of cotton, bamboo, hemp and more.

Towelling could be bought relatively cheaply by the yard from a roll. So almost all nappies were made by cutting the towelling or old towels into squares about 2 feet by 2 feet (about half a metre by half a metre) and hemming the edges. This was often a task taken on by a grandmother who was used to using such nappies with her own babies.

A terry towel nappy

For the more affluent, Mothercare shops which were newly opened when I had my children, proved irresistible as they sold all sorts of baby equipment including ready-made squares of towelling nappies - but not disposable nappies which had not yet arrived when I had my babies in the 1960s.

How towelling nappies were put onto babies

The square nappies were put on by first folding the square crossways to make a triangle. This was done on a table or other flat surface. For very young babies who needed a smaller nappy, the triangle was folded in half again making a smaller triangle of double thickness.

The first fold of a terry towel nappy.

The washed and powdered baby was then laid face up onto the triangle such that the long edge of the folded nappy was under her tummy - let's say she was a baby girl for ease of reading, but the principle was the same for boys. This left three mini-triangles poking out: one at each side and the other between her legs.

The final three folds of a terry towel nappy

These triangles were drawn round the baby to overlap each other and pinned together. Job done.

You can see the idea from the following mockup of the nappy on a doll. Note that we only used one safety pin, pinned centrally, whereas the modern disposable equivalents use two sticky tapes, one for each side. With the towelling nappies one size really did fit all. It could be pinned more loosely as the baby grew.

Schematic of the finished folded nappy, shown on a doll

The pin was a specially shaped nappy safety pin that was large and curved so that pushing it shut did not pierce the baby's skin. It clicked shut once it had been closed. I never knew of it coming open or piercing the baby.

Metal nappy safety pin to secure the folds in front

There were two further refinements. One was re-usable plastic pants with elasticated waists and legs - bought from Mothercare to stop leakage. This kept the urine inside the paints, which unfortunately meant flooding round the baby's skin and causing inflamation.

The other refinement was a muslin liner to aid washing - see below. These were modern innovations at the time - things that my parents and grandparents never had.

Plastic nappy pants

Before plastics became more common, rubber pants were sometimes used, but as often as not, babies were simply laid on a rubber sheet or even placed where leakages could do least harm. My mother told the story of how she was told to hold her baby sister in the early 1900s and the baby wetted her, presumably because there was no waterproof protection.

How towelling nappies were washed

Removing the main soil

Soiled towelling nappies were cleaned by first holding one corner under a toilet flush to flush away the solid matter. It was essential to keep tightly hold of the corner while doing this. I had one bad experience with my first baby in the early-1960s: the force of the flush was so great that it tore the nappy out of my hand, never to be seen again. It took a while for the drain to be cleared.

Nappies treated this way were still soiled and stained. I heard that some women lined their nappies with muslin which helped to keep the nappies' colour, but I never knew anyone who did it. Managing nappies was time-consuming enough without adding more work.

After removing the soil, each wet nappy was placed in a dedicated bucket filled with water. Those I knew in the 1960s came from Mothercare and were made of white plastic with a colourful transfer on the side and the lid. Before Mothercare, I suppose a metal bucket or an enamel bowl would have been used.

Sterilising and washing the nappies

Two ways of steriling the nappies were common. My friends who had babies about the same time as me told me that they soaked the nappies in Milton sterilising fluid before washing them. - in twin tub washing machines of course.

I was guided by my mother: Nappies had to be boiled in a large saucepan on the hob using soap flakes, never with detergent which would have chaffed a baby's sensitive skin. Soap flakes had been available for many years as 'Sylvan flakes', so I am sure that my mother treated her own nappies this way in the late 1930s, and that our grandmothers and great grandmothers probably also boiled their nappies with soap in the copper. Before the middle of the 20th century there were no detergents, so soap would have been the only option anyway. Whether it was sometimes the hard household soap, I don't know. I do know that nappy rash was not uncommon, even in the 1960s, and various creams were sold for it. By then of course detergents were available, but no-one I knew used them for baby clothes or nappies.

The nappies needed to be rinsed well and wrung out thoroughly in order to keep them soft. One woman told me that she left them hanging in the rain to soften, but rain does not come to order, and nappy washing and drying had to be on-going.

Drying the nappies

When the weather permitted, nappies were dried outside as described on the page about drying the weekly wash. But the weather was not always kind, and babies needed a constant supply of clean, dry nappies. So we needed a good supply of them. Often, though, the wet nappies had to be dried indoors which wasn't always easy with no central heating radiators. Clothes horses were common sights, as were ceiling airers. They made the room damp and looked untidy, which was not pleasant, but there was no alternative.

The nappy laundry

A new innovation in the 1960s was the nappy laundry, but I never knew anyone who used it. Among the women I knew, it was seen as extravagant. Of course they would also have considered today's disposable nappies as extravagant, if they had known about them. I remember that the nappy laundry cost 12/6 a week, that is less than a pound in today's mone - yet another example of inflation!

Towelling nappies versus modern disposable nappies

The enormous amount of work involved with these old-style, towelling nappies must be clear by now. Looking back at it, I wonder how we managed alongside everything else we had to do. Mothers of today have a much easier life with disposable nappies. So, too, do babies because today's disposable nappies allow urine to pass quickly through the inner layer while preventing it from flowing back up against the skin.

But there is another consideration about disposable nappies - that of caring for the planet. We don't seem to hear much if anything about this. So I started researching it. Gemini's response to me is on the next page.

NEXT  > Geminin's response to the impact of disposable nappies on climate change

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