Thank You

I can't believe the week is nearly over I have had so much fun trying Real Nappies. At the start I really wasn't sure if cloth was for me but I have completely changed my view; it's no harder than disposables, much better for my baby, the environment and not forgetting my pocket. I think I have saved about £10 since using Real Nappies which I have now spent buying some of my favorite nappies, Baba and Boo and an Itti Bitti.

Eve at Baba and Boo was very helpful and got my order out very quick.  I love the fact thart her nappies are so reasonably priced, fit Aston perfectly and look amazing. I liked all the nappies but found some held the wee (Little Lamb, Little Comfort, Prefolds and Terries) better and some fit better and don't look so bulky (Itti Bitti, Baba and Boo and Smartipants). The Pocket Nappies or All in Ones I found the easiest to put on as Aston doesn't really like sitting still too long; they were just a quick as disposable as you don't need to put a wrap on as well.
   
I pay for my electric by a key meter which was very useful to show how much extra electric the washing machine had used.  It was less than a pound which is great considering I put the machine on nearly every night but I dried them on the line most days.

My black bin which went out on Friday had a quarter less in it. It is normally over flowing by bin day but the lid was closed and I had lots more room left. That's the first time that's happened since Aston was born. It has made me think how many nappies, with 3 children using disposables, I have sent to landfill. Ian and I would like more children and we would definitely use cloth on any more we have.

If you unsure about using cloth, the best advice I can give is give it a go. Read all the reviews and just buy a couple to start, you have nothing to lose. If you are anything like me once you start you won't be able to stop!

Vicki and Go Real have been amazing, thank you for giving me the chance to transform the way I look at nappies. I have loved every second (including the pooie nappies!). And we would still be using disposable if you hadn't of sent me the trial pack. This is the best secret I have ever been told. Thank you for sharing it with me!

Charley

Sent from my HTC

Boosters Needed!

Aston has leaked wee a few times since we've been using cloth but he is a very heavy wetter and drinks a lot so I am thinking maybe I need extra boosters.

Night times are not going very well and he has woken twice completely dripping. But after I spoke to Vicki she suggested I just bulk him out with boosters at night as Milo is also prone to this.

We have had no poo leaks which is great and I have noticed that it doesn't smell as bad when its in the nappy and easily flushed down the toilet. Once the nappy is in the bucket you can't smell anything unlike having a disposable in your bin.

Charley

Addicted

I am completely addicted to real nappies. Since receiving my trial pack. I have spent every night searching the internet looking at different brands, styles and patterms. I love the choice of prints you can get, much prettier than disposables.
    
As for types my favourite is the pocket. Cloth dry very quickly. I haven't really noticed any difference in the different fabrics, apart from the little lamb which comes out of the machine nearly dry. The pocket (especially Baba and Boo) fit nicely on Aston and are not that much fatter than is old nappies. I want to buy all the different types but Ian has wisely taken the credit card off me or I could max it out on cloth! Vicki has given me some of her nappies to try as Milo is doing very well at potty training.

Charley

Misunderstood

I have told most of my mummy friends that I am trying Real Nappies and they have laughed at me so I have decided to invite them all round to show them how easy they are. I think lots of people don't understand how similar Real are to disposables with so many different types, styles and colours to choose from it makes them much more fun.

I have been organising the summer fete for the school and I was talking to some of the mums after the meeting today. Two of them had used cloth which made me feel less like an outcast, it was lovely to talk to someone (other than Vicki) about cloth without being laughed at.

I am hoping tomorrow when I have showed my friends they will be converted to cloth. 

Charley

Terries

My eldest daughter bethany has been helping with learning the different terry folds. She understood the instructions 'Go Real' sent me perfectly which shows if my 8 year old can do it anyone can! We practiced lots on her dollies then went for it on Aston. Bethany has made her own video demonstrating how to do the cone fold.

I don't think I got the nappy tight enough it was quite loose around the legs. It didn't help that Aston just wanted to lay on the bamboo square, putting it on his face when I was trying to fold it because he loved the feel of it, so I am sure it felt lovely on his bum!

Vicki hasn't used terries so she couldn't really help me but my mum used terries on both me and Vicki and spent 20 mins at work yesterday going through through the folds using a tea towel and how to get them tighter. I will keep trying them on Aston but I think my favorite nappies are the pocket nappies I got (Baba Boo and Smartipants) they are just as easy as disposables but much prettier.
Charley

Becoming a Cloth Nappy Addict?

I think Charley may have developed a nappy addiction!  Who knew all she needed was a collection of nappies to play with to get her to come round to the idea of using cloth!  I've hardly had to do anything.  Well that's no entirely true, I've had to answer lots of questions, listening to lots of nappy talk and of course look through pages and pages and pages of cloth nappies online with Charley who is building a fairly big shopping list of nappies to purchase!

I understand though, as I'm sure many cloth nappy users do!  It can become a bit of an obsession and before you know it you've lost hours of your life researching different brands and styles and of course colours and prints, and if you're not too careful spent a small fortune in the process.  I know that was pretty much what I did and listening to Charley's excitement I must admit I was a little jealous when she received her lovely collection of assorted nappies to try!  But my boy is (fairly slowly) getting in to potty training at the moment, so a big splurge on new nappies would be fairly foolish (however there are always training pants!).

I can hardly believe Charley's complete turnaround, we talk fairly regularly anyway, but we have been on the phone to each other 2 or 3 times a day the last week discussing nappies, honestly it won't be long before she knows more about cloth than I do and is giving me advice.  Turns out it really was just a secret that needed to be shared. 

Being Prepared

Aston was looked after by my friend, Alison, today. I showed her the cloth nappies but also packed some disposables just in case she would prefer to put them on Aston, but she loved the cloth nappies as she had used terries on her children and couldn't believe how much the nappies have changed over the last 15 years.

I had given Alison 3 cloth nappies but I didn't think he would do 2 poos in the few hours he was there! So she had to use a disposable.When I got home I put aston straight in cloth and next time I will be sure to pack more.
I am going to try a terry tomorrow.I can't believe I never used cloth before its so easy. Vicki is being a great support so glad she put us forward for this I am falling in love with cloth nappies.

Charley

How we got into cloth (by Vicki)

I don't think I really thought all that much about it to be honest, I was going to use cloth and that was that.  I didn't see any need to add any more to the rubbish we put out to landfill already.  Especially if it wasn't necessary.  

I have a friend who used cloth already, she had a little boy and was pregnant with her second child when I was pregnant with Milo, she raved about cloth and well, she is my bestest friend, we're fairly similar, I figured 'if Melly can do it, I can do it'!

I didn't do much research, I assumed that all nappies would be fairly similar (how wrong I was!) and I purchased a newborn and small set of mothercare smart nappies when I was pregnant.  As it turned out Milo arrived a little early and quite unexpectedly so I was not ready to use the nappies right away, and ended up using disposables the first few days, but when we came to put the mothercare nappies to use, we were so disappointed in them.  I've heard lots of women talk highly of them and use them through to potty training, but for us they were a complete disaster, leaking every single time he wore them.

Having already spent a fair amount of money on cloth nappies that we couldn't use, it took a while to convince ourselves to invest in some more.  This time I did a lot of research and discovered a whole world of very confusing nappy names and terms and styles.  I used Melly's nappy wisdom along with the cloth nappy group on the baby centre forums to make a some decisions.  I purchased a couple of bumgenius one size a Close Parent pop in and a Motherease one size to get an idea of what would work well for us.  I actually liked them all, but the motherease were my favourites and I was lucky enough to find a fairly cheap preloved collection of them on ebay that came with 4 tots bots wraps.  I then purchased a variety of other wraps to see which I liked the most.  The tots bots turned out to be favourite and we've been using those with the motherease ever since.  I also still use the bumgenius and the pop ins too.  I discovered much later that you can handknit/crochet wraps if you use yarn with a wool content and soak it in lanolin.  I've crocheted a couple for Milo, but had I known this before he would probably be in almost entirely handknit nappy covers!

I'm so glad we gave cloth another go, we've never really had any problem with them since those first leaks at the beginning, occasionally overnight they will leak, but then again so do disposables, he's never had any problems with nappy rash and I don't feel it's restricted his movement at all.  We don't use cloth as full time as we perhaps could, we tend to have disposables on stand by for emergencies and if we're out for a long time or go away for the weekend, but we try our best to use them most of the time, and it certainly isn't a chore to use cloth over disposables, in fact it's a pleasure.  I actually love hanging my nappies out the line on a sunny day, I get great joy from seeing them all pegged out in a row, I'm sure this sounds crazy to non cloth-users, but I have no doubt those who do use cloth know exactly what I mean!

This is such a great opportunity to share with my sister the wonderful world of cloth nappies and I'm so pleased she is getting stuck in to it. 

Vicki

Nappy rash

Aston suffers with sensitive skin and we have been battering nappy rash since he was born and this morning after having really bad nappy rash for the last month. He woke up completely clear not a tiny patch on his bum.  I can't believe that maybe for the last 14 months and many different creams later it could all be down to disposable nappies.
Charley

All on Board

Aston wore cloth all day. My daughters have shown a real interest in why we are using cloth nappies. Bethany understood the green side of cloth and wants to talk about them at school as they are doing lots of Eco activities at the moment. 
  
After Ian had given Aston his bath tonight I had a Baba & Boo nappy ready to put on to Aston but Ian wanted to put it on to see how they work. I don't think Ian realised how easy to put on cloth can be. I then got out all the different types of nappies we have, to show Ian and now he understands them he seems completely on board.

It's Aston's first night in a cloth nappy.

Charley

The nappies have arrived

The nappies arrived today I nearly missed the postman as I didn't hear the door. He was getting back in his van as I ran outside very excited. I couldn't get the box open quick enough. 

After inspecting all the nappies and not having a clue how to put them on I decided to watch the Go Real dvd which really helped. I then phoned vicki to make sure I had understood everything correctly (which I had). 

I choose the smartipants nappy first as it looked the easiest and put it straight on aston. 

It doesn't seem to make him walk any different to his usual disposable nappies, which I was worried about and he hasn't seemed to notice any difference.

We went to a wedding reception tonight so I decided that now was a better time than any to take the nappies out with me. Aston wore the Bitti Tutto nappy which he had on for 3 hours, it leaked but he had drunk lots of juice in this time and I am sure his normal disposables would have done the same. I then changed him into the Baba and Boo (which Bethany thinks is the best as we call her boo and Aston Baba). When we got home i had to put Aston in a disposable as I had put all the other nappies in the wash. I can't wait to try all the others out tomorrow!

Charley

Hello
I am charley and I live in Norfolk with my 3 children bethany aged 8, Nicole 5, Aston 14 months and my partner of nearly 10 years Ian.

I work for my mum in her ceramic cafe http://stickyearthcafe.co.uk. I had Bethany  when I was 17 which was very hard, but I started working for my mum so I could move in to my own house and Ian became a stay at home dad.

I have used disposable nappies with all 3 children. I looked at cloth nappies when I was pregant with Aston but my partner was not keen. My sister vicki tried to convince him but to no avail. Ian's main reason for not wanting to use them was the financial outlay at the beginning, although in the long run it would have saved us hundreds of pounds, having the money spare to spend all in one go was impossible. He also was worried about the amount of washing; as we have 3 children the washing machine is already going constantly!

When vicki told me she had entered us in the Share the Secret I was not sure if I really wanted to do it and if Ian would agree but after looking at the website and looking at all the different nappies I started to get really excited. And Ian started to show more interest so hopefully by the time that the nappies arrive he will be completely on board!

Vicki

Hello...

My name is Vicki.  I am 28 year old mother to Milo, who just turned 2 last month.  

We have been using cloth nappies since Milo was about 3 months old.  I loved using cloth on my boy for so many reasons and have been trying to convince my sister to give it a go since she found out she was pregnant with her 3rd baby, Aston.

Although I know she has been tempted in the past, she's never been tempted quite enough!  So when I saw the real nappy challenge on the go real facebook page, I applied to take part straight away, I didn't speak to Charley beforehand!  But I did ring her after I applied and although she seemed reluctant at first, said she was willing to give it a go.

Before I had Milo I worked as an assistant manager for a fashion retailer, but for years had been selling handmade items online in my spare time.  During my maternity leave I was able to expand this little business enough to not need to return to work when the time came and am now a full time 'work at home mum'. 

I like to think we're fairly 'green' though I know we could probably do better, we do try hard to think about the waste we produce and how to lessen it.  This was obviously a fairly big factor in our choosing real nappies.  I've recently become interested in gardening and growing our own food, for the last couple of years I've been doing this in pots as we haven't had any proper outside space, but a few weeks ago I acquired an allotment, which has been a fantastically exciting adventure already!

I'm really looking forward to giving Charley the encouragement and assistance to try out real nappies and am confident she will continue using them after the challenge, once she has seen how easy they are to use.