The Motherease Wizard Uno is where we started our cloth bum journey, so it makes sense that it is our first review too! I now know that when we started our cloth bum journey I took a huge risk… I piled everything into one brand before even trying it. A new mum and slightly naive, it didn’t even occur to me how lucky I was and that not all brands are suited to all babies - thankfully the Wizard Uno suited H perfectly. I had two main reasons for choosing the Uno as our nappy system: 1, they were as close to a disposable as you could get, and 2, the stay dry fabric promised faster drying times t ..read more

Getting the fit right in cloth nappies can take a couple of practices, but it’s well worth perfecting. Quite often any issues your having with real nappies can be rectified by tweaking the fit. In this post I’m going to share a simple step-by-step guide for getting the fit: Start with the back of the nappy in line with the base of your baby’s back just above their bottom. This is lower than you would a disposable nappy which fits around the waste. NB. Some brands will fit slightly lower than this (namely Peachi Baby and Tickle Tots), start these at the top of Baby’s bottom crack. As you brin ..read more

Before my first daughter was born I was aware that babies didn’t really sleep, and that I could expect to feel tired for the next couple of years. What I was not prepared for was, just how little she did sleep. For a number of months she would wake every 40 minutes throughout the night, and when she did finally extend that, it was only to every 2 hours. It was exhausting. Fast forward two and half years and I was pregnant with my second child. Bedtimes were still a battle of wills, while she woke less frequently, we had a lot of split nights where she would be up for up to 5 hours at a time ..read more

After conversations with friends with older children, we had made the decision not to consider potty training until around 3 years old. However, as with most things we do like to be child-led, and when our eldest announced she wanted to use the potty at 27 months we rolled with it. We did attempt to offer the potty sooner than planned due to a persistent nappy rash requiring lots of nappy-free time. In order to save our carpets, we got the potty out to see how she would respond. It was a flat no. In fact, if she needed to wee she would run and hide to do it. This confirmed two things for us ..read more

There is a lot of different advice out there for washing nappies. According to the NHS highly dirty items such as towels, bedding and cloth nappies should be washed at 60° with a bleach-based product. Our routine has derived from the UK Nappy Network website and I have continuously tweaked it to fit it with our lifestyle, washing machine, drying facilities and nappy selection. Our nappies are a mix of bamboo, hemp, microfibre, all in one, all in two, pocket, flat, shaped and wraps. When trialling different routines for yourself always make sure you refer to the manufacturer guidelines to prot ..read more

[Contains affiliate links*] Isn’t it loads of extra laundry? This is probably the question I get asked the most when people learn that we use cloth nappies, and the most common reason people give me for not trying it themselves. For me, although I complain about doing laundry a lot, the nappies never bother me. I actually find it quite enjoyable, and sitting mindlessly re-stuffing nappies in front of the telly at the other end once H is in bed is strangely therapeutic. We have around 30 nappies in rotation (more than you need to cloth full-time) meaning I can get away with washing every thre ..read more

[contains affiliate links] Following my fairly quick and very positive birth of H, one of the midwives said to me “You might want to consider a home birth next time” to which I laughed and said “Next time I’m having an epidural”. Roll on next time and I find myself self-referring to our local home birth team as soon as I found out I was pregnant. What changed? A close friend of mine, and home birth advocate, wisely pointed out - use of the pool isn’t guaranteed in the hospital and for me this was a must have. In our area we are lucky enough to have the dedicated Lavender Home Birth Team and b ..read more

I’ve had this blog post in mind for months now, I keep coming back around to it, then when I go to write it she suddenly starts sleeping better and I feel like a fraud. That being said however I think perhaps an account of our sleep (or lack of) may be exactly what some parents need to hear right now, so here goes… If you’ve read my birth story you’ll know I had a pretty straightforward birth and was lucky to come home the same day. The first few weeks of H’s life were as to be expected, frequent wakes, lots of feeding, nothing out of the norm. About six weeks in, we had a day where she slep ..read more

Daddy H and I have been trying to conceive baby number two for over a year now. This is a secret I have been carrying for almost as long but I now feel ready (I think) to share our story. It took us 13 months to conceive H. Back in 2015, I had an unplanned ectopic pregnancy which resulted in the removal of one of my fallopian tubes. We were generally careful and had just one night of not being so, and bam, we were pregnant. We were not ready, so when the ectopic diagnosis came it was almost a relief. After to speaking with one of the nurses, despite losing a tube I felt reassured that the fac ..read more

[contains affiliate links] I always thought I was a bit of an eco-warrior before I had H, I was strict about recycling, nothing was thrown out if it still had life and I had big composting plans once the garden was sorted. I was doing my bit, what more could I even do? Then when I was pregnant, something sparked in me, all of a sudden I didn’t want to send 4,000 nappies to landfill for 500 years. ,,I’ll just use cloth, it’s that simple. I’ll use cloth nappies, not wipes, no that’s a step too far, but nappies I can do. A little more research down the line and all of a sudden wipes didn’t seem ..read more