Nappy free way before three

20 April 2023

Super proud mum moment

...at the bottom of this post, though the preamble is a gem in my opinion!

I refused to use disposable nappies with Eden, or even the supposed biodegradable disposables, instead going down the route of cloth nappies combined with "lazy E.C."

E.C. is elimination communication, pretty much how nature based tribes still do it and how our ancestors did it - with the parent having a deeper intuitive sense of when baby needs to wee or poo and holding them under a bush or over a hole in the ground, or in our case a potty, though we are partial to wild wees and the occasional wild poo, well burried of course!

Lazy E.C. meant I did that some of the time and put Eden in lovely hemp and cotton cloth nappies the rest of the time.

After trialing cloth nappies with wonderful local donation based nappy libraries, I decided to make my own hemp and cotton nappies, with help from my mother who is a skilled seamstress. One of her love languages! Foldable squares and a thick pad. Plus some nappy clips and just two nappy covers, one for day and one for night, handwashed in between.

A wallpaper scraper made the perfect "poon" - a scraping spoon so poo went down the loo, then nappies went in a bin till wash day every 5 or so days. Simple!

And an old stretchy cotton bedsheet which I cut up into pieces while sitting in my friend's rocking chair while newborn Eden was sleeping became our stash of wet wipes, moistened with warm water or even better yet some herbal tea from my flask.

Plus a couple old towels cut up into smaller scraps for additional spillages.

Eden was nappy free and bare bummed around the house from 6 months old and, sure we had a fair few weeing accidents to wipe up, but less poo incidents as he knew when he needed to and got on the potty.

By 18 months old he was nappy free all day and pretty well versed in using the potty when he needed to wee or poo.

Since 20 months he hasn't been wearing a nappy in bed either as he'd been dry at night for weeks too.

Compared to "the norm" our approach has been both environmentally-friendly, and has helped to build body awareness and awareness of bodily functions, and I'm sure it's a massive reason why he's so embodied.

Earth care and people care in one simple approach. Let's normalise this!!!

I'm a single parent who moved home 4 times in this period, so if I can do it so can the next person! All it takes a bit of organisation. I've spent less than £200 on nappies, waterproof nappy covers, wet bags and donations to nappy libraries. A drop in the ocean compared to the cost of "the usual" 3+ years of disposables. And I can give these to someone else now or repurpose them as cleaning clothes or menstrual pads or something else.

My only downfall is I had to get Eden some lovely organic cotton boxer briefs as he isn't allowed to go commando at kindergarten!

Though most of Eden's clothes are second hand and Preloved I felt his first pants should be brand spanking new. Probably my own childhood trauma of often having my older sisters hand-me-downs!

And now here we are. Eden's 2.5 years old and today I'm a super proud mum cos he sometimes likes to do a stand up wee into the potty, and with legs wide and hips thrust forward is really bloody good with his aim.

As for this photo - yep, that's an 80s mini yamaha keyboard under his arm, and yes it has some really annoying tones and demo tracks. Time to hide the batteries?