#jfdi

Ok so I’m on my second (and last) child and I’ve FINALLY made the move to cloth nappies. I kept looking at the nappies piling up in our wheelie bin each week and I just cannot justify it any longer.

There are a lot of barriers that were stopping me and I just want to say to anybody else considering it but putting it into that ‘too hard basket’ that it really isn’t. Too hard, I mean.

So, how to go about using cloth instead of paper nappies? Here is the answer: just f*cking do it. There’s a saying in advertising, when as an agency you’ve argued your creative opinion until you’re blue in the face, but the client is adamant they know best and at the end of the day they’re paying the bills so you have to JFDI (just f*cking do it). 

Just. Put. A. Cloth. Nappy. On. Your. Baby.

Then what? Take it off again and bung it in the wash.

In all seriousness, there are SO many groups and blogs and sites out there to help you ‘get started’ with cloth nappies it’s overwhelming and all the reading and preparation I felt I needed to do in advance was a real barrier for me. I even had some cloth nappies and had attended a talk with an amazing lady called ‘The Nappy Lady’ but still I stared at them each day and thought, “Tomorrow I’ll get set up for this”. In the end I gave those nappies to a friend who has done cloth nappies the entire time for both her children with no complaints. 

But when I had my second child and my first was finally done with nappies, I was changing her disposable nappy one day and suddenly thought, “What am I doing with these things, I HAVE to do better for our planet and our children”. 

Which sounds a bit dramatic but unless you’ve been living under a rock, this is the stage our planet has got to and disposable nappies are a BIG problem, yet it’s so simple to vastly reduce waste by just cutting back or eliminating them altogether.

So, for somebody like me with a baby and a toddler and no sleep, let me give you my top tips for getting going with cloth nappies (and hopefully you won’t need to read anything else you can JFDI after this).

1. Get hold of some cloth nappies, any brand, whatever. Most second hand shops will have some you can pick up for cheap and give them a good wash. I was lucky enough that my wonderful friend returned the nappies I gave her and also a bunch of hers she has finished with. How many to start with? I’ve got about 10 which seems like plenty, I can wash every 2 days. 

2. Get a washing basket with holes in it for chucking in the dirty nappies until you’ve got enough for a wash. This surprisingly does not smell. Ones with lids and no holes do smell. 

3. Grab some eco friendly paper nappy liners and this way you can chuck the poo straight down the loo (if they are flushable) or in the nappy bin. No scraping (if you are cool with scraping then even better but I’m not there yet).

4. Change them a bit more often than disposable nappies as they can’t hold so much wee.

5. Use a disposable nappy overnight (or don’t if you get the hang of cloth and no leaks). This is just to combat the fact that this might be a barrier for you, as it was for me so I just let it go.