Shortly after I got pregnant with The Boy, I discovered the Bambino Mio system of re-useable nappies. Being very keen to save some pennies (how expensive are disposable nappies?!?) and plus knowing that it’s kinder to the environment and better for baby to use re-useable than disposable, I investigated the possibility of purchasing a starter set.
However, the Bambino Mio re-useable nappies come in different sizes and I wasn’t sure which size would be better. As myself, my brother, my Hubby and his sister were all 8lb+ babies at birth, I was anticipating The Boy would be in the same region. It would mean that I’d only get a couple of weeks use out of the first size of Bambino Mio before I needed to get the next size up, and I decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle of trying to sort that out as well as juggling with a newborn baby as a first time mum.
As it turned out, when The Boy was born he was 6lbs 10.5oz so I would have got a fair amount of use out of the first size Bambino Mio nappies. However with several nappy changes a day and our washing machine on full time to handle the clothes, bed stuff and muslin cloths anyway, I put the idea of re-useable nappies to the back of my mind as something else to wash that I didn’t have time to deal with. My family and friends also put me off, saying that it was just something else to worry about washing, and drying, and dealing with dirty re-useable nappies is not the most pleasant experience!!
Now The Boy is almost a year old, and I heard on the grapevine that Bambino Mio were looking for people to test their range. It’s called the “Real Nappy Challenge” and they’re asking testers to use one of their re-useable nappies for just one nappy out of the day for a week, and compile a diary on how successful the nappies are and see whether it is enough to convert you to a full time re-useable nappy user. They reckon that just one re-useable nappy per day can save you £40 on disposable nappies!
Well, The Boy is tall for his age, and broad, but he has very slim hips, a non-existent bum and a slender waist, and I find a number of problems with disposable nappies. They have to be pulled very tightly to fit him round the tummy well, and even then the overnight nappy tends to leak by the morning (he sleeps round from 8pm til 8am usually) If it’s just a wet leak that isn’t too bad and it’s a case of an early morning wash and change of clothes for him, with a change of bedclothes as well (but it isn’t nice for him, lets be fair!), but if it’s a dirty nappy leak that’s another vest and sleepsuit/pair of pyjamas potentially stained (no matter how I wash them there’s always a trace left isn’t there!!) I’ve been very lucky in that he has only ever had nappy rash when his bottom has been particularly active when he’s teething or unwell, and usually it’s for a couple of days and lashings of Sudocream and a couple of hours ‘nappy free’ does the trick, but apparently re-useable nappies will mean his chances of getting nappy rash are even lower. I find named brand nappies no better than supermarket own brand: Pampers don’t fit him well and leak very easily – Huggies are probably the better named brand than most, but they have a tendency to feel quite hard at times and they’re packed badly quite often and you end up tearing bits off them when you’re trying to open it up to put it on. Supermarket own brand nappies are all about the same: Fine on the whole, not a terrible fit but not fantastic, and if the nappy is particularly wet it will soak through around his legs and waist.
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| Bambino Mio - Birth To Potty set (can save you £700 on disposable nappies!) |
I got in touch with Bambino Mio and completed their questionnaire and they’re going to send me two re-useable nappies and one cover so that I can use a re-useable nappy for one nappy change each day for a full week and see what I make of them. I’m very interested to see how well they fit The Boy (who is more slender around the waist than many of his peers and I think this is the root of the problem with disposable nappies) and how much they can take (after all, without chemicals and gels to keep the wetness away from his skin, can it handle his 12 hour overnight sleep without squishing all over the place?)
I’ll be posting a daily diary entry detailing our findings with the Bambino Mio re-useable nappies and let you know how we get on!
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