Becoming a modern-cloth Mum…
I can still remember my Mother-in-law asking me whether I would use cloth nappies or disposables after the birth of my firstborn. ‘Life is too short to wash nappies’, I declared with a horrified look on my face. It wasn’t that I had no care for the environment, it was just that I was already feeling overwhelmed with my day to day workload and that was one compromise on modern conveniences that I just wasn’t prepared to make. Besides, every other Mum in my mothers group was using disposables… why should I be different?
Four years and a second baby later, I was sitting with a friend discussing the BaoBag when she suggested I should talk to the team behind Cushie Tushies – the designer modern cloth nappy company. I confess I inwardly groaned. This was one area of our lives I had avoided exploring more natural alternatives to, as I was dreading the anticipated soaking, folding, pinning, mess, and smells involved that I had heard all about from my Mum. However the sheer guilt I felt from our family’s massive contribution to landfill in disposable nappies over the previous 4 years compelled me to at least look into it.
So off I went to meet with Catherine Langman from Cushie Tushies, where I came upon a number of revelations – all of which were quite a surprise. The first was to find out that modern cloth nappies have come a long way from their distant cousins of the terry toweling cloth nappies that our Mums all used. For a start, they are already shaped like a disposable with snap clips to secure them. This means that they are truly no more difficult to put on then a disposable nappy. Secondly, you can put a disposable liner in them, which you just pick up and flush down the loo - so it doesn’t have to involve a lot of mess. Thirdly you can put them in a normal wash and they don’t involve soaking or folding, so it really isn’t much extra effort or work. (Considering it saves you buying and carting bulk boxes of disposables then arguably it is no extra work at all!)
I was intrigued – it seemed my preconception that disposables are far more convenient than cloth nappies may not in fact be correct. Then I actually got to see the nappies and that was the tipping point. Such minky soft fabrics in beautiful vibrant designs that I just couldn’t wait to wrap around my daughter’s bottom …. That was it. I had to have one.
The sceptic in me was still active, so I started out by buying only two in the first instance. I fell so in love with how beautiful they looked and felt that I found myself doing a load of washing every day just so we could use them again the next day. But probably the greatest delight for me was knowing that that was two less nappies going to landfill every day, which over the course of my child’s nappy wearing days would add up to a significant amount! Before long I went back for more and now am the proud owner of a whole bundle of divine, colourful, designer nappies. I am still not completely a full time cloth nappy user – mostly because I have a large stock of disposables to use up from my last bulk buy. My daughter loves to pick which colour she wants to wear and passes me her chosen nappy at change time. She even tries to put them on herself!
I’m seeing an additional benefit now as she is a toddler and we are starting to think about toilet training. The old disposables we used with our son were so good at drawing moisture away that he had no incentive to get out of them. He did not have the same awareness of wees and poos that our daughter now has and could stay in the same wet nappy for many hours on end as it didn’t ‘feel’ wet against his skin. (Which, when you think about it, really can’t be very hygienic!) As a result, toilet training was a lot harder, left until he was a lot older, and took a lot longer then you hear about in our mothers’ generation. I can’t help but think these modern cloth nappies would have to be a significant improvement in helping us prepare for toilet training.
So in a nutshell, I came to the conclusion that this one is a no-brainer – there are many benefits to be realised and absolutely nothing to lose by trying a few of Cushie Tushie’s modern cloth nappies. If you are like me and start out skeptical then you don’t have to be a complete convert. Even if you are a ‘part-timer’ and only invest in a few, that will still make a significant difference to your own contribution to landfill. Plus you’ll find them a stunning fashion item on your little bundle of joy, save yourself $$$ along the way, and potentially find your child out of nappies and on the toilet sooner. Seriously… try them!