Reusable nappies: An on-going environmentalist, (and vaguely anti-capitalist) journey

Thank you to Tottenham mom, Anne who has contributed this guest post as part of our Real Nappy Week 2015 writing competition.  Please keep sending in your stories.  Just email to realnappiesforlondon@lcrn.org.uk

I'm a life-long greenie, so when my partner and I discussed buying a house and then having a baby, I always knew that I'd use reusable nappies. We're both extremely committed to making our lives as environmentally friendly as possible, and we agreed that reusable nappies fall into that commitment. Flash back one year ago however when I just discovered I was pregnant, we were gazumped on a house, and living with his parents, the dream of making our lives as green as possible was put on hold. Now however, after a year-long house-buying struggle, we're in our own home and we've started using cloth nappies. I say we... I mean I. He's replaced all our light bulbs with LEDs and has already started looking into solar panels... I'm investing in cloth nappies and reusable wipes.

 

I've been stunned by the huge array of nappies to choose from, and despite my idealistic environmentalism, I still want to use what is easiest and most convenient. I did the questionnaire on the Nappy Lady  website, and was pleased that she came up with such comprehensive feedback, but dismayed at the price of the nappies. I understood that I'd be spending a bit at the outset and then saving over the next few years, however the name brand all-in-ones that she recommended struck me as very expensive; so I went to try to find them second hand instead. Being a total newbie to reusable nappies, I had no idea that they have such a huge following, or such high resale values. The brand that I've been recommended in particular has an array of patterns, colours, and designer editions which people buy at cost and then resell for a profit. I find this aspect of cloth nappy-ing to be particularly perplexing. Surely the point of buying and selling cloth nappies is to ensure that they are used to their full extent with the aim of keeping excess waste out of landfill, not to be the first in the queue just to get the newest colour and then hoard it in order to sell it on.

 

I thought using cloth nappies would somehow allow me to avoid paying into the baby industry; instead it has sucked me into a whole new world of discussing and buying different cloths, models, and patterns. I'm trying to avoid becoming obsessed in the way that some women seem to be. Well, with the particular colours and designer nappies at least... I am still obsessed with being green, and the materials that go into the nappies are definitely worth thinking about (bamboo and organic cotton in particular). I do like my little boy to look cute, but ultimately I want him to wear what will hold in the poo and wee, is comfortable for him, and will last us the longest. All that being said, I'm going to keep trying to find what works best for us. I just discovered that there's a North London Nappy Library. Having gone to the North London Sling Library several times already, I am a fan of trying before I buy and probably should do this before we get any more nappies.

 

I hope that our cloth nappy journey will be a good one. Already I feel like I've tapped into a new community of people with similar ideals to me (if some slightly over-the-top obsessions with making their children's bums look fashionable). I'm happy that using cloth nappies will save us a lot of money in the long run while keeping disposable nappies out of landfills as well. However, thinking of how we can be even better for the environment and the pocketbook - and continue to smash the baby industry - I'm very seriously considering doing elimination communication (or baby-led toileting depending upon where you read about it) with my little boy. I just need to steel myself for it. And that is another blog (and set of obsessed parents) altogether.

 

Thank you to Tottenham mom, Anne who has contributed this guest post as part of our Real Nappy Week 2015 writing competition.  Please keep sending in your stories.

Guest post: Real Nappies - Real Easy!

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

Guest Blog: Cloth nappies...

 

It was only a year before I had my own baby, that I held a clothed bum baby for the first time. Some ten years after my first babysitting evening! 

This memory only made me wonder why I knew so little about this world when I got pregnant. I did research a lot of stuff to keep our costs down and to be as eco friendly as I could for this new little life, but I have to say that agreeing which cloth nappies to use took me at least half of my pregnancy. The strong amoniac smell was what scared me the most. But that didn't prevent me from deciding quite early on that I had to give cloth a go. 

I finally made my mind up and chose gNappies - they are a hybrid option between cloth and disposable but with the green component present in both. The fact that they are pocket nappies gives you the freedom to stuff them with what suits you most. For me it was their biodegradable inserts for the first few weeks - the time I needed to get adjusted to this tiny little being... and to what was on her bum! I switched to cloth without too much of a hitch thank to the growing online community of cloth bum's relatives. There isn't a day that I do not witness help between complete strangers online and that still amazes me. 

 

My little one is now 20 months and starting to show an interest in potty training... so that makes me want to start all over again! I love seeing a cloth bum!!

 

 

Thank you for the guest blog by Nathalie Ringenbach.  A great start to our Real Nappy Week 2015 writing competition. 

 

I’ve been forced to post this as I’ve been told by the DH that they have nothing more to say to me on the subject

Hilary Vick says the Department of Health (DH) needs to stand up to commercial interests and give parents fair access to information about alternatives to disposable nappies 

I’m very disappointed about the reply (see it at the end of this post) I’ve received from the DH.  I wanted to find out the possibility of sending information about reusable nappies to mothers in a particular London borough with their Maternity Exemption Certificates.  All expectant mothers receive this within a few weeks of registering their pregnancy with their GP.  It seems to me an ideal way to inform expectant mothers about reusable nappies.

By the way, you may be scratching your head as to why a local initiative like this needs approval from the DH.  I agree, this is ridiculous, especially as it's the local authority that covers the cost of nappy waste and children arriving at school in nappies - but that's how it is, I've checked. 

I admit I expected a negative response.  I expected them to say it couldn’t be done.  I didn’t expect the reason to be that people are informed enough already about real nappies by the DH via the Choices website.  It’s so ridiculous.  If you’re talking about giving parents choice about alternatives to disposable nappies it’s a nonsense.  

Not only do disposables take up huge space on the shelves in the supermarket, but supermarkets discount the product aggressively to lure sleep-deprived customers to their stores.  What's more Pampers can afford to give free samples in the Bounty packs given out by midwives throughout pregnancy and sponsor the National Childbirth Trust (NCT).  In addition most maternity units tell women to bring disposable nappies with them.  The other thing that normalizes disposables is that collection & disposal of nappy waste from households is completely free.  What's more  if you put in the words 'nappies' or even 'reusable nappies' into a web search, Pampers comes up top.  Indeed if you put in a search for 'potty training' Pampers comes up top frequently too.  

Where is the nappy page of the Choices website when you search for ‘nappies’ on the internet? If NHS Choices was a company looking for business and its income/survival depended on getting found they would be dead and gone. In fact I’ve just done a search.  The ‘Which’ guide to nappies came up on the 6^th page.  I gave up my search for the nappies page of the Choices website after page 11 when I found this story in the Daily Mail:

“Why I blame middle-class mothers for the six-year-olds sent to school in nappies”

PS  I don’t blame parents.  I blame the nappy companies that irresponsibly misinform parents about how and when to potty train because of the financial benefits for them.  I  believe in the free market and minimum state intervention but I think this is a case when even Adam Smith would say the state needs to reign in the greed of the free market.  But is the state itself now reliant on the income it gets from tax on nappy waste?  What a mess we’ve got ourselves into since a weak government caved into the demands of the disposable nappy industry and allowed it to frame the nappy debate in May 2005 “No nappy system is better environmentally.  It’s up to parents to choose the nappy that best suits their lifestyle.”

Here's our potty training advice.  It has been approved by a leading pediatric continence adviser, June Rogers MBE, BA, MSc, RN, RSCN

The Department of Health believes that new parents should be aware of the choice between disposable and washable (reusable) nappies.  However, there are no plans to provide information about washable nappies with the maternity exemption certificate.

 

The Department regards the choice between disposable and washable nappies as a matter of parental preference.  Information about nappies, including washable nappies, is available on the NHS Choices website and can be accessed by clicking on the following link:

 

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/Pages/nappies.aspx#close .

   

This link includes information about the difference between the disposable and washable nappies and includes an indicative cost breakdown for both.  In addition, the page includes a link to ‘Go Real’, the advisory site for washable nappies ( http://www.goreal.org.uk ), which contains a comprehensive guide to the benefits of using washable nappies.

 

I hope this reply is helpful. 

Please feel free to comment below and let us know your thoughts.