Let's start at the very beginning...
1. To save money
2. To save the environment
3. To save your baby from nasty 'chemicals' (I hate that word - what do you actually mean? How do you know that the 'chemicals' are bad?! The panic over dihydrogen oxide springs to mind...)
4. To reduce/avoid nappy rash
5. To look super cute
6. Because your mum/sister/friend think they're fab
7. To make potty training faster
All the above are great reasons to use cloth nappies. And they're all reasons that I have given, at different times, to different people. But if I'm reeeeally honest, none of those are the real reason that I started (although they might be the reasons I carried on).
Confession: I am a shopaholic/kleptomaniac. I like to BUY all the things and I like to HAVE all the things. Luckily I have a husband who perfectly balances guilting me if I spend too much on useless stuff and tolerating this personality flaw (and the impact on our bank balance). So here's how it happened...
My gorgeous friend Claire had been using cloth nappies. Mr OneLess and I had discussed the idea, but it was always in a 'wouldn't it be good' sort of way, rather than a 'let's do something about this' way. So then at about 4 months preggers, I headed to a baby event at Aldi.
I'd recommend heading to a baby event at Aldi for a firstborn. It's cheap, cheerful and they have pretty much everything you need. I walked along each aisle, grabbing 1 of each item (if Aldi think I need it then I'll probably need it, and it's really cheap!), when I came across these nappies. Bambino Mio.
They were SO CAH-YOOOOT! White with little raccoons, blue with zebras and pink with teddies. I couldn't resist, so I bought 1 of the raccoons and the zebras (we didn't know the sex, so I felt pink was a risk).
I took my haul home and made Mr OneLess have a play with the nappies. He was convinced and gave me the go ahead to buy "as many as I think we need". Big mistake. I had a look online and found numbers from 20-35 as sensible start points. But remember that huge personality flaw...? I decided 40 was a nice round number. That's right. 40. Raccoons and zebras - I loved them so much!
I prewashed them ALL, stacked them neatly in a drawer and waited patiently, checking on them and admiring them proudly, until eventually our little Flower arrived. Dammit, I COULD have bought the pink ones!
She was too small for them for the first 8 weeks (I now know that you can hire newborn kits) and I was grumpy that I couldn't use any of my pretty stash. I felt like a fraud telling people that I wanted to Save The Planet, but I was chucking disposables in the bin. Anyway, eventually we popped her in them and proudly flaunted her about. "Check out her huge butt...? She's wearing a cloth nappy!" "Oh, these? They're just our cloth nappies on the drying rack." "Yeah, they're little raccoons on her bum - it's a cloth nappy!"
And that was it. We love them. I love them. She loves them. I feel happy her chewing on a clean one while I change her, and when we see horror stories of disposables sticking to skin, or causing burns, I resist the urge to say "well, WE don't have problems like that...". I love that each time I put a cloth nappy on her, that is One Less Nappy heading to landfill to sit there for hundreds of years. I felt secretly smug when the bin collections changed and all our friends were applying for extra bin sacks for their mountains of nappies.
We had a slight issues when we switched detergent brand. Ecover was on sale, and I thought it would be good for the environment. Well, maybe, but not for nappies. Within a week or so we had stinky horrible nappies. But we went back to Tesco branded non-bio washing powder and all is good on that front. Note: I might discuss 'stripping' nappies more in the future, but we followed the instructions from the nappy lady.
I was a bit worried that nurseries might not be fans, but we found a nursery that we love who are totally on board (they even sounded quite excited!).
So why start a blog? I gradually realised that by committing to the very first cloth brand I came across, I was missing out on a whole world of fun. And I want to explore it more. So we've put a bunch of our trusty MioSolos on eBay (we didn't need 40 anyway - 20 would have done us just fine) and I'm going to use the cash to buy a few examples of other types/brands. And I'm going to keep track of what we think on here.
Hopefully it'll be a nice way to make me actually think about what we're using, but also a useful resource for anyone else looking into cloth nappies. I recommend www.thenappylady.co.uk if you want more info and can't be bothered to read my ramblings.
Anyway, that is sufficient introduction, I feel.
So by using cloth nappies pretty much all the time since Flower was 2 months, I estimate that's around 800 fewer nappies heading into landfill. How many black sacks is that?!
2. To save the environment
3. To save your baby from nasty 'chemicals' (I hate that word - what do you actually mean? How do you know that the 'chemicals' are bad?! The panic over dihydrogen oxide springs to mind...)
4. To reduce/avoid nappy rash
5. To look super cute
6. Because your mum/sister/friend think they're fab
7. To make potty training faster
All the above are great reasons to use cloth nappies. And they're all reasons that I have given, at different times, to different people. But if I'm reeeeally honest, none of those are the real reason that I started (although they might be the reasons I carried on).
Confession: I am a shopaholic/kleptomaniac. I like to BUY all the things and I like to HAVE all the things. Luckily I have a husband who perfectly balances guilting me if I spend too much on useless stuff and tolerating this personality flaw (and the impact on our bank balance). So here's how it happened...
My gorgeous friend Claire had been using cloth nappies. Mr OneLess and I had discussed the idea, but it was always in a 'wouldn't it be good' sort of way, rather than a 'let's do something about this' way. So then at about 4 months preggers, I headed to a baby event at Aldi.
I'd recommend heading to a baby event at Aldi for a firstborn. It's cheap, cheerful and they have pretty much everything you need. I walked along each aisle, grabbing 1 of each item (if Aldi think I need it then I'll probably need it, and it's really cheap!), when I came across these nappies. Bambino Mio.
They were SO CAH-YOOOOT! White with little raccoons, blue with zebras and pink with teddies. I couldn't resist, so I bought 1 of the raccoons and the zebras (we didn't know the sex, so I felt pink was a risk).
 |
| This is the 'zebra crossing' design, but check out the other options! I love 'circus time'. They even have a printable that lets you tick off the prints you have. |
I took my haul home and made Mr OneLess have a play with the nappies. He was convinced and gave me the go ahead to buy "as many as I think we need". Big mistake. I had a look online and found numbers from 20-35 as sensible start points. But remember that huge personality flaw...? I decided 40 was a nice round number. That's right. 40. Raccoons and zebras - I loved them so much!
I prewashed them ALL, stacked them neatly in a drawer and waited patiently, checking on them and admiring them proudly, until eventually our little Flower arrived. Dammit, I COULD have bought the pink ones!
She was too small for them for the first 8 weeks (I now know that you can hire newborn kits) and I was grumpy that I couldn't use any of my pretty stash. I felt like a fraud telling people that I wanted to Save The Planet, but I was chucking disposables in the bin. Anyway, eventually we popped her in them and proudly flaunted her about. "Check out her huge butt...? She's wearing a cloth nappy!" "Oh, these? They're just our cloth nappies on the drying rack." "Yeah, they're little raccoons on her bum - it's a cloth nappy!"
 |
| Raccoon Retreat - this is after 4 months of heavy use. I'd say it's looking pretty good! |
We had a slight issues when we switched detergent brand. Ecover was on sale, and I thought it would be good for the environment. Well, maybe, but not for nappies. Within a week or so we had stinky horrible nappies. But we went back to Tesco branded non-bio washing powder and all is good on that front. Note: I might discuss 'stripping' nappies more in the future, but we followed the instructions from the nappy lady.
I was a bit worried that nurseries might not be fans, but we found a nursery that we love who are totally on board (they even sounded quite excited!).
So why start a blog? I gradually realised that by committing to the very first cloth brand I came across, I was missing out on a whole world of fun. And I want to explore it more. So we've put a bunch of our trusty MioSolos on eBay (we didn't need 40 anyway - 20 would have done us just fine) and I'm going to use the cash to buy a few examples of other types/brands. And I'm going to keep track of what we think on here.
Hopefully it'll be a nice way to make me actually think about what we're using, but also a useful resource for anyone else looking into cloth nappies. I recommend www.thenappylady.co.uk if you want more info and can't be bothered to read my ramblings.
Anyway, that is sufficient introduction, I feel.
So by using cloth nappies pretty much all the time since Flower was 2 months, I estimate that's around 800 fewer nappies heading into landfill. How many black sacks is that?!
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