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.