Cotton Bottoms Birth to Potty System

...with “Have you considered using cotton nappies instead of disposables?”. “Sorry?” I hear myself say, I’m confused, I’m in an incredibly undignified position, there are concerns over the health of the baby which is going to arrive in the immediate future and she chooses now to plug the environmental benefits of reusable nappies.

As it happens I had considered reusables. I’d never been at all environmentally conscious until I met my ...
...company I noticed was called Cotton Bottoms, and they had a website – http://www.cottonbottoms.co.uk. I promptly looked them up, saw their Birth to Potty Pack and the words “Save £150”. Hmm, that’s the saving? How much are they in the first place, I thought and saw that after the discount the pack was still £349.99. Blimey, I immediately went to check my e-mail instead.

I had a look at brands like Kooshies, a different reusable system ... more

So there I was, legs akimbo, a woman I’d only just met trying to stick a heart rate monitor in my unborn baby’s scalp, when she suddenly pipes up with “Have you considered using cotton nappies instead of disposables?”. “Sorry?” I hear myself say, I’m confused, I’m in an incredibly undignified position, there are concerns over the health of the baby which is going to arrive in the immediate future and she chooses now to plug the environmental benefits of reusable nappies.

As it happens I had considered reusables. I’d never been at all environmentally conscious until I met my husband in 1997; he had two bins, one for recycling and one for other rubbish. This seemed very odd to me at the time as I thought only Greenpeace subscribers actually bothered to do this and he certainly wasn’t at all new age or hippy-like. I did go through a phase of trying to be vegetarian when I was young and trying to be upset about animals being killed but I just couldn’t give up steak, or bacon, or pork or.. – you get the picture. So when I moved in with him he explained all the benefits of recycling, of the amount of energy you can save, etc. etc. and I followed his example.

I remembered hearing some horror stories of disposable nappies taking ludicrously long times to degrade and eventually taking up a stupidly large amount of landfill space on our planet so I had a look in the back of a magazine that Shelley79 bought me for the options available.

The first company I noticed was called Cotton Bottoms, and they had a website – http://www.cottonbottoms.co.uk. I promptly looked them up, saw their Birth to Potty Pack and the words “Save £150”. Hmm, that’s the saving? How much are they in the first place, I thought and saw that after the discount the pack was still £349.99. Blimey, I immediately went to check my e-mail instead.

I had a look at brands like Kooshies, a different reusable system in Mothercare but didn’t really come to any conclusions. It was after my daughter was born that my mother-in-law was looking for something big to buy as a gift to help Melody have a good start in life. I’d been using disposable nappies, Huggies to be precise, and had been frustrated at just how many nappies my daughter was going through. She would cry immediately after wetting her nappy and would continue to cry until she had a fresh one, it didn’t matter whether it was day or night, she simply had to let everyone know she’d had a wee.

I bumped into a friend at the weigh-in session in my local surgery. When she stripped off her daughter, low and behold she was sporting a lovely white, Cotton Bottoms, newborn nappy. I asked her how she found them and she told me that she was pleasantly surprised at how easy they were to use.

I mulled over this thought when I got home and pictured myself scrubbing dirty nappies first thing in the morning. Was I really that environmentally conscious? But then I remembered my mother-in-laws offer. Did her budget stretch to this? Imagine never having to buy disposables again. I couldn’t really refuse, and so the question was posed and the nappies were ordered.

Cunningly, we found the Birth to Potty Pack on Boots’ website – http://www.wellbeing.com, and although the same price, there were those precious Advantage Card points which gave me back 4% and as it happened six cuddly toys from a promotion they were running.

Just four days later two large boxes and a bin-bag wrapped bucket arrived via free delivery. I opened the boxes and separated the different sizes into newborn, small, medium and toddler. There was an awful lot of nappies which she wouldn’t be able to use for some time so you need to have quite a large storage area for these until you need them. It would be much better if they were sent out in sets of sizes a couple of weeks before the average baby moves up a size. Thankfully there is a users guide to explain how they work.

The nappy consists of three different parts:

Firstly you have the outer, waterproof wrap which has Velcro fasteners just like a disposable nappy. It has an elasticated waist and legs, and a small pocket inside the front. There are different prints available, I received Noah’s Ark which consists of pastel shades and Piggy Picnic, which has a rather bright blue background that shows through vests, though the newborn nappies were plain white. You receive 8 newborn, 6 small, 6 medium and 6 toddler wraps in your pack, different wraps can be bought separately for between £6 and £8.

The second part is the thick cotton insert, which tucks into the front pocket of the outer wrap. These come as “pre-fold” with extra padding down the middle. Now, “pre-fold” is a rather deceptive name as you now need to learn one of two ways of folding them yourself, as the folds are different depending on whether you have a boy or a girl (a girl’s fold is much less complicated, to my relief). There seem to be an awful lot of these; they provide you with 24 for newborn, small and medium and 12 for toddler size. These can be bought in packs of six for between £12 and £15.

The third part of the nappy is a disposable biodegradable liner which can be thrown in the bin or flushed down the toilet. These arrive on eighteen rolls of 200 perforated sheets and are nothing special. You just lay them on top of the cotton insert and tuck it into the pocket at the front. New rolls can be bought for just under £5.

Once you have put all three parts together you put the nappy on the baby. This may take a couple of goes, depending on how much your baby wriggles, but the principle is the same as a disposable nappy. Lift up baby’s legs with one hand, with one finger in between the ankle to make sure they don’t painfully rub together, place the back of the nappy under baby’s bottom and lower the legs. Bring the front of the nappy round and fasten the Velcro sides, then just slip your finger around the elasticated waist to make sure it’s comfortable. At first you may find that the inner parts slip out of the front pocket or that they stick out of the back, this just takes practice and I have to say they really are quite impressive despite their bulk.

Their bulk turns out to be one drawback to the system, though it has to be expected from a cotton nappy. I found that Melody grew out of her trousers faster than her tops to accommodate the enormous nappy she now sports, and I feel it is more restrictive on her learning to roll over, etc than a disposable nappy may be, due to it’s awkwardness.

So, what are they like when they’re dirty, I hear you ask. Well not as bad as I thought they’d be. The disposable liners don’t do much before you start weaning your baby as most of the mess seeps through onto the cotton insert. I found that wiping the dirty cotton with baby wipes got rid of the excess but I then had to put the wipes in a nappy bag and so created extra waste. They suggest flushing the waste by holding the nappy under the cascading water of your toilet when you flush it, but I can’t say that did much if I’m honest. When the nappies are wet they’re generally alright, although the overnight nappies tend to be REALLY wet, and quite smelly by morning.

Every morning I take the nappy bucket, put a spoonful of Nappy Bright, in the bottom and put in 5 litres of lukewarm, water ready for the day ahead. They only provide you with two boxes of Nappy Bright (environmentally safe) which means you will have to buy some more, but they come in small boxes for £2.50. The dirty nappies, and the outer wraps if they’re dirty or smelly, simply get plonked in this for the day and I confess that I tend to put them in again the next day to fill the bucket as much as possible before I wash them.

I started washing them by hand, mainly for the reason that I didn’t have a washing machine, and it wasn’t that bad. It was more the time it took up than the fact that I was washing day old body waste from bits of cotton. When you have a new baby, you have precious little time in the first place. After buying a washing machine secondhand for a bargain £25 I never washed them by hand again!

To wash in the sink you use a spoonful of Nappy Bright in warm water and give them a good scrub. Then rinse and wring them out, a lot, and leave them to dry on a hanging rail or radiators, or put them in the tumble dryer, depending on what you have. The wet nappies always came out a treat but the dirty nappies always seemed to have a big stain on them unless you took them round to someone else’s house and put them in their washing machine (thanks mum!).

Talking of washing machines this bit couldn’t be simpler. A spoonful of Nappy Bright alongside your usual non-bio washing powder, bung the nappies in the machine, alongside other clothes if you wish and they come out sparkling, well maybe that’s an exaggeration but clean anyway.

Drying the nappies takes a long time in the tumble dryer because they are so thick so I leave mine on the radiators over night. This is where I realise that having 24 cotton inserts is actually necessary. By the time you’ve got a couple in your going out bag, a couple spare for changing time, nappies lined up on your radiator and nappies in the bucket you can actually find you run out, bizarre but true!

Now, did it help my daughter to cope with a wet nappy for more than five seconds? I thought it would make it worse but oddly not. She started sleeping through the night, having no problems on shopping trips or long journeys, and was generally a lot happier than she had been. I was naturally worried about nappy rash but I would say that she has suffered no more from nappy rash with these nappies as with the old disposables, in fact I can think of only three occasions where she’s had nappy rash and one was from an allergic reaction to George Baby Wipes (but that’s another story).

I still use disposables when I visit friends or go away for any length of time as it’s impractical to carry a bucket with you wherever you go but I’m still on my first packet since using the cotton nappies.

I will mention that they sometimes leak, in my friend’s experience more than mine I have to say, and this resulted in her having to change her daughter’s clothes more often. On the other hand, I’ve had to change Melody’s clothes less than five times using these nappies so it proves that everyone is different.

The Cotton Bottom Birth to Potty System is very expensive and you need to consider whether you have the time and inclination to use them. The Boots website sells a trial pack, consisting of one wrap, one cotton insert and two disposable liners for £10, so I would advise you to try them first as it is such a huge outlay. I do feel that they are value for money, however, and that it is a saving in the long run. The benefits to the environment are unarguable, as the slogan of Cotton Bottoms say “For today’s baby and tomorrow’s world”.

Some areas have a laundry service which delivers clean nappies and picks up dirty ones which operate for around £7 a week. I haven't personally tried them but it is ideal for working parents and those with a hectic life (isn't that all of us?).

If you’ve been considering alternatives to disposable nappies, then this is definitely one I’d recommend.
 

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