Week 3: Nappy Rash and Stinky Nappies

This week Evan has nappy rash for the first time ever. It's been really sore and angry looking for the past few days, but today it seems to have calmed down a bit. I coated his bottom in Sudocreme and that seems to have helped. Like most unexplainable things, I'm putting it down to teething. He is actually just getting one of his canine teeth. He was a grump on the weekend as well another sure sign that the tooth was coming. He hasn't had a problem with any of his other teeth. They have always just appeared without causing any bother. I'm actually hoping for a few more bottom teeth to match the top. He has almost a full set on the top but still only 4 on the bottom!

Lately I've noticed that his nappies have been particularly stinky. I have been told that nappies can smell worse when new teeth are coming through. I've had to resort to soaking even the wet nappies and doing a rinse before washing to get the smell out. It doesn't half make your eyes water!

Nappy changes have become difficult this week as well. Evan is on the verge of walking. He's very steady when walking with support and just needs to find the courage to let go. Unfortunately for me, all he wants to do these days is practice walking so getting him to lie down for his nappy changes, turns into a battle of wills!

 

Week 2: On our holidays

Although I live in Scotland, I'm not a native. I'm a Welsh girl originally and all my family live in South Wales. We don't see them as often as we would like but when we do go visit we usually fly. I know not great for the environment but certainly easier than driving with a baby, which took us 10 hours in the past. It takes an hour in the plane and we can leave after work.

When traveling we usually keep Evan in disposable nappies (Although I do always insist that they are the biodegradable type). Unfortunately Evan drank 3 cups of water before getting on the plane (He normally doesn't drink much) and did huge wee wees. The nappy just couldn't take this downpour and we were both soaked. This meant a nappy change in the plane toilet. I hate plane toilets but it wasn't as bad as I thought. There was a fold down piece of MDF to act as a changing table although no restraints, not that he could go far. He's a tall boy though and plane toilets are narrow. His legs ended up half way up the wall but I managed to get the new nappy on without too much incident.

While visiting family we always use disposable nappies because of their convenience. I'm not against disposables. They are great for holidays, but I think unnecessary for everyday use. I also find them fiddly to use (maybe because we don't use them all the time). The Velcro tabs on our two part nappies are so much quicker to do up. A few weeks ago Evan was in a disposable nappy. He is a bottom shuffler and was scooting around quite happily on the living room carpet. I had gone over to play with him when I noticed the outside of his nappy was wet! The disposable nappy was only wearing thin with all the bottom shuffling he was doing.

Evan had a great time visiting his grandma and bampa and was spoilt rotten. He was upset to leave them and was looking for them when we got on the plane. He couldn't understand why they weren't coming too. It was very sad. But I'm hoping that when he sees them next time he will have some memory of who they are.

Go Real Nappy Blog - Caroline Jackson, Week 1

My name is Caroline. I live in Fife, Scotland with my husband and baby son who was born in March 2008. I work full time as well as being a Lollipop Cloth Nappy Advisor and a member of the Fife Real Nappy Network in my spare time. We’ve used real nappies on our son since he was a couple of weeks old and made the decision to use cloth nappies when I was pregnant. In my mind there was really no decision to make. I’ve always seen the importance of recycling and “doing our bit” for the environment, so choosing to use reusable nappies was simple. My husband felt the same way as me and was definitely convinced when I told him about the financial savings we could make.

While I was pregnant I had no idea that I could book a nappy demo with a nappy advisor to help me choose the perfect nappies for us. I spent many hours researching the different types and brands of nappies on the internet. However, it was difficult to choose which type to get without actually seeing and feeling them. I decided I liked the Nature Babies brand as they were a British company based in Leicestershire and I purchase a Nature Babies trial pack containing a selection of their nappies.

I was very excited when my nappies arrived but we didn’t have a baby to try them out on, so my husband and I had great fun putting them on a stuffed monkey! After trying out the nappies on Monkey we decided we liked the shaped two part nappy system. I had read online that these were most reliable, as the two layers (absorbent nappy and separate cover) acted as a double barrier against leaks. I also liked the idea of pocket nappies as they were like disposable nappies which I thought would be useful for when we were out.

Eventually we ended up with 9 Diddi Diapers with velcro, 1 Micro Diddi Diaper, 1 Nature Babies wrap and 2 Motherease airflow wraps, 6 small Nature Babies Stuffables, and 5 large terry squares for folding. In total we spent £147 on our first size nappies and all the accessories (pail, mesh bag etc). We decided to use biodegradable flushable paper liners to make messy nappy changes easier.

After our son was born, we didn’t have any family nearby to help us learn how to care for our newborn so for the first few weeks we used disposable nappies until we had the hang of things. But after spending so much money buying the nappies we were determined to use them and make them work.

Once we started using our nappies we found that not all of them were as good as we had hoped on our small 6½Ib newborn. The Diddi Diapers were most successful and the Velcro fastening meant the nappy was very adjustable. Our son was exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months and the two part nappies were great for containment of runny poos. The Micro Diddi Diaper was fastened with a Nappi Nippa. Although the Nappi Nippa was designed to replace nappy pins it is still sharp and I caught myself on it a number of times. The Nature Babies Stuffables were disappointing as we found they leaked when our son was small so we stopped using them.

When he was a bit bigger the Stuffable nappies fit better around the legs and leaked less but I always had to put two microfibre pads in the pocket as one simply wasn’t absorbent enough. Even with two pads the nappy only lasted two hours at best before leaking. I did fold a couple of terry squares in the beginning but found it very awkward to keep the nappy folded while wrapping it round our son’s bottom. The terry squares were certainly very absorbent but incredibly bulky on our small baby and the wraps we had were not big enough to go around so we had to use plastic pants. We now just use the terry squares on our changing mat to catch any surprise wees or poos during nappy changes.

Although our first size nappies have been well worn, we hope to have another baby in the future and will use our nappies again. As a nappy advisor and working for the Fife Real Nappy Network I have come across a number of new mums who used cloth nappies in hospital after their babies were born and this is something I would love to do next time.