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March 15, 2011

Part time nappy free

I'm very excited by the prospect of using less nappies. Whilst cloth nappies are infinately more appealing to me then disposables, I'd still like to buy and wash less nappies. But it seems that with the advent of disposables we've forgotten how to use less, because in our consumer culture Huggies is constantly convincing us that we need to use more.

When I came across the website Part Time Nappy Free it instantly made sense. Imagine babies in tribes, baby's in the bush, baby's in India, baby's in villages, do you picture a nappy? So how do they contain the mess? They offer their baby's the opportunity to go to the toilet, just like the rest of us.

It's now got fancy names like infant potty training or elimination communication, but it's basically what our great grandmothers would have done. Imagine life before dispoables AND before washing machines, you'd want to avoid nappies too!

We've been putting Harriet on the potty since she was about 6 months old. It's easy to catch poo's cause it's so obvious that she's doing one. Wee's are a bit trickier, and are more about timing than training at this stage. We started offering her a wee on the potty (accompanied by a 'psssss' sound) about every fifteen minutes. She was quickly able to hold on for half an hour and now it's more like 45 minutes, depending on how much water she's drank or how recently she's had a breastfeed. Now she only wears nappies for sleeps and outings and wears training pants at home for when I'm not paying enough attention and we miss one. If she's sick or cranky or having a wonder week then the nappy goes back on so it doesn't get stressful.

About a week before her first birthday we had a really big breakthrough. She's learning sign language really fast now, picking up a new sign every few days. She came for a cuddle in our bed in the morning and then suddenly sat up and did the poo sign, which is waving your hand in front of your nose like you can smell something, well, pooey. I didn't respond quick enough cause I couldn't quite believe it, so she signed more urgently and then lifted her hands in the air which means 'pick me up.' So I carried her to potty and she did a big poo. I was so proud!!!

One thing I really love about EC is that the parent and baby do it together. I have to remember to put her on the potty and pay attention to her signs and facial expressions. I'd highly recommend checking out this website and signing up for the free seven secrets. Then buy yourself a few cloth nappies as backup and look forward to beautiful, respectful and honest communication with your baby.

Real Nappies review and WIN A FREE CLOTH NAPPY

To win an intro pack visit the new website and leave a comment below saying which snugwrap colour is your favourite.

Real Nappies have invited me to review their products on my blog in return for some free stuff. I promise I will tell you the truth though!

Disclosure aside, I have been using Real Nappies for Harriet since she was born. I wrote about my choice here, and now after a year of using them I want to share a bit about my experience.

Real Nappies are a cotton prefold system with a PUL waterproof cover with velcro tabs. You can fold the nappy differently for boys, girls or runny poos.

Feature: Cotton
Pro: I chose them because I wanted to cotton against my babies skin. Personally I hate wearing anything other than cotton, especially underwear, so I'd expect the same for my daughter.
Con: I found that overnight Harriet got nappy rash in cotton, so we used to put her in a disposable overnight until we discovered stay-dry microfibre. I noticed Real Nappies have micro-fibre night time boosters but I haven't tried them. Also cotton can be a bit bulky, especially when baby moves into the next size up.

Feature: Velcro
Pro: Velcro is easier then press studs to open and close.
Con: By the time Harriet was about 9 months she could undo the velcro herself, but my daughter is a genius ;) so I don't know if all babies could do that. Now, so her little hands can't get to the velcro, she always wears frilly knickers over her nappy, which are pretty cute, but a bit annoying to add an extra step to every nappy change.

Feature: Fold
Pro: The unique folding system means you can adjust the absorbancy to suit boys or girls or runny poos or tummy sleepers. I love that you can fold them flat to wash and they dry really quick.
Con: Some of my friends are using all in ones for their older babies cause they won't stay still enough to fold everything in place. I haven't really had this problem with Harriet, I just give her a toy or a book whilst I change her and she's happy to lie there for a minute. Unless it's a wonderweek, but that's another post.

Feature: Price
Pro: They are one fo the cheaper cloth nappy options, the only other cheap one I can find is Bumgenius econobums, which you can get great deals on especially if you live in America.
Con: No complaints here!

Feature: Sizes
Pro: Harriet was in cloth from the moment we got home from the hospital, some one size nappies are far too bulky on newborns and they can't wear them till they grow a bit.
Con: I suppose we had to buy more nappies to cover each size but they are cheap enough so I don't mind.

Overall I am very happy with my Real Nappies. There are easier modern cloth nappy options, like all in ones, but they are more expensive, you need to buy a lot of them and they take longer to dry since you can't unfold them. Real Nappies are cheap and easy to use. Something about the cotton squares and plain white covers appeals to me, as they seem quite classic and timeless, with the ease of being a modern cloth nappy.

However I did need to use microfibre nappies for overnight and knickers to cover the velcro. I actually bought a couple of Bumgenius flips with press studs (they have a clever one size fits all PUL cover) to complement my Real Nappy stash, they come with microfibre nappies as well. If Real Nappies had press studs instead of velcro (especially on the larger sizes) I wouldn't have any complaints.

Real Nappies have a new website with great videos and instructions and information. And you can find them on facebook too.

To win an intro pack visit the new website and leave a comment below saying which snugwrap colour is your favourite. Competition is open to Australian residents only and winner will be drawn 29 April 2011. Leave your email in the comment.