“I’m a real (nappy) boy”
Tuesday, 31st July 2007 by Julie
It turns out that real (cloth) nappies have come a very long way since the terry squares that I remember folding at age 7 – 8 for my baby sister…
These days they come in a whole range of different designs, all of which are a lot less hassle than the ones I was thinking of, and don’t involve soaking in a large smelly bucket of “Steri-Nappi”.
We were quite keen to try real nappies because we support avoiding the manufacturing costs that go into disposables. And after a week or two of using disposables on Jon, we also support very much the idea of not having an overflowing rubbish bin full of nappies every week!
The scheme that most appealed to us was the Nappy Laundry Service. With this, the service brings along several bales of fresh nappies every week, and takes away a bag of dirty nappies. They supply a handy bin to live near the changing area, and dirty nappies just get chucked straight in there. Voila!
The UK government is so pro real nappies right now that we’re even being sent a one-off £45 voucher by our local council to put towards the costs of the service. (This could also have gone towards buying our own nappies to wash at home but we were less interested in that option.)
So just a week after we got Jonathan home, we signed up with a service for our area called Nappy Ever After. They’re a great little non-profit organisation who charge us £10 a week for the collections and deliveries. The nappies they supply are basically thick cotton squares that fold fairly simply to fit into waterproof outer liners that we purchased separately.
So far it’s working relatively well. Baby Jon doesn’t seem to mind them and after interspersing a disposable or two on outings, I can confirm that they are definitely less smelly than disposables as well. Happiness all round. 
