Claire Jones-Hughes is mum to one charming 2 year old daughter, second baby is due any day now and "lucky to be married to a very good man". A keen blogger she lives in Brighton, East Sussex and is known on her blogs and twitter as 'Contented Mummy' (@contentedmummy). Her big passions are family days out, enjoying wine time with friends & without children, music and striving for the elusive work/ life balance as before maternity leave, she worked full-time. Claire also runs an on-line community at www.brightonmums.com with another mum.
Although we've used washable nappies before we probably only ended up using them 50% of the time with our first daughter. Our second baby is due at the end of this month and this time we've decided to use them from birth, 100% of the time.
There were a few simple factors in why we've decided to use washable nappies more than we did for our first, economics and the environment being the biggest. We are acutely aware, as a growing family, our impact on the environment will increase, so need to make more of an effort to be green. But also with our growing family, we need to keep our household costs trim and cutting back on the nappies seemed an obvious way to save case. Plus disposables have their drawbacks too. They are not always the most comfortable for small babies becoming lumpy and awkward when full. Some brands don't fit all babies at every stage of their growth and are prone to leaking, especially with poo explosions!
With our eldest, we bought a set of used FuzziBunz nappies from a friend. Although a perfectly acceptable product, in true 'first-time parent' fashion we lacked the confidence to use them 100% of the time. Usually at night or when we went out of the house for longer than a few hours, we would use disposables. After speaking to a few friends who have been braver with washable nappies, I realised how many different brands there are on the market and they are all good for different situations. I then hooked up with Cheeks and Cherries, their website guided us through the process of choosing the right nappies. This time I thought about some of the concerns I had from our first time round:
- Newborn: the nappies I used before seemed really large and uncomfortable, so I wanted to choose some in a small size for those first few months.
- Lifestyle: what kind of activities will we be doing the most of? What would work best during the day at home or while out?
- Night-time: what were my main concerns about night-time wetting before?
- Washing & care: what would be the easiest to use and clean? With a newborn and a toddler to care for, we need products that are low maintenance to wash and dry.
The difference between buying washables versus disposables if you do have to spend time researching and choosing the right selection for your and your family. But that makes sense, as it's a one-off cost, one-off exercise which with disposables you still end up doing but more as you go along, weighing up brands and sizes as the baby develops. With washables, many nappies are exceptionally well designed to fit babies of different builds and sizes from the start, so you can relax - one thing to tick off your list! We chose the following brands:
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| Bambooty Easy Dry |
Bambooty Easy Dry in the small size. They are slimline and incredibly delicate in structure, perfect for tiny babies.
The Close Parent Pop In Bamboo , all-in-one nappy style, one size. They look a little bigger for newborns but the reputation for absorbency, especially with the booster insert would be ideal for those first few months, with the short sleep bursts, frequent feeding and wetting.
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| Close Parent - Pop-In - Bamboo |
itti bitti - bitti tutto , all-in-one nappy style, one size. Another popular nappy with parents, they come with soft, fluffy outers in a range of colours and patterns plus have a highly praised 'poo fence' mechanism to help cope with tricky soiling incidents.
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| itti bitti - bitti tutto |
BumGenius V4.0 with poppers, 'pocket' style nappies, one size. These seem to come out as the most versatile nappy throughout the baby's development from birth. On appearance they seem quite large for little babies but that doesn't concern me overall, as they don't stay that petite newborn size for long!
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| BumGenius V4 - Snaps |
Overall, I wasn't expecting these nappies to be so easy to figure out how to use, to be so soft, almost like another garment. My first impressions have already boosted my confidence to get stuck in from the first moment i need to use a nappy on my pending arrival. We have less than two weeks to go till my due date and are as ready as we'll ever be.
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