South African cloth nappies

[clothmama]

OK our lovely new South african members, fill us in - are there SA made nappies / retailers etc or do you have to get your stuff in from overseas? Do the lower income people use cloth or dispos? You mentioned that cloth nappies are in their infancy - so is it growing a lot? Are there SA WAHM's making nappies? Very interested to hear about the situation over there!

Doing a quick google search brought these up:

http://www.earthbabies.co.za/
http://www.naturalnappies.co.za/ (although this site seems to mainly sell UK based nappies such as easypeasy and tots!)

http://www.mothernatureproducts.co.za/

Doing a quick google search brought these up:

http://www.earthbabies.co.za/
http://www.naturalnappies.co.za/ (although this site seems to mainly sell UK based nappies such as easypeasy and tots!)

you've pretty much covered what's available:
earthbabies produce locally made nappies and i have a couple of these, plus one of their fleece wraps (good) and a PUL wrap (ok). Their PUL fabric is imported and they use local cotton terry to make the nappies. TO be honest, their nappies are not great...the terry fabric is not great quality, and they are starting to look a little worn in places on my dd (i started using them with my ds about 18months ago). Also they take long to dry as they are a fitted nappy with no room to remove layers for quick drying. Their night time nappy was horrible (sorry earthbabies )...it took YEARS to dry (well, it felt like it!) and was not absorbant enough for my ds (heavy wetter!)
natural nappies stocks only imported nappies (like totsbots etc)
mothernature products: not sure where these are made (their website doesn't say, but the earthbabies website says these are locally produced)...was give one of their nappies to try and it is lovely...bamboo terry, with poppers at waist and around legs. Thing is...as far as I know, you can't get bamboo fabric in SA?! Have been meaning to write to them anwyay to give them some feedback on their PUL wrap (not great).

Also there is stegi nappy (http://www.stegi.co.za/web/products.htm) -haven't seen or tried these.
Can also get imported bambino mio nappies here (http://www.bambinomio.com/index.cgi?l=en&c=ZA&r=-+ZA). Haven't seen or tried these either.

Don't know of any WAHM's making their own nappies, apart from me and my cuz Di (and we only made our own for our own kiddies)...help me out if I'm wrong on any of this, cousin Di?! We imported sherpa terry fleece from the USA, hemp (for our boosters) and cut up our old terry squares (bought at John Lewis in London) that we'd used as flat nappies for our first kids (Amy and Stuart) to sew into fitted nappies to use with boosters. Wraps; i use motherease airflow, Di uses Totsbots ones.

Have just bought some SA terry cloth (in a lovely shade of purple) to make another nappy for DD...just for fun

Yip. Judes has about covered it! I would say that the majority of nappies in SA are imported from overseas. There was definitely no information or easy way to get hold of cloth nappies when I started. The Nappy Lady was one of my greatest resources when trying to decided what to use...oh yes, and my sister in Aus who uses cloth gave me some real life feedback about what worked for her.

Our (Judy & me) homemade nappies used old flat squares and imported Sherpa fleece. I am about make some more nappies for the next one and have just imported some more sherpa and some Burley knit terry. Once again it is from the States as we have nothing close to as good in SA that I have been able to find.I have already made some with BKT for a friend (I converted her, hee hee!) and they seem to be doing great. Here's a pic


As far as I have seen, no one in the poorer areas use cloth (...How do they afford it??) I have also just asked my maid about nappies and she says that it is 'not cool' to use cloth and that no one uses them any more...they only use disposables. I think that would be a fair representation of urbanised poor. In the rural areas I have seen flat nappies on washing lines so they still use cloth..or at least some of them do.

Okay, enough for now!

[clothmama]

Di and Judy, I'm not quite sure what to say, it is sooooo sad that in such a large country where there is not a lot of money for a large part of the population that they are feeling like they have to use dispos . Saying that the area of Australia I'm going back to I can find NO mention of cloth nappies at all on the net, the only things I put in bring up things me Or Amanda (ginchyworld) have posted as we come from there!

How do you guys feel about cloth nappy 'advocacy' as they call it - do you try to let people know what is available? Di, your nappy looks fab, very similar and just as good as Easy Peasy or the like are doing So pleased to have you both on the site for us all to learn a bit more!

If there is anything you think I can do, people I can email etc please let me know! Cloth nappies rule, lets spread the word!!!

I am all for telling others about cloth nappies if I can get past the 'you must be nuts to even try' response that is common! I have managed to convert one person so far! I am also finding more people at least showing an interest in considering cloth and take those sort of gaps when they are available to promote cloth!

Change the world one person at a time, huh?

it is certainly interesting what other countries have in terms of cloth. I case we are lucky in the uk because we have alot of uk whams and advice. I ove looking at other nappies that we don't see in the uk!!!

Would love to do something more active to advocate cloth nappies here than just showing off my dd's cute cloth bum
(don't you just love that cloth bum look?? )

Any suggestions??