subject: One Mums Experience With Cloth Nappies [print this page] In honor of earth day I thought I would share my experience with using cloth nappies. I don't think its anything all that spectacular or interesting which is why I think people should know how it went. It did not take any great determination or access to more funds than the average person. It just worked for me and it can work for you too.
I may have my hippie tenancies, so when my fist baby was on the way I thought I couldn't, with a clean conscience, just use disposable diapers without even trying the more Eco-friendly alternatives. I didn't think I was going to save the earth or even stick with using cloth for very long. But I thought I should give it a try.
I didn't have loads of money to be throwing away on nappies that I wasn't even sure I would want to use. So, I searched around and found some reasonable deals to get enough to give it a try. I received starter kits and gifts for disposables so I had options by the time my little girl arrived.
New born baby poo is really nothing too awful to deal with. I found the whole experience pretty easy to deal with. I couldn't really afford a nappy service at the time so I laundered them myself. This may have proven to be a real turn off to many people but I really didn't find it too much trouble or too disgusting at all.
It was really going well. It was what I was used to so I did not feel like it was anything difficult to deal with in anyway. I used the occasional disposable for outings when it was easier to throw away a soiled nappy than to bag it up and bring it home to be laundered. I had found a nice balance that I was quite happy with and my conscience didn't bother me every time I changed a nappy.
This worked for me because I was able to stay home with my new baby. Had I had her at a nursery I don't think I could really have expected them to give my cloth nappies a go. It also worked for me because I had a clothes washer in my home.
Had this not been the case it would not have gone so smoothly.
Then, about 9 months into it, we temporarily moved to a place with no washer. For me, this meant no more cloth nappies. There was no nappy service available in this new area and I was not going to be taking nappies to the laundry mat every few days or washing them in the sink at home. I liked the cloth nappies because it worked for my situation. It was something I thought I would try and I liked it but I wasn't going to go through a big hassle to make it work once my situation changed.
I did miss the cloth nappies once I transitioned away from using them. My little girl seemed to get more rashes with the disposables and I didn't like having to constantly be buying more nappies rather than the periodic replenishing or up-sizing of the cloth. Unexpectedly, one of the things I missed most about the cloth nappies was the way they felt when I was holding her. There was no longer that soft little tush on my arm.
It was no life altering experience or even anything that notable. It just worked and I liked it. When it didn't work any more I was a bit sad but I just moved on, happy to have given it a go.
