The Cloth Nappy Experiment
Last week I went to a talk at my local Multiple Birth Club Monthly Morning Tea about cloth nappies. I have to confess I made a conscious choice not to use cloth nappies for sanity and my boys are now 1. But I went. She's MAD! I thought. Cloth nappies for twins. She hasn't got a clue what it's like to change two nappies at a time and do laundry for 5 people every week. I asked lots of skeptical questions and I tweeted about it while it was happening because I wanted to hear from other twin mums. I wanted to know if it was possible, what they thought and how they did it... because secretly, inside, my crunchy mumma was dying for it to be possible!
Well, I got the feedback. Other mums had done it. It hadn't been exclusive, it hadn't been from the beginning, but they'd done it. So, yesterday my inner crunchy mumma got the better of me and off we went to flowerchild.
We're going to have a go at this.
I've gone with the pop velcro ones and I've only bought two to see how we manage getting them on and off my wriggly bubbies.
Today is the first day and thier tiny bums look really cute! I was a chicken and I waited until they'd done their morning poo in the hope that all I would be changing was wet ones. I'm taking it slow. But I'm doing it. I'm giving it a go.
Getting them on: We went with velcro because my two won't lie down to have their nappies changed. Too much to do, so little time. In fact we usually use pull-ups. I think it was a little more fussy this time than it might be next time. We had to get the sizing right. And although it was lightening fast, it was still slower than usual. There were tears. Not mine. Not yet. I'm really glad we went with a velcro option and not the snaps. Even my husband, who said that he wasn't doing this (and who could blame him after all the nappies he's changed), was impressed by the velcro. It's more like a disposable. It's fast and not fiddly. Next steps: Change time! We'll see what happens and I'll report back. Flowerchild are getting some pull-up style nappies in over the next week or so too. I'm going to get the boys one each of those too. Then they'll have two cloth nappies and the usual disposables. Like I said, I'm starting out slow. I'm only just ready to do this now and I'm going to do it in a way that's managable for us and our lifestyle, but every little bit helps, right?
Why am I talking about this? The reason I want to talk about this is because cloth nappies scared the poo out of ME when the boys were small and I was trying to breastfeed twins and take care of a very active 12 year old as well. I just didn't think I could manage the extra work.
To be honest, I don't think I could have. Our laundry was EVERYWHERE!!!! I threw away some of the things that I just didn't get to. Things I soaked until they got mouldy because I was just keeping myself afloat. I kind of feel like there's no permission to change your mind half way along and have a go at everything or do a bit of each. It feels a bit like it's one or the other or you're not doing it 'right'. Hence #theclothnappyexperiment. I felt judged by some singleton mums (of one baby) when the boys were little and I was using disposables all the time. One of them asked if I wasn't concerned enough about what toxins I was putting into and onto my kids skin. To her I say - Of course I'm concerned about that! Of course I know about gels and bleach and the environmental impact of throwing away 5,000,000,000,000 nappies over the course of my children's infancy. But I was also concerned about getting out of the house, keeping my sanity, trying to breasfeed twins, being a good wife to my husband, a good step-mum to Tommy, getting a wholesome dinner on the table each night, keeping my house in some kind of order, recuperating from the vaginal birth of twins (one footling breech) and remaining ME. The biggest promise I made to my kids before they were born. After Wednesday's morning tea I felt like I had permission to have a go. To start now and in a small way and I really have to thank flowerchild for coming along and letting us all ask so many questions.
