I decided to write this post to encourage anyone who wanted to try reusable nappies but was worried it might be too much work or simply not practical in London. Using real nappies is actually really easy. This is our story so far…
Our little bundle arrived on the 27th of October 2014. Whilst I was pregnant, my boyfriend and I had wondered about using reusable nappies both to save money and to reduce landfill. The response we got from friends was surprisingly negative. They said things like, “Well you can try reusable nappies but you’ll probably end up using disposables like I did”. We were warned that real nappies were too much effort, they wouldn’t be as good as disposables, they would leak more and there would be too much laundry for our small London flat. If it hadn’t been for a chance conversation with a friend who used real nappies for her little boy, then I might have given up the idea altogether. She had bought a complete set of second-hand OneLife nappies for £50. She even gave me a little demo to show me how easy it was to use them. After a bit of reading online I realised there were hundreds of different types of reusable nappy, so I decided to buy a selection of nappies to see what worked. I didn’t want to splash out on a whole set without having some idea of what using real nappies was like. In Camden we’re very lucky because the council offers a £54 voucher to spend on real nappies. When I was about 8 months pregnant, I took my voucher along to the Nappy Ever After shop near King’s Cross. They were great and gave little demos of how to use the different types of nappy. I bought a couple of cloth folding nappies with wraps and a couple of all-in-one type nappies. I also bought a couple of secondhand nappies from eBay.
Then along came baby! As a first time Mum I was pretty overwhelmed and in the first few weeks just stuck to disposable nappies. Then I met another mummy who lived round the corner. Her baby was a few weeks older and she mentioned that she had just started using the reusable nappies. By this point I had forgotten how to use the folding nappies but she offered to show me again. We had a nice afternoon drinking tea and baby wore his first cloth nappy at about one month old. This was a real confidence booster! From there we have gone from strength to strength.
After trying lots of different sorts we have settled on the Bambino Miosolo (all-in-one) nappies. They go on just like disposable nappies, with little liners to catch the mess! When they’re used I throw them in a nappy bucket (no need to soak these days) and when the bucket is full I stick them all in the washing machine. They don’t take up much space when I hang them out and dry overnight on our radiator. It is so much easier than I thought it would be. At the moment we still use a disposable nappy at night and we also used them on holiday. But it feels really great knowing that every time I put a reusable nappy, that’s one less one going to the rubbish tip. They’re also much better than disposables, they are lovely and soft and don’t leak like disposables. And in the long run it should save us money, especially if we have a second baby!
So I say don’t be afraid! Buying a set of reusable nappies won’t cost the earth and it’s really easy.
Good luck, Stephanie, Camden Town mum