Re-usable Nappy Challenge

Last September I wrote a ranty type post about my rubbish and the lack of weekly refuse collections. Asides from all the smelly general household waste that gathers over two weeks, one of my main complaints is all the used nappies I have to store each fortnight which back then was for my baby and my toddler (the latter of which is now potty trained so thats one lot of used nappies I no longer need to worry about). Its staggering to discover that on average one baby will use 5,000 disposable nappies during their nappy wearing time! This actually adds up to a bottom boggling 8 million nappies per day, which equates to 3 billion disposable nappies in the UK alone!

As a result of the above mentioned post, a few people commented and asked if I had ever considered using REAL nappies as this might help to eliminate some of my household rubbish, as on average only 48 re-usable nappies are used during a baby's nappy wearing years. Indeed 4% of ALL household waste within the UK is disposable nappies which can be as much as 50% for a 1 baby family!

I have to be honest that I had never really contemplated using real nappies. While I was pregnant with Burton it did cross my mind once about whether I was going to use real or disposable nappies, and because the latter are so easy to use and well disposable, I didn't give real nappies another thought. I guess I just weighed up all the washing I would have to do, which would include costs of

washing powder

washing machine and tumble dryer use

the nappy inserts

AND the time all that takes on top of the time a new baby takes up anyway V's the cost of a nappy which after use you throw away! So that was my last thought on the matter................

..........That is until the comments I received on that post, which actually got me thinking and I had a look on the internet and realised that real nappies had come along way since the days when I was a baby and my mum had to use safety pins to keep them on me and they had to be boiled washed or something like that (from what my has Mum told me!). So I took the plunge and sent a tweet out asking if any real nappy companies would like to let me review any of their products on my blog, and the lovely people from Bambino Mio replied and here I am about to start my journey as a first time user of real nappies!

my welcome nappy pack

Starting tomorrow, Monday 16th January, I along with 9 other bloggers will be taking part in a 5 day challenge to test and review the new Miosolo nappy. To be able to participate in this nappy trial I was sent a welcome pack which was beautifully presented and has already opened my eyes to how much more different real nappies are than what I had imagined!

The Bambino Miosolo nappy bonbon collection is available in 6 delectable colours

and has some great features including

• 1 size fits all
• can be used from birth
• contains a stay dry inner layer which prevents moisture escaping back onto baby
• contains a super absorbent core, which draws moisture away from baby and into the nappy

Obviously, apart from the fact that these nappies look great, parents who use real nappies do so because they are re-usable and are a 'greener' and possibly a more cost effective nappy choice. I must admit that I was fairly naive to the facts about these verses disposable ones.

According to the information I was sent from Bambino Mio, did you know that:

• Re-usable nappies could save you up to £700 for your first child
• Some UK councils offer cash back incentives of up to £70 to encourage people to use real nappies - in fact if just 10% more parents adopted re-usabe nappies for their children, a whopping £10 million would be saved by councils
• Re-usable nappies can be 40% more suitable for the environment than disposable ones according to the 2008 Environment Agency's revision of their Lifecycle Analysis Report on nappies

BUT

All the facts in the world added with some gorgeous looking products are not really going to determine how good re-usable nappies are until I actually trial them on my son. So as of tomorrow morning (probably around 6am!) I will be using re-usable nappies for the 1st time ever and I am curious to see not only how Jenson gets on with them but how I will cope having used disposable ones for the last 2 1/2 years!

Jenson 9 1/2 months old and raring to go!

I will be posting each day until Friday with my daily challenges and please feel free to come back each day to see how we are managing.

Wish me luck :)

WOW!

In conjunction with the miosolo challenge week Bambino Mio are offering 25% off all miosolo purchases from their online shop with free p&p!

They are even throwing in a free 100g of miofresh (nappy sanitiser) too! http://www.bambinomioshop.co.uk/miosolo-new-32-c.asp

All you need to do to take advantage of this brilliant offer is enter discount code challenge at the checkout.