How I become the Nappy Lady

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Anyone who knows me personally knows that I am not a naturally maternal woman. You won’t offend me by pointing that out. I love my children dearly, but I belong to the old-fashioned school which says that a mother’s role is to train her children for independence. Not be their personal slave until they move out in 20 years time, which is the current view, it seems.

So when friends discovered that I had become The Nappy Lady, much hilarity ensued. How could someone so non-maternal be interested in cloth nappies?

Well, this is how it happened.

Back in 1998, my husband and I were expecting our first child. Being fiscally prudent, I worked out that cloth nappies were tons cheaper than disposables, especially if we were going to use them for two children. So my original interest was purely financial.

Yes, I knew they were far better from a landfill point of view , and the concept of chemicals in disposables hadn’t even occurred to me yet, but at that stage, the cloth nappy revolution in the UK was still in its infancy. And choices were very limited. I basically had a choice between flat terries, flat prefolds (the American equivalent of terries, but nothing like as efficient) or shaped nappies.

Needless to say, my lazy gene preferred the last option, and I did my research on what was available. At that time, there was very little choice, and I ended up spending £150 on Kushies. I had read a number of reviews about how wonderful they were.

When ours arrived, and started to be used, my own experience was a disaster of epic proportions. They didn’t hold any explosive poo in from my breastfed newborn and took ages to dry.

Now, normally, when I spend money on something really expensive, it ends up tucked away in the corner not being used, and my husband fully expected that to happen here. But for once it did not.

I was determined to get to the bottom of why they were so disastrous when people said they were so good. I went back to the parenting forums to investigate further. What I found was that whenever a new parent said they were interested in using cloth nappies, they would be bombarded with suggestions of what to use, and those suggestions would be for completely different products. Why on earth would one nappy system be loved by one parent but equally loathed by another? It didn’t make sense at first.

What I gradually realised was that it all depends on circumstances, and the history of modern nappy development bears this out.

Back in the 1960s, all cloth nappies in the UK were terry squares (we hadn’t started speaking to the Americans in those days yet ). One basic product that everyone who used nappies knew how to use. People could give new parents advice on the best ways to fold, grip and launder. If you didn’t know, you could ask your next door neighbour.

Disposables, on the other hand, when they finally arrived, came in all kinds of different styles, as different manufacturers experimented with different methods. Eventually, one basic design shape prevailed, and all new disposables fit that format. Nowadays, if you know how to use Pampers, you know how to use Huggies and you know how to use store own brand disposables. The differences are in the chemicals used and the fit, but the basic style is the same for them all.

In the meantime, however, cloth nappies have evolved in exactly the opposite way. From one basic style, there are now many and varied style: shaped, flat, sized, birth to potty, tie on, Velcro, popper, one piece, two piece etc. Some of them don’t even look like nappies – I used to love taking a woollen tie-on nappy to demonstrations, just to scare the Dads, mostly!

And the reason they have evolved into so many different products is because this is very much a market created at the kitchen table rather than in a factory. Mums make a design that works for them, a few friends try it out and suddenly a new design is launched, a website is set up for a few pounds and off they go. Totsbots, the UK’s fastest-selling nappy happened like this: Fiona made a design, showed it to her friend Joanna, who was one of our Nappy Lady advisors, who told me about it, and the rest is history.

For cloth-loving mumpreneurs, the internet is a marvellous place, where they can compete easily with the big companies. Because what sells nappies faster than anything else is word of mouth, not big advertising budgets. This is a double-edged sword for The Nappy Lady, I have to say.

It took me a few weeks to realise why Kushies may be beloved by mothers of walking toddlers but were completely unable to cope with explosive breastfed poo, but then it very soon clicked into place that there are a number of key criteria to be considered before choosing a nappy system: budget, convenience, ease of drying, childcare etc.

What suits a comparatively well-off NCT-type of mother who may have a large house and garden, even a nanny and a fairly limitless budget is quite different from what would work for a single mother stuck in a two bedroom flat with no access to decent drying facilities. It seems self-evident now, but it was quite a bombshell at the time.

So I found myself on the parenting forums answering people’s cloth nappy questions with questions of my own about their situation, so I could advise them, unlike all the other mothers who were just keen to promote the nappies they preferred.

In addition, there is no one way to use and launder the nappies, so lots of “garden fence” advice was needed, to make up for the fact that your neighbour would no longer have the answers. Even if she used cloth nappies for her family, there is no guarantee they would be the same as yours.

And like Topsy, it grew. To save myself from lots of repetitive typing, I set up an information website and questionnaire, and eventually took on helpers to provide the advice. We were paid by also selling a range of nappies (never limited to one brand or style). Advisees could come to us just for advice, though we much preferred it if they also bought from us, as that was the only way we got paid.

My guiding principle has never been about the money. It has always been about helping women not to waste their money like I originally did. Once women get the buzz, they really love their cloth nappies, rather than just putting up with them, like their disposables-using peers usually do. That’s a hard concept to get over to anyone who has never used cloth nappies on their children, but very familiar to my cloth nappy-using friends and me!

And that, my friends, is how I came to be The Nappy Lady.

Morag

Morag Gaherty is a regular guest blogger here at Birds on the blog, and also over at the Nappy Lady blog, her regular blog about cloth nappies (and nappy videos as well).

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