Hi
there! This is Mummy A (age 21) with baby Squishels (now a screaming
sleepless 5 week old).
This post contains non-affiliate links for your convenience
Squishels was born 4.081kg heavy, 53cm long and
fed three-hourly, and has grown to be 53.7cm long, 4.875kg heavy and
always needing cuddles! She is fully breastfed (something I only
sometimes enjoy) and using cloth nappies most of the time (full-time at
home). With the runny breastmilk poos, we just dry-pail the nappies
until we have a bucketful, which is then washed in a long cold wash with
an eco-friendly detergent and line-dried with access to the sun if
possible (not that there’s been much sun around!).
We
first heard about modern cloth nappies when my sister-in-law came
visiting with her three bundles of hyper-compressed energy, who she was
using cloth-nappies on. My first thoughts were ‘how clever’
quickly followed by ‘that’s so gross!’ when I considered the reality of
not being able to bin poop-catchers. I got used to changing her 3 month
old though, and by the time it came to me expecting a little ball of
delight (and many grizzles), I knew we’d be using at least some cloth
nappies.
Our mantra for parenting had always been ‘do what’s necessary’
and to be the attachment parent, so we were expecting to only use cloth
nappies part-time. However, by the time Squishels was 4 weeks old, we
had been very blessed in collecting around 30 modern cloth nappies, some
with the prettiest embroidered owls and unicorns, so it looks like
we’ll be using them more often than not (I hope she grows to like owls)!
The
first two weeks we used disposables for ease. With my health
(especially mental), always being iffy at best, we were in and out of
hospital units like the hospital was home. The best thing about the
disposables we used was the wetness indicator: with the easy use of a
yellow-blue line, we could tell when the baby had peed or pooped. The
convenience came at a cost, when we were going through $10 every couple
of days to buy nappies and always having to duck out to buy more nappies
(why don’t newborn nappies come in bigger packets?!).
By
the third week on the mum and bub unit as a family, we decided to brave
cloth nappies while we had the support of the nurses and the access to
easy (yet dreadful) food to take the pressure off. The first modern
cloth nappy Squishels was in was at 10 days old, with a Poppets Nest OSFM pocket nappy. It had a beautiful minky owl-patterned outer. We
loved pretty much everything about it: the cute print, the soft inner
and outer materials, the use of snaps (I found out pretty quickly I
don’t get along with Velcro) and the good fit (although a little bulky
on such a small baby, as most OSFM are). The only things we hated was
the washing part (we weren’t used to the never-ending cycle of washing
clothes yet), and the other Velcro-closing nappies sticking to the inner
lining of the nappy in the wash and pulling at some of the threads.
We’re
planning on using cloth nappies as much as possible. It’s still easier
to use disposables while we’re out, mainly because cloth nappies take up
so much room, but we’ve been blessed to have ended up with so many
cloth nappies that it saves so much money to use them more often than
not. Cloth nappies also reduce the rashes on my baby’s sensitive skin,
and are way cuter!
The key factors for us are financial (we’re very
tight on money with two chronically ill stay-at-home parents), cuteness
(I love dressing up my little princess!) and health (with lots of
allergies on my behalf, we’re very aware of the reactions between
chemicals and sensitive skin).
If you liked this you may like Our Cloth Journey. Just click the picture to read all about it!
Please always supervise your infant/child at play. Please stay within arms reach and never leave infants/children unattended. You know you're infant/child best, use your own judgement-considering your infant/child's temperament, habits, behaviour and development before you play with a new play medium.
No comments:
Post a Comment