This is for the benefit of my friend who is about to have six little carbon footprints pit pattering around her house in August. According to estimation, she will be using approximately 10,000 nappies till potty training … that’s a big landfill contribution to have on one’s conscience.

I have a convert: she has decided to go the terry route. Not only will she save the landfills but her children will be potty trained much sooner because the babies will feel when they have wet or soiled their nappies and have a greater tendency to want to use the toilet sooner.

I only began using the terrycloth nappies when my child was about 4 months old but that had more to do with the lack of availability of appropriately sized waterproof liners than it did to do with my desire to use them earlier. I noticed in PEP stores that they have a new great design in small waterproofs – a lot lighter and less bulky too. The fact that so many people are making the change back to cloth has had an impact on the industry making it a lot easier these days to covert.

There are people who claim that the use of chemicals, water and electricity outweighs the environmental benefits of cloth nappies but there is no need to use chemicals (in fact you shouldn’t as this isn’t good for baby’s skin) and there is no need to use hot water to wash them … or for that matter, to use a long washing cycle.

Because there will be three babies, washing will be done more regularly so you can get away with about 10 nappies per baby. Start with a couple of bags of nappy liners – the variety that can be flushed down the toilet – and a couple of bags of bum wipes. You need a nappy bucket – this is a bucket with a small lid within the lid for safety purposes. There is no need to use Steri-nappy, which is chemical, as there is an organic nappy steriliser on the market by Enchantrix. The nappy steriliser goes in the bucket, mixed with water, and the bucket gets tucked under the changing table or out of the way in the bathroom. Nappy liners catch the pooh and get flushed and all nappies just get thrown into the organic solution in the nappy bucket. When the bucket is fill – takes about 10 to 15 nappies – you do a cold, half hour wash in the washing machine with something like Mary-Anne’s concentrated and enviro-friendly washing powder (or the Enchantix or Bloublommetjies equivalent) and hang them to dry in the sun. So simple.

When the babies are very small, you will need to cut the cloth nappies in half but from about 4 months old, they can be whole. For nappy folding instructions, see:

I used the kite fold, which was best for a boy but experiment with the others to see what works for girls.