Real Nappy Stories
We're always keen to hear you real life reusable nappy stories so please feel free to write an article and send it along to us at hello@screaminggreen.co.uk. If you have a photo you would like us to include too then even better. We look forward to reading your stories and we're sure others will too.
Heather and Sophie x
Ten Washable Nappies on Umbrian Hill Farm Adventure
By Margaret Loescher
My husband, 22 month old daughter, ten washable nappies and I have just returned from a four week holiday in Italy. An experienced washable nappy owner might, upon reading this, think, “Washable nappies on holiday? What’s the big deal? You just pop them in the washing machine the same as at home? Right?” Wrong. This particular, isolated, ecologically friendly and water-concerned farm in the Umbrian hills had no washing machine. We did, of course, know this in advance and considered, for some time, whether or not to use disposables. Our decision to take washables was determined by the fact that we were traveling by train and did not have enough room to carry our familiar and partially bio-degradable disposables with us. We also knew that we would not have access to a car while away and did not know how easy or not it would be to go shopping to buy nappies. Even if we were to be able to get to the shops regularly would we be able to buy eco-friendlier varieties of the disposable nappy? And could we really embark on our organic farm holiday by train with no car and using disposables? It just didn’t seem to make ethical sense.
So the week running up to our departure we stocked up on ‘Potion’ washing powder specially designed to wash nappies at a lower temperature, our favoured ‘Earth-Friendly’ stain-remover, and rubber gloves. I did some test runs, washing a few nappies at a time in the bath-tub and reminding myself, hunched over the bath, that this was the way they always used to do it and the experience could only be a character building one. ‘Potion’ and line-drying seemed to work. They smelled clean, did not give my daughter a rash and were absorbent. We packed ten.
We spent several days getting to the Umbrian farm, stopping in Paris for two nights to catch up with old friends. During these traveling days we did use our disposables (we were able to carry one packet under the pram) as we were never anywhere long enough to allow washables to dry. But once we arrived at our destination we started washing! The weather was fine which made for great drying times and added sterilization from the sunlight. It also meant that my daughter, who is beginning to potty-train was able to spend good periods of time nappy-less, thus reducing the numbers of nappies needing to be washed. My husband and I took turns washing nappies at the end of each day. (One of us would wash the dinner’s dishes and one of us would wash the nappies!). We usually spent half an hour washing nappies per day and we usually washed between three and four nappies per day. We washed them in a plastic bucket in the bathroom sink to avoid the backache of bending over a tub or shower cubicle. We washed once making sure not to use too much soap and rinsed three times.
I think the nappies were cleaner than when machine-washed. This might have been because the nappies did not sit around dirty for two days as they do at home. The line-drying in the hot weather might have had something to do with this, too. I would definitely wash nappies on a similar holiday again and would recommend it to others going to sunny destinations with no washing machines available. It certainly did save time on our day-trips into town as we did not need to be finding, buying and carrying packets of disposables and it meant we had more time to enjoy ourselves and eat gelato (ice-cream) – a new favourite for my daughter!