Cloth Bum Mum

This Cloth Bum Mum loves Real Nappy Week. After all, it was the same cloth nappy event last year that helped me take the plunge in to the fabulous world of cloth and real nappies.

I was very lucky that I actually had a nappy library based near me in Ormskirk (West Lancs Cloth Bum Mum). Being Miss Organised I actually rented a nappy kit off her before the baby arrived and she kindly came over to our house to talk us through the options. Lee sat on the sofa, arms folded and nodding at the correct times. Clearly thinking it was a weird fad I’d grow out of once baby had arrived…

Paisley arrived and was a little too skinny and small for a lot of the nappies so it took a couple of months to really get the hang of my favourites. I narrowed it down to a couple of brands but it was gNappies that really stood out for me. This is where the nappy library was so wonderful because I’d initially tried an online nappy questionnaire and been swayed by an All-In-One system for the ease of chucking it all in the wash. I was persistent and kept trying them but I always had leaks no matter how much I practised. Can you imagine how much I may have wasted buying a load of those for them not to be right for us?Do check out if you have a local library if you’d like to try real nappies.

We also rented a Cheeky Wipes reusable wipes kit from the Nappy Library and that was really handy to go alongside our new nappies. It was actually something my husband got on well with from the start as we found we could wipe up a whole host of mess with a couple of wipes instead of a couple of packs of disposable wipes.

Back to gNappies. If you haven’t heard of these they’re a super cool nappy company that are the only ones to offer biodegradable inserts. Sadly we didn’t get on very well with the disposable ones but we do love the cloth inserts. The terminology can lose some people so  I won’t go in to detail but gNappies themselves put it well…

“Using gNappies is as easy as 1, 2, 3. Pick a pair of colourful gPants, tuck in the insert, change your baby and hug”

It took a few months for us to become full time cloth users as my husband was still hesitant about the washing and getting the fit right. That was until one too many ‘poonamis’ in the disposables were being fully contained in the gNappies, he finally saw sense. Breastfed babies are known for their runny poos so changing to cloth was a godsend in that area, no need to chuck clothes in the bin after it shoots up the back….nice! Now they’re a little more solid we can literally shake them down the loo. No stinky nappy bins here. There’s the other obvious benefits too…

• Good for the environment – Less waste (a single disposable nappy can take up to 500 years to biodegrade in the landfill)
• Good for babies skin
• No chemicals
• Easy to use (not like the old days of Terry’s and pins)
• Beautiful styles and prints

The only downside I have found so far is that it can be a little addictive buying new prints that are released. But even then you can feel good about buying a new limited edition print as some are for charitable causes too, like Every Mother Counts with gNappies.

For me now I’m fully cloth I can honestly say it’s so much easier than I could have imagined and I feel really good about using them too. I always have people asking me about them when they see us in the changing room or she’s flashing a bit of her gPant (I can’t wait for the summer to show off her new frilly ones) and because they’re not as bulky as people imagine no-one even realises she is a cloth bum baby until I say or they see the pants!

Even now a year on I’m forever tweaking our ‘stash’ of nappies. She’s now on Little Lamb’s bamboo nappies with Blueberry inserts, again ones I tried and loved after renting from West Lancs Cloth Bum Mum. I’m tempted to invest in some new Blueberry wraps and make use of all the good offers on during Nappy week this year now I have a new love for night time…

Basically this weeks advice is to allow a bit of Real Nappy Week in to your life. See if it’s something you could consider, whether it’s for night time nappies or maybe only for day times at home. I’d love to know if you’d considered it before but never quite took the plunge, what had stopped you? Have you tried them but found it hard to find the right ones?

I know we’d go through about 6-8 nappies a day with disposables which is scary if you tally up the days, weeks and years they’re in nappies. There’s so many offers on this week you may find yourself where I was last year and I’ll warn you now, it’s an exciting and slightly addictive journey…

This is a pair of Good Fortune Red gPants that I had customised for Lee on Father’s Day. Pretty cool huh? The possibilities are endless when it comes to having a cloth bum baby!