can I wash nappies with clothes?

Is it OK to wash nappies, when baby arrives, in the same wash as her clothes?

I'm having the horrors about the amount of extra water I'll use doing small loads of nappies and baby clothes all the time. I really don't want to waste all that water, but then I'm not sure if it's OK to wash clothes in with nappies, or whether there is a problem with bacteria from the nappies getting into the clothes.

I'll have a mixture of prefolds, baby beehinds (bamboo 2 in ones), and bumgenius 3.0 nappies to wash. It's not for a while off yet, but trying to get my head around how I'll manage the washing when the baby comes.

Does anyone wash the adults' clothes, or other things, in with the baby things? I figured I'd probably keep them separate for now, since I'll probably keep using harsher detergent for my and DH's things.

I wash nappies seperately - I just don't like the thought of wee and poo going through clothes even those they are getting washed! All of bubs clothes get washed with ours and DH's work clothes get done seperately. If you are worried I guess you need a HUGE stash so that you can do a wash every few days instead of each day ;) Also remember the amount of water used to process and create disposables means if used sensibly cloth is well worth it! At the mo I do a wash every day to every day and a half. I want to increase my stash so that I am doing a wash every 2 days though.

It should be fine to do a pre-wash then chuck the clothes in. Just can't use as much detergent thats all.

I don't need to wash mine separately - with 2 in cloth my machine is nearly full every 2nd day.

i pop the nappies and do a prerinse then chuck all DD;s clothes etc... in!!

I tend to wash the nappies with the towels, but sometimes they go in the clothes wash.

i rinse nappies before chucking them in the wash and YEP all Jacks clothes/nappies are washed together... and i wash EVERY day....

I was the nappies separately, I have about 25 that she can fit into right now so basically I just wait until its a full load and wash the nappies by themselves. We use fabric softener on our clothes though so full load or not I wash nappies separately

I'd agree with the others, if you don't have a full load of nappies, put them on a rinse, and then add the other clothes.

Thanks everyone. Rinsing the nappies and then adding the clothes seems like a good idea.