Why do I want to use real nappies?

I became a mum for the first time in the early hours of the morning on 21st April 2011 when my beautiful baby boy was born. In the build up to his arrival I had been planning to have a home birth and had been getting things sorted for this for several months. The birthing pool was ready to be filled, I'd been attending pregnancy yoga classes and NCT classes and had my birthing positions and breathing exercises all sussed out, I even had a bulging bag of healthy (ish) snacks ready to keep my energies up during labour (if you can call jelly babies made with natural flavourings healthy?!). Essentially I wanted to keep my birth as natural and relaxed as possible, trying to reduce the chance of having to use any strong pain relief that might affect the baby.

So I suppose you could say I was attempting to be a bit of an eco mummy, trying to keep things natural and trust that natural means of birth and pain relief would be sufficient. Therefore for me it seemed like a perfectly logical step to use real nappies. In fact, the decision to me seemed a bit of a 'no brainer', a bit like the decision to breast feed. It's better for the environment because it stops tonnes of nasty poopey nappies going to landfill, saves money in the long run, and is better for the baby too because there's no potent chemicals near the babies bum. How could I justify not using real nappies? Just point out the best ones and I'll get them.

Alas, the best laid plans often go wrong. Despite all my careful planning and forethought, my birth plan didn't exactly work out as I'd hoped. My baby's due date came and went. I waited. Then I waited some more. Days went past, then a week, and finally after a fortnight I realised that my birthing pool at home was sadly never going to materialise because I was going to have to go into hospital to be induced. For whatever reason, baby Strawbridge simply didn't want to come out.

Once in the hospital, things still continued veer off course. After several hours of labouring it was discovered that my baby was not in the cephalic (head down) position everyone had thought he was in all throughout my pregnancy. In fact, he was in breech, and I had to decide whether or not to have a ceasarean section or continue with a vaginal breech birth. To cut a long story short, my husband and I decided that a C section was the best option at that time, and a short while later Indiana Peregrine Strawbridge emerged into the world. As soon as I laid eyes on him I couldn't care less that my original birth plan hadn't materialised... all that mattered was that I was a mummy to such a beautiful, healthy, baby boy!

Since Indiana, or Indy as we call him, was born, I have had to put on hold my plans for switching to reusable nappies. In the days before Indy arrived I'd assumed that I'd immediately try out a few nappies, see which one was the best, and then start using them straight away. 

But the reality of having a new baby, and also recovering from a C section, meant that the last thing I wanted to do was to have to try out reusable nappies straight away. Disposables suddenly became an absolute god-send... so simple to use, and so easy to dispose of.  I felt terrible for thinking it... but I really liked the convenience of disposable nappies! Would I ever be able to switch to reusables now?!

Most of the time I was using biodegradable disposables that I ordered over the internet, which did relieve my conscience somewhat. whenever they ran out and before fresh supplies would arrive, I'd have to resort to regular disposables which I felt really bad about using.  Especially because I realised just how many nappies Indy was pooping and peeing his way through each day, and therefore how many bags of waste nappies I was throwing out each week. Babies may be tiny, but they manage to generate a staggering amount of poop!

I still wanted to switch to reusable nappies, but in the early weeks of my recovery from my C section I knew that I wouldn't be able to cope with the amount of laundry using reusables would generate. After all, I wasn't supposed to lift anything heavier than my baby or stretch my arms up, so hauling around a washing basket of nappies and pegging them out on the line really wasn't at all practical for me. 

Reusables would simply have to wait.

But now 6 weeks have gone by since Indy's birth, my energy levels are restoring and I'm keen to make the switch to reusables. I don't like generating so much waste with disposable nappies, and even though I'm really going to miss the convenience of disposables I want to do my bit for the planet and be a responsible parent. Now all I need to do is to try out a few reusables and discover which is the best one. 

However if I thought choosing reusables nappies was going to be straightforward, it seems I was wrong about that too... I simply cannot believe how many different options there are out there, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Over the next few weeks I'm going to try out a few different reusable nappies and keep you posted of my experiences. Fingers crossed I'll find one that works for Indy, and that makes me forget about the convenience of disposables!