100% organic baby. I heart cloth!

I love seeing Eli running around in his cloth nappy.

I love the look of his little toosh all padded up in classic terry cloth, in vibrant colours knowing just how good it is for his sensitive skin.

I am fascinated with MCNS (for cloth nappy newbie’s this stands for Modern Cloth Nappies and they are designed like disposables but cute and cloth. Highly absorbent and very, very good. The best brands that I know of being Pea Pods, Cushie Tushie and Baby Beehinds)

This type of cloth nappying however, done full time for both Eli and Fyn was going to work out to be a much to costly enterprise and as I switched to cloth with the original idea being to SAVE money I haven’t been able to and still cannot justify the cost of replacing my terry cloth squares for MCNS.

Eli, therefore, wears bright bots vibrant coloured Terry cloth square nappies with bamboo fleece inserts for nap times (bamboo fleece is the softest most absorbent material, helping to keep moisture of babies bum )

I get mixed reactions to Eli being in cloth nappies, most positive and some negative and judgemental.

There is a huge misunderstanding surrounding cloth nappies, ideas of hard work, stinky nappy pails and poop and wee explosions tend to fill people’s minds when they think of using cloth nappies on their children.

All the above is entirely untrue ideals if you commit to cloth and work yourself out a system.

Yes, I do perhaps have to change Elis nappy a little more often that Id have to change it if it were a disposable nappy but, at the same time he has not had nappy rash since starting cloth (except for an unfortunate incident regarding too much orange juice)

I keep the nappy bucket filled with water and nappy san in the laundry and it has a snap shut lid which does not allow poopy odours to escape, I keep his nappies prefolded in a huge tub behind the couch along with half a dozen snappy nappies and tons of plastic pants.

When Eli was younger we were able to do the very traditional “boy fold” on the nappy (many don’t realise but boys fill a nappy in a much more concentrated spot than girls so need a lot more padding round their bits.

Now Elis bug is a big boy his MaMa in Longreach showed me a much more adjustable and leg hugging option of folding that suits us just right and that even Nic can manage!

Washing cleaning and maintaining cloth nappies is really not that hard of work either. (lately we HAVE had to use the dryer more often because of wet weather.)

Simply a matter of when changing a wet nappy, just throw the thing in the nappy pail when you are done and when changing a soiled nappy empty as much of the poop as possible into the toilet then again, throw the nappy into the pail as well!

I empty the nappy pail daily and wash the nappies on an extra clean cycle in the washing machine. They are then taken out dried and folded and the cycle continues.

Sound like work? Really it’s not!

I’m lazy and I do it! Folding hardly takes any time at all and I usually do it while Im watching tv and  find it an oddly soothing exercise.

Cloth wipes were something that I WAS hesitant to start , but after buying yet ANOTHER pack of Huggies disposable wipes and after changing Eli into a cloth nappy and having to dispose of the wipes separately I thought why not? Because then a soiled wipe could simply be tucked into the nappy and disposed of in the normal way.

I did some actually very extensive research and looked cloth wipes up online, visiting forum after forum(surprisingly a lot of forums on cloth wipes!)

Cloth wipes just seemed to make sense, instead of finding the bin when changing I could simply throw the wipes in the nappy pail with everything else.

Cloth wipes, for me work much more efficiently than disposable wipes and aren’t full of chemicals that could perhaps be harming my baby’s delicate nether region.

There are, if you want to use more than water so many varied and cause specific solutions that you can make at home for your cloth wipes , that are great for bubs bottom

One easy recipe is

Water

Baby bath oil

Baby bath wash

Put in a spray bottle and apply as needed to the wipes as you use them!

I have, rather than buying wipes, cut up old receiving and flannel wraps to make funky wipes for Eli and YouTube had a great video that instructed me how to fold the wipes and put in a disposable wipes container so that they continue to come out just like disposable wipes do!

For my family, swapping to cloth nappies was the best decision, we’ve made and I feel comfortable in myself knowing that I am doing my bit on the carbon footprint I am leaving behind that will affect my kids future

I love cloth nappies!

On an ultra high note for me today, at the local baby store I scored 3 peapods night time MCNS 3 night time boosters and some re usable breastpads for a very reduced price meaning i no longer have to cling to disposables at all!

I am very excited to get them washed and try them out on Eli tomorrow!

Who uses cloth nappies? And who is brave enough to start?