Hello everyone
Decided I'd try to write something for the competition, so here's my attempt! Hope it's not too lengthy!
I know the lower limit is 300 words, but seems I've got up to 1160! I'll probably have put everyone to sleep! LOL
Enjoy! x
Husband Started it All!Ever heard of one's husband being the cause of a cloth nappy habit? Well, believe it or not, it was my husband that got me into cloth! I'm sure I would never have dreamed of them otherwise - Pampers would have been getting a killing out of me! It all started long before we were married - he'd gone to a recycling/eco friendly day in the town and our local real nappy project had a table set up. It was there and then that he learned that cloth nappies didn't just mean big terries & pins! Yes, imagine - a single guy (who was an only child, at that!) interested in baby nappies! So, several years later when we were expecting our first baby he mentioned cloth and at first I thought "Oh no! Dunking dirty nappies in the toilet! Yuck!" However, as I started surfing the web, I got interested. I was initally scared off by the prices of single shaped nappies, so I thought I'd be frugal and go for prefolds - that's all I thought "cloth diapers" were when I was growing up in USA! Though I did remember when one of my siblings was born (about 15 years ago now, I think) that my grandma actually bought us a couple of all-in-one diapers. I haven't a clue what they were (nor more still, where she got them, or even why!). But we always had a few prefolds, pins, and plastic pants lying around somewhere - for the rare moments when we forgot to buy disposables and needed something quick! But my mom hated cloth diapers. She thought they were the way to go when I was born, but soon couldn't take all the buckets & dunking, so they were forever out for her subsequent 6 children - she obviously bought a
lot of disposables!
Having decided Prefolds were the way to go, I started hunting for the best price on eBay. I soon came across someone who was closing down a business and had lots of brand new packages of Junior Joy prefolds. The listing was a dutch auction for about 30 packs (of 6 each) and starting price of 99p. Being a Dutch auction I realised that it would take quite a lot of interest to bring the opening bid up very high, so there was a good chance I might bag a bargain. So I bid for 6 packs (3 small and 3 large) and waited for the auction to end! The result was that, as I suspected, they went for peanuts! I got 6 packs for about £1.04 each!! I think my total purchase (including postage) was around £13 for 18 small, 18 large and a roll of disposable liners! I was delighted - I'd managed to get all the nappies I'd need for next to nothing. I soon picked up some Proraps (having been told they were the best for prefolds) and I was all set - just had to wait for my baby to be born!
Abigail arrived - on her due date too - however, weighing only 5lb 14oz, the smallest nappies & wraps I had just swallowed her! So, I had to get some disposables till she got bigger. At last, when she was 6 weeks old she could finally fit into the nappies I'd had washed & ready since before she was born. Everything went well - they were just perfect. For the next 15 months, my bargain stash of prefolds suited us just perfectly. I had to buy different sizes of wraps, but I had the nappies. Then, her brother Benjamin was born, and around the same time, Abigail started walking. Being quite petite, it was difficult to achieve the perfect fit on her nappies - she was really too big for medium Proraps, but not really big enough for large. As a result of the poor fit, now that she was walking, the nappy (being pad folded) was constantly falling down and as well as being uncomfortable and odd looking, was sometimes leaking as well.
Being a bit bigger at birth, Benjamin was able to fit into cloth nappies right away. However, he preferred to spend a lot of his time on his tummy, and being a boy as well, this meant lots of leaking nappies, lots of wet clothes, and a rather frustrated mummy! I was very glad that I had taken advantage of the offer for a £10 bucket of real nappies from our local cloth nappy scheme during my pregnancy with Benjamin. I got about 5 different nappies and 2 wraps and it opened up to me a whole new world of cloth nappies! Had I not had these nappies to try, I might have given up on cloth with my little boy - wet clothes multiple times a day is just too much to cope with when you have a toddler and a newborn! Although I'd previously thought Proraps were wonderful, when I tried the Motherease wraps in the kit, I realised I'd found something far more reliable! Also, the Tots Bots cotton nappy seemed to hold everything in and no leaks or wet clothes, so I set out to find shaped terry nappies & Motherease Airflow wraps.
I soon had a dozen Little Lamb seconds and various odds and ends that I'd picked up secondhand and several ME wraps. I thought that would be me set for a while, but having opened my eyes to the world of shaped nappies, I've never stopped looking! I don't usually go for anything overly expensive (still trying to be the frugal mum!), but I now have quite a collection of both shaped nappies and pockets. And the prefolds I got back in the beginning have been invaluable in stuffing pockets, so nothing's gone to waste. I think my husband probably has thought at times that I've gotten rather carried away with my interest in cloth nappies (always looking at secondhand ads, and still swapping nappies, after I decided I
really didn't have the need to buy anymore!). But I'm sure he's grateful for all the money saved, as well as all the landfill space that's not been taken up with thousands of disposables.
So yes, it really was my husband that started it all! I know it's often the dads that don't want to use cloth because of the extra work & hassles, so to be fair, I must say that my husband doesn't actually change the nappies! He did want to learn about how to use them and changed several early on when I first started with prefolds. However, he gave up once I started making it complicated with different kinds of folds or different nappies & wraps - too much to learn, I guess! I still wonder if he'd actually go for cloth if he was the one cleaning out all the awful messy ones! But I don't mind - I'm still glad he got me into them - I'll always be a cloth mum!
