Real Nappy Week 24th - 30th April 2017

Its Real Nappy Week and there’s no getting around it, in this Blog I will be talking about Poo! But I also promise a cute baby picture. We all do it and babies more than most, which is why the average parent spends between £800 and £1,500 on Nappies per child. That’s enough to fly you and your partner to Barbados and back, which thinking about it would probably still be better for the environment than all those horrid plastic nappies. Each year the UK dumps 355,000 tonnes of real nappies into landfill, that’s 50,000 double decker buses, there are only 11,000 in London. Just stop and think about that for a minute, we bury 5 times the number of busses on London roads each year that must be in one stinky pit! What’s more the average nappy takes 200 years to decompose so our little darlings' great grand children will have to deal with 71 million tonnes of dirty nappies. I can’t even imagine how many double decker buses that is, let alone where we’d park them. To put it another way if they had disposable nappies we’d still be dealing with nappies from 1817 when the infamous mad King George III was on the throne.

So, what's the alternative?

The good news is that there is an alternative and the even better news is that it saves money too, both personally and for society. Taxpayers spend £32 million each year dealing with dirty nappies, a figure that will only rise. But you can get modern easy to use (and re-use) cloth nappies that can save you anywhere between £500 and a £1,000, what’s more once you have bought them you can use them again and again for the second, third, fourth or even 14th Child, without spending a penny.

This week marksReal Nappy week 2017so there’s never a better time to research and find a bargain, so head over to theofficial Facebook Page

Evie models Dalmatian Real Nappy wear

You may have guessed that we have used real Nappies for all three of our children and it’s been a great experience. Once you get over the washing dirty nappies factor they are in my opinion even more convenient to use than disposable ones, they are easy to check and you only need to change if they need to be, and you don’t need to keep going back to the shop to pick up new bits and pieces. They are quick and easy to use and some are even super cute show off pieces, and just for good measure here is my little darling showing off her outfit.

The big downside from a cost perspective is that they are expensive to buy upfront, but the payback quickly comes back from not buying disposable nappies. If you're struggling with cash flow it may be worth contacting your localCredit Unionto see if it’s something that they can help with.

If you live in some London boroughs you canclaim a Nappy voucherworth up to £54, and its worth checking with councils outside London to see if similar schemes exist.

Where to buy?

We’ve got most of our nappies from asmall on-line store - Brilliant Nappies

Further links:

http://www.goreal.org.uk/real-nappy-week/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1287722.stm

http://www.realnappiesforlondon.org.uk/

http://www.whatprice.co.uk/health/parent/nappies.html

www.opodo.co.uk

Money Advice Hub Tip

You might also be interested in ourNHS Healthy Start Voucherspage.