I breastfeed, I babywear, I co-sleep but cloth nappies were just not for me (or so I thought). On my first two babies I used disposable nappies, thankfully with no major issues. Yes there were the usual breastfed baby explosive poonaumis, were literally poo would be from the babies toes to the back of their necks but they never had nappy rashes etc.
When I had my third baby, a cloth nappy distributor contacted me and asked me to stock her nappies, my knee jerk reaction was ͚NO WAY͛, we had made a decision when we opened Snugglebugs not to stock anything we didn͛t use ourselves and I told her this. She asked me to try them, it was winter (therefore washing was already piling up), I had a newborn, a two year old (that my husband decided to toilet train the week the newborn arrived) and a three year old (that had ABSOLUTELY no desire to ever come out of nappies)….so I told her no way EVER was I going to use, or stock cloth nappies!
I had visions of large squares of terry towelling, covered in poop and me trying to fashion a nappy out of a square and an extra large pin, that I was going to have to try to get into place to secure this nappy without piercing the skin of my precious third born baby. Cloth nappies were for other people, other people that had lots of time on their hands and didn͛t gag every time they opened a nappy!!
A week or two later, the distributor came to my store, she gave me some nappies….just try them she said….so I did. I was positive I͛d hate them….how wrong was I. She handed me a cute little bundle of cloth nappies, they were colourful, oh so soft and best of all shaped like a disposable nappy all that was different was instead of the little sticky tabs there was little plastic poppers.
Turns out cloth nappies are great, they are super absorbant (no more complete nappy changes with poo up my babies back), I discovered
1.They are easy….you just change like any other nappy and instead of throwing in the bin you just pop in a bag ready to be washed
2.No steeping….thankfully we all have washing machines you just wait until you have all your nappies ready for the wash, pop them on a cold rinse cycle and then wash
3.They save you a FORTUNE on bin charges…seriously you have no idea how much lighter your bin is when there are no nappies in it
Also there are no chemicals therefore so, so kind to that baby soft bum, easy on your pocket you could easily get a whole kit of nappies for anything from €200 and they will last you from birth to potty and they are kind to the environment…no more clogging up landfills
Using just 2-3 cloth nappies a day will save somewhere between 730 and 1100 nappies a year going into your bins and then onto landfills, reducing your bin charges and helping the environment
So go on, give them a go….you might be pleasantly surprised like I was. If you want to ask us any questions about cloth nappies just pop me an email info@snugglebugs.ie
