I received a 20% discount from Nappykind http://www.nappykindboutique.co.uk towards Joss’ new babylegs, all views and creative direction of this post are my own.

Joss and I have been using cloth nappies since she was old enough to fit the birth to potty styles, so since she was ten weeks. We often get a lot of interest when out and about, we also do a lot of mythbusting, so thought we’d share our top tips for cloth bum babies and mums. This is the first post in a series on cloth bum babies.

1) Seems like a minefield of brands and styles? There are people out there who can help you!

You could find out about your local nappy library (I know, like for borrowing books, but fluffy, how good is that?!) here http://nappynetwork.net/nappy-library-map/ . I like coffee, and Joss likes cake, so we like to go to our local Nappuccino, Cappuccino, Nappucino, see what they did there?! Many libraries or Real Nappy Advisors run them on a monthly basis, so you can get advice, chat to other cloth bum mums and as I did recently, get support when your little one has a teething rash and you have had offers of hundreds of different creams to use! When I’m not working we go to a local one.

2) Save yourself some pennies and do some of the legwork yourself

We had a lot of poly-fleecy baby blankets that Joss had outgrown. Fleece makes a great nappy liner, it wicks the moisture away from baby’s skin and is really absorbent, if you’ll excuse the TMI but I call a spade a spade, the poo just flicks off down the toilet and it’s a lot less wasteful than paper liners. We try not to use disposable liners unless childcare necessitates, instead we make our own fleece liners cutting a template to the size of your nappy brand you can get lots of funky coloured liners for free in our case, or the £2 cost of a cheapo blanket. Do tell the grandparents if you’ve just popped a virulent red in as this caused a bit of alarm until closer inspection revealed a cheeky monkey! If you use disposable liners and you need to put a lot of nappy cream on as we have of late a fleece liner gives your nappies better protection too!

3) Think about clothing for a big cloth bum

Many brands offer ‘a cut for cloth’ range for a big cloth bum. We’ve found two some simple things invaluable, vest extenders and babylegs. Vest extenders help accommodate a cloth nappy at night, meaning we save more as we don’t need to move up into the next size vests so often, most baby stores and nappy advisors sell them. Babylegs are something that we really like. They are so simple but effective. Babylegs are baby leg warmers, they keep babies legs warm in a sling, unlike tights which can cause pressure wicking around nappy legs they are cut to the top of the leg, and when potty training (which is looking likely as Joss keeps loudly announcing ‘poo’ and ‘weeweewee’ in cafes) they are easier than rushing to pull tights and trousers down!

We recently took up Nappykind Boutique’s kind offer of a 20% blogger discount on babylegs, great as we were about to look for more to see us through the winter! These funky mustard yellow ones are super soft and super warm.

To add to my list of benefits above here are some more from the packaging:

An added bonus for you thrifty mamas? Not just for babies they can be used for older children and once outgrown they can use them as arm warmers too!

We’re really pleased with the quality of the babylegs stocked by Nappykind, they’re really stretchy, a good fit for my tall girl and come in a wide range of styles and colours.

The postage offered by Nappykind is really reasonable and the leg warmers arrived quickly! The only problem we had was that the washing/care directions on the packaging were in Japanese which I thought was rather fun, I did a bit of googling and we gathered they could be washed up to 40 degrees and tumbled too!

4) Sunlight is your friend

People always ask about whether poo goes in the machine and how I feel about that! Until weaned a baby’s poo is really water soluble, once weaned the poo flicks off the liner and the nappy gets washed as normal. Sometimes you do get a bit of staining, especially if you have a big stash of nappies and you want to wait a day or two between washes. This is where the magic of sunlight comes in, rain or shine get the nappies on the line and the sun will help to gently bleach them out! Follow the washing directions on your own nappies, they vary across brands and materials, i.e. microfibre, bamboo etc and be conservative about detergent usage, a little goes a long way and you want to avoid detergent building up. We use Totsbots Potion, there are others on the market and many Mams use an ordinary detergent. You will develop your own wash rinse routines as we have over the past year. Oh and if you find a small plump raisin in the rim of your washing machine door, do not be alarmed, we sometimes have escapees too!

5) Want to save more money and the planet? Wash your wipes

Opt for washable wipes, you’re washing the nappies anyway, this is a big saver and great for a sensitive bum. I use just plain water and wet them as we go, others soak a stash for the day with a few drops of essential oils. You could buy a washable wipes kit, you could also just use flannels as a friend of mine who got 5 towel bales as wedding gifts does!