It is easy being green

I'm sorry, I just completely forgot to do a what we've been doing post on Wednesday. My husband is a teacher and he broke up for the summer on Tuesday afternoon so we've had some relaxing family time. I've also signed up to walk 26 miles in the London trekathon in support of the PSP Association (not so relaxing! More on this to follow) so I was a bit preoccupied thinking about when I can fit in training.

So here is a post I wrote a while ago about cloth nappies:

It probably comes as no surprise that we use cloth nappies on little bear. We use the totsbots 2 part system and have size 1 (which bear grew out of around 4 months old) and size 2 which should last until potty training. Each set contains around 20 nappies and 5 or 6 wraps and we got both second hand for £50 each; a total outlay of £100. Bargain!

We also use cloth wipes which we used exclusively for a couple of months but we now use wet wipes for poos. We put paper liners in the nappies (from tesco, a few pounds for 100 but they are really wide so we tear them in half. 2 for the price of 1!) Bear is also in disposable nappies at night as we couldn't find any combination of cloth nappies and boosters that didn't leak. Having said that, he doesn't wee as much at night anymore so I've been thinking about switching back to full time cloth - it's just having the courage to do it one night...

We wash every other day at 40°, line dry in the summer (radiator in winter) and don't iron them. This keeps the 'running costs' down.

The Nappy Lady explains that it can cost £800-1200 for disposables from birth to potty training. This means we have potentially saved  upwards of £1000! Plus, we will reuse the nappies for any subsequent babies.

I love cloth nappies. We've never had a 'poosplosion'. We rarely have to change bear when out and about anymore but have a wet bag if necessary. Cloth don't sag like disposables do and they're really no more bother than disposables but the environmental impact is so much less. Annecdotally, babies in cloth potty train earlier because they feel the wetness more obviously than disposables, which have become too good at wicking the moisture away, ironically. My mum once told me it's the one of my parenting choices she is most proud of.

Plus, they're really cute!