Real Nappies, Real Change #RNW13 Guest Post

A guest post from Fiona  - Fiona is a cloth bum mum living in the Scottish Borders with her two boys, she helps out as part of the Borders Real Nappy Network, and here she tells us about what you can expect from your local nappy library

My boys were about 6 months and 18 months when I started using cloth nappies, so I was a bit of a late starter, and perhaps like you sitting at home reading this now, my first real investigations into real nappies came during Real Nappy Week 2012. I saw everyone else dashing about entering various competitions and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. From this slow start my love of cloth has grown and grown until it finally blossomed into something beautiful when I went started helping out my local cloth nappy network; the Borders Real Nappy Network.

Primarily the Borders Real Nappy Network is a support system, where parents all over the county can find help, support and advice in using cloth nappies. We also hold a whole range of nappies for people to see at demos and one-to-one meets, and we have a huge stash to send out on loan too. We work on a case by case basis to help people understand how easy cloth nappies are (Whatever their reasons for switching to cloth), and find out what style of nappies might fit best into their lifestyle and onto their children’s bottoms. We are also lucky enough in the Scottish Borders to benefit from a council cashback scheme, and we facilitate the claims for this.

We not only lend out different types for interested parents to try out for themselves we also have all the other bits and bobs - wipes, wet bags, detergent options, liners – everything to help make using cloth, and getting your head around the logistics of it all as easy as possible. We give advice on how to look after the nappies, we never judge when people decide it’s not for them after all or if you might only want to go cloth part time that’s fine too of course. We don’t charge for hires (although some mums like to slip us an extra nappy back as a donation!), and people can keep the nappies as long as they like, although if you want a long term loan we do have sets of nappies to last you the entire birth to potty years too.

We don’t mind about stains and we want people can use our nappies as if they were their own – to get a real feel for them – in this way we hope people will become confident with them, without feeling any pressure, and then learn to love them as much as we do! We can also loan out specific nappies from our library stash to experienced cloth nappy users, sometimes a mummy may find her set of nappies suddenly start leaking or no longer produce a good fit, by coming to us they can try out different options before spending their money on a whole other set, or even giving up on cloth. We hold all the popular modern types in addition to the older types that you can often get a stash of from freecycle if your budget is tight.

Not all nappy libraries or networks operate in quite the same way, but we are all here to help you, whether you’re considering cloth or a seasoned professional. Any questions, any time, just give us a shout and we’ll try our very best to help you out, don’t be nervous about getting in touch, and no question is ‘stupid’ so feel free to ask away. There are loads of us, all over the UK, and we’d love more people to join in too – so that together we can spread the fluffy love far and wide and start our own cloth bummed revolution – little changes, by many changers can make global changings ... real nappies, real change.

You can find out if there is a nappy library or network in your area by viewing the UK Cloth Nappy Library Map. 

No pin near you? 

Why not make one and make some changes of your own?!

 Thank you so much to Fiona for sharing her experiences with My Mummy's Pennies readers. Please leave her some comment love below! Have you ever used a cloth nappy library? Would you like to set one up? Please ask any questions you have or offer any advice in the comments below and please do come back tomorrow for our next guest post...