Becoming Domestic

As we were fortunate enough to be given LOADS of second hand washable nappies I am really enjoying not having to use disposable nappies which I’m glad about as disposables cost a fortune (about £10 for a week’s worth of botty changes) and they also are super stinky in the household refuse bin (even when bagged in a nappy sack). The washable nappies are collected throughout the day in a lidded pail with a mesh drawstring bag as a liner and few drops of tea tree oil to keep fresh and they are washed with a load of laundry at 40 degrees each evening or every other evening if I’m feeling slack (we have so many I don’t ever run out of nappies).

Before our baby arrived three months ago I wasn’t aware that people who use washable nappies also tend to use washable wipes and I had stocked up on a box of ‘environmentally friendly’ disposable wipes. These went fairly quickly and it was just by chance that I came across a woman on eBay selling brand new washable wipes made from fleece in a huge range of cheery patterns. I bought one pack of 10 from her (£1.50) then another and now we just use lovely pure warm water to clean the baby. The fleecey squares are kept in a little basket near to the babe’s changing station.

They are so soft and really big that the task of cleaning a really nasty nappy is far less trouble with these cloths than with any thin shop-bought tissuey wet wipe which must be full of chemicals. They get popped into the nappy pail along with the nappy and being fleece they don’t colour run in the wash.

I always have a few in my baby’s changing bag and get lovely comments about how pretty, soft, thick and useful they are. When the bub starts to eat solid food I’m sure I will get through plenty as little face cloths. I shudder to think how much I spent on disposable nappies + wipes with the twins before they were toilet trained it must have been close to £2,000 during the two years of their lives.

Happy now… 

Our little baby daughter is now 12 weeks old but for the first 10 weeks of her life she has been in obvious discomfort/pain. She has cried an awful lot especially when put down on her back for nappy changes, naps, in the car seat. She has also suffered with what appears to be highly acidic regurgitation of small amounts of digested milk. The only time she was not crying would be the first half an hour of the day when in fact she was a very alert and incredibly smiley little thing.

Apart from be worried about her and defend her when my husband nicknamed her The Bad Baby I was pretty sure there was nothing much I could do for her as when I took her to the GP they checked her ears, throat and temperature and declared that she was fine. She was gaining weight at a very good rate, being breastfed we knew there were no allergies to cows milk causing her pain and I just hoped she would turn a corner as she grew, became more sturdy and upright and her stomach became more mature.

Every nap time was taken in my blessed sling which she was constantly carried in as there was no way I could leave her crying on her back to do even the smallest household chore. If I stopped moving for even an instant she would wake up with a start and the crying would resume. Unlike my previous babies she did not nod off instantly in the car but if she did she would only stay asleep while we were moving and traffic lights caused her to wake up howling again.

I felt so so sorry for her. My mum was concerned for her as she remembered my brother being in a similar state when he was an infant and she claimed it (a) broke her heart and (b) held him back developmentally as instead of people cooing and interacting with a baby who is crying so much they are just in their own world of distress.

I chanced upon a leaflet at the local baby weighing clinic for a local osteopath which mentioned the benefits of treating ‘unsettled’ babies with cranial osteopathy as traumas from the pregnancy or birth can leave some babies with constant chronic pain such as headaches, stomach disorders, and can even hinder them from establishing breastfeeding if their little jaw bones haven’t popped back into the position they were designed to be in.

As a complete and utter sceptic but having reached the end of my wits having listened to my poor poor baby scream in my ear for so many hours each day especially when a bit of milky sick came up I made an appointment and trundled her down to the osteopath clinic. Read the rest of this entry »

I am six weeks into using the washable nappies we were given for our new baby. I do love using them as they give me a really high sense of satisfaction - especially when reloading the wicker basket with a pleasing pile of freshly laundered OneLife nappies and fluffy pink washable fleece bottom wipes. I don’t find the extra laundry a problem. I hardly notice it as I always have a number of white things needing washing most days anyway as the baby is a fairly sicky one.

If for some reason I do get through the 16 or so shaped nappies without getting them washed and dried I do have a number of ‘emergency nappies’ ready to go as well as my trusty OneLife nappies - these consist of a pile of terry squares (small but I wish I’d bought the larger size) and a whole load of all-in-one nappies which are a fine fit for the baby but harder to launder/dry with all their layers of padding and creases where yucky stuff can stay unoticed by the washing machine.

The only trouble is that I’m not so sure about how one gets through the night without a sodden baby by morning time without having to wake up and change them halfway through the night… I do add a booster but this seems to make very little difference. If my tiny bladdered baby is always soaking by morning time how on earth do green parents of bigger babies manage?

As it is much nicer snuggling up to a dry baby than a wet one in the morning I’ve recently started experimented with putting the babe in a little disposable nappy as I dress her for bed from the packet we bought to take to hospital when she was born.. The morning wetness with the washable nappies doesn’t seem to bother her but as she is in my bed lying on my sheets it does bother me!

[This post is for the girls…Blokes - look away now as not much here in this post for you other than persuading your women to use these two fabulous new products]

The Mooncup Menstrual Cup - An Innovative Alternative to Tampons

I can’t remember how I discovered the Mooncup I think it was reading a post on the ever-wonderful www.mumsnet.com/Talk/ forum. An environmentally friendly way of dealing with monthly menstrual periods which happy users were saying were better (cleaner, needing to be changed less frequently and more comfortable to wear) than any of the disposable sanitary protection products on the market? It sounded too good to be true so I read up on the manufacturer’s website and very shortly afterwards bought one (for about £15 I think).

The claims were absolutely spot on. One small silicon egg-cup shaped product is used in place of a tampon and collects the fluid. The fluid is then tipped away down the toilet and the Mooncup resinserted. It can be washed in water and between periods it has its own discreet little unbleached cotton bag with pretty pink ribbon to store in. No more shelves of bulky sanitary protection or being bamboozled by the bewildering array of choice in the ‘feminine hygiene’ aisle at the supermarket. No more spending good money on disposables products which clog up landfill every month of your reproductive years (how much does that add up to?!) Read the rest of this entry »

When we were deciding whether or not to have another baby after the twins turned 3 I scoured the internet for information to help us make this decision. Should we or shouldn’t we? Was it an insane thing to do or would it complete the family. Would it bankrupt us? Would we live in chaos and intolerable noise levels forever? Would a new arrival feel left out having older twin siblings? We had no way of knowing.

The strange thing about having twins is that although you have two children - which many would consider to be *plenty* it is wierd that they pass the same ages and stages at the same time and the knowledge and experience gained first time round cannot then be reused for a younger sibling. The huge wealth of parenting know-how built up over the first four years of having the twins helped us to decide that for us, another baby would (probably) be lovely. It felt like someone was missing, and we really could imagine ourselves in years from now having three grown up children round the dinner table rather than two. A friend of ours who also has twins who are now teenagers says he and his wife do look back and wonder why they didn’t have another to follow up the rear.

I came across this great writer in doing the research and her column about having three young children. It made me laugh and made me realise how busy/noisy/messy/relentless/exhausting having another baby would be…
Jennifer Eyre White

Like a Train Wreck (But In A Good Way)

By Jennifer Eyre White

I’ve been writing my column for a couple of years now, and this one is my last. I’ve had a blast writing for Literary Mama, and my favorite thing about being a columnist has been the emails I’ve gotten from other parents. A few of these lovely people have even asked me for advice on whether to have a third child. Since I have trouble figuring out whether I should have had a third kid myself — even 16 months after the fact — I’m probably not qualified to offer an opinion.

But if I were going to offer one, I’d start by asking some questions. Questions like, “How close are you to a Starbucks drive-through?” “Do you have easy access to a variety of high-quality medications?” “Are you comfortable with the idea of needing a cattle prod — or possibly a border collie — to control your herd of young?”

Lately I’ve been thinking that the most important question I should ask is, “What’s your tolerance for noise?” Because the difference between two kids and three is about 80 decibels.

[More…]

On Having Three Kids

By Jennifer Eyre White
http://www.literarymama.com/columns/degreesoffreedom/archives/000336.html

Where I live, just north of Berkeley, hardly anyone has more than two kids. I suspect it’s because so many families have two career-oriented parents, and kids are really bad for careers. Or maybe it’s because it’s so expensive to raise kids here. I dunno. Anyway, when Kennard and I decided to have our third child, we became something of an anomaly in our social circle. And after little Kirby was born six weeks ago, a lot of our friends started asking us, what’s it like having three kids?

Here’s what it’s been like so far. Read the rest of this entry »

Our little baby arrived in the small hours of Thursday 24th January and we were thrilled to discover that the mystery resident was a baby girl all along. We have named her Scarlett and cannot believe how tiny or how lovely she is.

Of course it is now a constant juggle to manage a house, a business, two five year olds and a newborn but compared to the inexperienced parenting of tiny twins in 2003 this is an easy time. The bigger children are already in a fixed routine which involves them waking at 7am, having breakfast, getting dressed and washed for school and then being at school until 3pm. The baby has been extremely easy to fit in with this routine primarily by starting her day at 7am for her first feed and then structuring her naps/feeds throughout the day to ensure she is both well rested and well fed by the time it is bath & bedtime at 6-7pm.

We give her a bottle of expressed milk at 10pm (enabling me to get a nice long interupted stint of sleep from 9pm) and then she only wakes once or twice for a feed after that. No matter what kind of night we have had I wake her each morning at 7am to start the day.

She loves being cuddled and isn’t at all fond of being put down to fall asleep on her own but being only 15 days in this world we’ll let her off. It is a joy to have the luxury of snuggling one small babe who lived so long within when the last experience of new motherhood was fraught with tensions as ‘The Other Twin’ always was next to the baby being dealt with needing its turn and there was never any time for lovely special things like cuddles, quiet crooning or just being awe struck by the miracle of little human life.

Small Boat

You’re safely launched and named,
champagned,
and you rest now alongside
while we two stuff your tiny hold
with food and weightier freight - our pride,
ambitions, hopes - all the old
cargo with which we were burdened,
for you to carry onwards
over our horizon
to futures too distant forour eyes.

Some day
too soon, you’ll slip your morring
and sail away
upon the morning
while we will wave you off
across the miles
with small brave smiles
and handy hankerchiefs.

Our hearts’ new cockleshell,
we wish you well.

(Don Barnard)

Having read a leaflet entitled ‘Real Nappies’ about informal drop in sessions being held locally for people wishing to find out more about using washable nappies I went along to a ‘Nappacino’ event and saw a very knowledgeable woman who knows all about using disposable nappies as a cheaper, more environmentally friendly and altogether less stinky alternative to using costly disposables which are well documented to be an expensive, highly processed, chemical containing, non-degradable yet time saving modern phenomenon. She bought along samples of the range available to parents and took the time to explain in great detail why cloth nappies are so wonderful.

I’ve been exceedingly lucky to have been given nearly 20 brand new OneLife ‘birth-to-potty’ cloth shaped nappies by my very good friend Jane to use for our newest child when it is here. I’ve also collected another 15+ of various other brands from generous Freecyclers in response to an advert I placed several months ago.

I went along to the ‘Nappacino’ event held by the local council in conjunction with Mandie who sells reusable washable nappies at her baby shop (www.honeybees-store.co.uk). I went because I wasn’t sure whether I had enough nappies, whether they were the right size or whether I needed any extra equipment.

My friend who also came along and I were both astounded to learn that there is still A LOT of awareness building to be done as so many parents-to-be just don’t know how lovely and how cheap washable nappies can be in comparison to nasty old disposables.

When my kids were in nappies (2003-2005) there were always some evil smelling nappy sacks containing foul nappies waiting to be taken outside to the bin, in the summer the wheelie bin would reek with a weeks worth of nappies being roasted inside. We added at least £10 extra to each weekly shop to cover a packet of nappies and calculated that we probably spent getting on for £1000 on disposables before they were potty trained. It was only when they were nearly 2 that I learned that had disposable nappies been around in King Henry VIII’s time we would still be surrounded by his generation’s festering nappies today a good 500 years later as they are not biodegradable. Yuck! Read the rest of this entry »

This week I realised I have managed to gather everything I will need for the expected new addition to our family due sometime in January.

The icing on the cake was being the winning bidder on eBay for a fantastic Graco travel system/pram/pushchair/car seat (*with* senior & junior cupholders!) which is a bit of a dream come true for me as I was limited to chunky, basic twin pushchairs when expecting the twins five years ago - all my friends with solo babies were choosing lovely prams with extra added sophistication. The purchase was especially gratifying as I ‘won’ it for £17 instead of the r.r.p of £180. Definitely my kind of pram.

As I have mentioned before we have been aiming to spend as little as possible on this newbie given that so much of the kit needed to make life comfortable with a pregnant bump or a new baby is required for such a short amount of time it makes little sense spend loads buying it all brand new from the many shops selling expensive baby gear.

When we had our twins 5 years ago we spent an aboslute fortune on kitting out a nursery, a double pram, two single buggies, huge packs of disposable nappies each week, toys etc etc. I was working in the City and Bealers had a successful software business so we didn’t even flinch at the fact that within a year over £10k had been squandered on two very small beings. Yikes! It would take a long time to save that kind of money and surely there are much more fun things to buy than baby related paraphenalia?

At the begining of this pregnancy I made a list of all the things I thought we would need this time round for a baby. This was obviously much easier having gained the knowledge of what baby things we found useful last time with both kids.

I also sent a slightly grovelly message round to friends with children asking them to think of us if they were passing on any baby things to charity as we’d gladly take them off their hands. So many people have been so kind with huge bags of lovely barely used baby booty now neatly stacked up ready for action in the spare room.

Despite the desire to keep things frugal and thrifty I have still totted up a grand total of £550.

Admitedly, we did decide to buy fewthings new which I hadn’t anticipated which made the total higher than it needed to be. For example I bought a brand new Amby Nature Nest baby hammock (£180) for the young ‘un to sleep despite being given a lovely moses basket. The hammock will hopefully double up as a travel cot too when we travel to see friends & relatives. I also spent what seemed like a lot of money on six new nursing tops + two bras (about £100) as I couldn’t find the ones I wanted on eBay - I figured the amount of use/washing they get subjected to over the course of the year or so they are in action it would be wise to buy new, well fitting, well made garments.

Here is the master list of things we wanted to get prior to Junior’s arrival, where we got it from and how much money things would have been had we bought it all new from a mid-range shop (e.g Mothercare)

• GIVEN: Moses basket (Thanks Kurt & Mandy! would have been £60)
  
• GIVEN: Changing table (thanks Sam! would have been £50)
• GIVEN: [Many thanks to Nat, Jonesy, Katie and Beki! ] Cardies, jackets, socks, hats, mittens, bibs, vests & baby grow, nursing pads,boob soothers, cream x 2, blankets (would have been £100)
• GIVEN: (Many thanks to Katie) Luxury nursing pillow (’My Brest Friend’ would have been £50)
• GIVEN: (Many thanks to Katie & Beki): 2 x Pumps (would have been £50)
• GIVEN: Tommy Tippee steriliser + bottles (huge thanks to Natalie would have been £50)
• GIVEN: Monitor (thank you Jules would have been £20)
• Given via Freecycle: Reusable, washable nappies x 20 (would have been £200)
• Bought 2nd Hand: Baby swing chair [£5 NCT nearly new sale would have been £40 new]
• Bought 2nd Hand: Baby play mats [£7 NCT nearly new sale] would have been £20 new
  
• Bought 2nd Hand: Nappy soak bucket (£3 NCT nearly new sale would have been £10 new]
• Bought 2nd Hand: Bump wedge [£3 NCT nearly new sale would have been £10]
• Bought 2nd Hand: Pram [eBay £17 Graco travel system incl. infant car seat/carrier would have been £180]
• Bought 2nd Hand: Bundle of maternity clothes (eBay £9 would have been £100)

• HIRED: TENS machine (£25 hire from www.expressyourselfmums.co.uk)
• Bought new: Nursing shawl wrap (£30 from www.expressyourselfmums.co.uk)
• Bought new: reast milk freezing bags (£10 from www.expressyourselfmums.co.uk)
• Bought new: : Nursing long sleeved and t-shirt tops (6 x tops £69 from Jojomamanbebe)
• Bought new: : Pack of two fitted moses basket/pram sheets (Matalan £3)
• Bought new: : Nappy change mat (£7 Matalan)
• Bought new: Gym/birth ball (birth-ease eBay £14.99)

• Bought new: Wrap around sling (http://www.closebabycarrier.com [£49.50]

• Bought new: Nursing bras x 2 [£50]
• Bought new: Amby nature nest hammock + pack of 2 x fitted sheets [£180]
• Bought new: Maternity sweaters x 2 + black leggings, jeans etc Mothercare and Next clearance warehouse [£60]

£545 = Total Spend

Of which were unnecessary brand new luxuries: £267= £180 Amby nature Nest + sling £50 + changing mat £7 + Shawl £30

£278 = Actual cost of thrift pregnancy/newborn babe

£1500 = Estimated spend if everything on the above list had been bought from new

The next step will be to ensure that everything we have gathered for our little chick is either passed back to its previous owners if they have further use for it, advertised on Freecycle or, in the case of the expensive things we bought brand new, sold as 2nd hand on eBay.

A slightly shocking discovery was made this week when an eBay seller told me she had been made to stop an auction of her pre-loved washable nappies as eBay authorities deem them too unhygenic to sell.

As a member of the keen-to-be-green community I had made my mind up that we would use washable nappies with our expected new arrival and, like most of the things we buy, I didn’t want to buy new as I know that there must be piles of outgrown expensive, high quality, reusable nappies looking for a new home.

I had already begun to wonder why there were no bundles of used nappies being sold on eBay until eventually I spotted the reason in this sellers description. She and I entered into a dialogue and she told me how the site had fairly recently changed its policy on the selling of reusable nappies.

My first reaction was to think ‘Oh how ridiculous! Fine then I’ll just have to set up my own auction website for the sale of 2nd hand nappies and related paraphanelia!’ but after a very small amount of research was pretty relieved to find that a woman who had made the same discovery as me regarding eBay’s rules had done just that and has set up the website

http://www.usednappies.co.uk/

A site dedicated to those wishing to sell on or buy used nappies. It certainly makes a lot of sense.

I don’t know the actual story behind eBay’s radical stance on real nappies (perhaps the eBay directors also sit on the board of Pampers & Huggies manufacturers…). My immediate reaction was one of dismay when I realised I wouldn’t able to buy them as I had planned because the sorts of people committing to using real nappies are exactly the sorts of people who are keen to save this country from being gradually turned into one large rubbish tip and to be disincentivised from recycling via passing on or selling nearly new nappies to new owners defeats the whole object.

If one doesn’t know where to buy second hand nappies despite good intentions one is forced to buy brand new stock which aside from being a huge expense (approx £200 to kit new baby out in enough washable nappies to last until it is potty trained I’m told) is not exactly following the ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ mantra we are told to chant. It is promoting the production and consumption of new goods. If one can’t sell on the £200 or so worth of nappies at the end of the infant’s babydom then they will be forced to be dumped in landfill just like the filthy disposables we are told take up so much landfill space. Also surely if there is a healthy second hand market then less people would mind shelling out the initial investment for pristine new nappies if they new they would recoup at least a small bit of cash for them in a few years time.

Grrrrr!

Before I found UsedNappies.co.uk I was left wondering where I could get my hands on such contraband and wrote a ranty ‘WANTED’ post to my local Freecyle network. A few blessed soles wrote back to me and this afternoon I was delighted to relieve a couple of women of their bags full of pretty, clean, freshly laundered nappies. The are about 20 or so nappies of makes I have heard of (Kooshies, Mother-Ease) so I figure I have already saved a good £150 by not being forced to buy them new.

The woman who originally told me that she was not able to sell her used nappies is selling a couple + liners to me privately for £7 and next week there is an NCT nearly-new sale which apparently specialises in maternity, baby and child related items. I will have a word with the organisers to see if they can promote the resale of second hand washable nappies in the absence of well known eBay’s help.

I can’t believe how generous people have been with giving away their baby clothes, bottles, maternity gear, moses baskets, towels, baby baths, blankets, sleeping bags, toys, bibs washable nappies etc.

All this has been kindly passed on to me before even sending out an official announcement that I’m trying to have a frugal pregnancy/eco-baby to the 10 or so friends who have had babes in the past couple of years for anything they would otherwise be giving to charity/Freecycle.

I’m *so* grateful but also understand that for those who don’t plan to have any more children outgrown baby gear can accumulate so quickly and can easily clutter up one’s home so it fdoes feel really nice to pass it on.

The one exception to the ‘only 2nd hand baby stuff for us please’ rule might have to be the product I found myself drooling over a few nights ago. I can’t quite recall how I managed to stumble across it (I think it was via either an online stockist of reusable nappies or a similar shop having searched for TENS machine hire). ANYWAY I found myself looking at pictures of happy babies sleeping soundly in a specially designed baby hammock instead of a crib, a moses basket or a cot. We have been given a moses basket which I now intend to put to good use when the little one is awake and just kicking around. Instead of having him/her on a play mat where its bigger brother & sister could accidently fall on it I’ll just lug it round the house with me when I’m attempting to get on with chores in another room

The theories with the baby hammocks are that a baby is snuggled into a hammock which more closely mimicks the movement and position of the in-utero sleeping quarters, the baby’s own movement on waking and waving their arms & legs around will rock them gently back to sleep, they don’t develop ‘flat head syndrome’ which one of my twin babies did from always having to sleep with the head to one side in its vast draughty cot when they were a miniscule 5lb baby, the thing is light-weight and portable so Titch can sleep in its own bed when the family is staying elsewhere overnight, and it doesn’t take up loads of room.

I’d love to speak to someone who has used this instead of a moses basket, crib or cot to see whether it is as lovely as it sounds. For £150 it is a lot of money but this price compares very favourably to the huge fortune one could choose to spend on a new baby. I also figure the small mountain of donated items in the corner of the room here behind me has easily saved us well over £150 so I feel very much entitled to treat myself and my tiny stranger at least the option of having a good night’s sleep occasionally.

http://www.amby.co.uk/

http://www.moffii.com/acatalog/Cocoon.html