Join Elin on her journey towards cloth nappies — insights, tips and honest experience, to make the switch to cloth nappies easy and rewarding.
Welcome to a new post on our blog, where we want to share experiences of cloth nappies — a world full of patterns, function and reusable choices.
Today we have the joy of sharing a real parent's experiences and insights around the choice to use cloth nappies. Elin, a mum of two wonderful children, Lennon and Presley, generously shares her journey from disposables to cloth nappies in her family life.
Her story is a reminder that every little step counts, and that the path to finding what's perfect for your own family is allowed to be unique.
Join us on this inspiring journey through Elin's words, and discover how cloth nappies can become part of your everyday life.
Choosing to use cloth nappies — Elin's words
My name is Elin and I'm mum to Lennon (born '19) and Presley (born '22). We started with cloth nappies when Lennon was 7 months old. With Presley we started straight away when we came home from the maternity ward.
My tip for you who are thinking of starting with cloth nappies is not to bet everything on one brand and model, but to try your way to what works for you. If your budget isn't very big, there are nappy kits to borrow from Blöjupproret if you're a member, to help you find a brand that suits you.
Something else to bear in mind is that, as your child's body shape changes, there may be periods where certain nappies no longer work. They can then come to work again a little later on...
A misconception about cloth nappies is that you're washing all the time. Right now we run one or two cloth-nappy washes a week. There are of course more at the start when you go through more nappies a day, but it's not that they need washing all the time (depending on how many nappies you have, of course).
Another thing is the poo. Where does it go? That you're standing there poking at it with your fingers, sort of. There's rice paper that catches the poo once solid food has been introduced. You can then just throw that away together with the poo.
With breastfeeding only, the poo dissolves in water, so it can be washed away in the machine with no prep.
It's no worse than dealing with poo-covered clothes, which you often end up with when using disposables. Cloth nappies hold the poo in far more often!
We chose cloth nappies because Lennon got a sore bottom from disposables — they smelled so bad even before he'd weed in them, and they crumbled apart.
The advantage of cloth is that they don't smell and the skin feels so much better. And they're prettier, both in looks and because your child is spared the "saggy bottom" that disposables give 😉
My favourites at Time Ahead are the nappies in Dala forest and Dala flowers. Such wonderful prints! At our house all the models of their nappies fit so beautifully.
