In May, During 'Real Nappy week' I attended a Nappuccino promoted by Recycle for Greater Manchester and presented by the lovely Lisa from Birth 2 Potty. I was already a user of cloth nappies at the time but only used them about 50% of the time. At night and when we went on days out I still used to put disposables on Elizabeth's botty. After listening to what Lisa had to say I was determined to switch to cloth full time. I took advantage of the offers that many real nappy retailers had on to promote 'Real Nappy Week' and purchased a small selection of nappies to try and see what types fitted in with our family best. After trying out various types I found that at night times 'pop in's' were the most absorbent, but they weren't great during the day as they are quite bulky and Elizabeth is starting to figure out how to undo the velcro! During the day the type of nappy we found were most suited to Elizabeth (and us!) were pocket nappies. There are many different brands of these available. Some of my favourites are Bumgenius, Issy Bears, Smartipant's and Baba+Boo (watch out for the mymummyspennies review of the fabulous Baba+Boo limited edition nappies coming soon...)
So now we had made the decision to switch full time we had to make the initial investment. Which if we purchased the whole kit, including enough nappies to last a three day wash (around 20), nappy bucket and net liners, real wipes kit and wet bag would set us back around £300. Although this sounds a lot, over the course of the time that a baby is in nappies you are likely to spend an average of £600 on disposables.
Although I knew we would be saving money long term this was quite an amount for a 'penny pinching' Mummy such as myself to pay out in one go so while we saved up and purchased bit by bit, a good friend of mine was kind enough to 'loan' us some of her sized pocket nappies that her eldest had grown out of but her youngest was not yet in.
A few weeks ago I received a suprising email from a representative from 'Recycle for Greater Manchester' with the amazing news that I was one of the winners of the prize draw they held at the Nappucinnos during Real Nappy Week! I was ecstatic! Our prize was a 'birth to potty kit' tailored to our needs worth up to £300!
So last week we all visited Lisa at her fantastic little shop in Leigh, and picked out some lovely nappies while Ben played with all the exciting toys! Lisa's advice and guidance was invaluable and we were able to choose a selection of what she called 'bombproof' nappies that would last us until our little one is potty trained (and for our next if I can ever convince Mr Mymummyspennies....) and are easy enough for daddy, relatives and childcare providers to use!
So on Monday the lovely Sheridan from 'Recycle for Greater Manchester' came round and presented us with a box containing our fantastic prize! I couldn't resist taking a few photo's of Elizabeth surrounded by it all! I have now prewashed them all and Elizabeth started wearing them today, she must have the best dressed botty in Bury!
If you are considering switching to Cloth, then please do look into it, it's so easy and really does save you money as well as reducing the mountain of disposable nappies at landfills. If you are in Greater Manchester check out the real nappy pages on Recycle for Greater Manchester's website here. And there is lots of useful advice and information on the birth2potty website.
My sister is having a baby, and she's thinking of switching to cloth as her previous child, has so many allergies to so many foods and products and thinks it may be because of her nappies.
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