craft workshops for children at Greenwich Market

Every Thursday and Friday, from 11.00 am to 4 pm until the end of the summer holidays. Children can try out different crafts with participating stall holders.

how many booster pads?

Booster pads are an excellent way to increase the absorbency of your nappy. You only need to use them during the night or when baby is out and about, approximatey 4 to 6 booster pads. Or, you may want the same number of booster pads as you have for nappies. More recently, nappies have been coming with their own attached booster pads, but there are still some nappies for which you may have to buy them separately.

how many wraps per child?

You will need far less wraps than nappies as wraps dry quicker and don't get soiled so often. Wraps come in different sizes, so you will need four or five wraps in each size. For the time you are using cloth nappies, you might use maybe 16 to 20 wraps.

machine loads

An average washing machine can take up to fifteen nappies, which can be almost your entire nappy stock, so one way of ensuring you do not end up without clean and dry nappies is to use a half-load wash program which nearly all modern washing machines will have. This program will use half the water and half the soap powder, thereby avoiding unnecessary and environmental wastage. You may want to wash your nappies, with the rest of your household laundry.

how many nappies per child?

I would suggest starting with 20 nappies and then adding more if you feel there are not enough. A newborn baby uses 10 to 12 nappies a day and as baby grows it will use less, averaging at eight a day.

As one of the main reasons for using cloth nappies is to lessen the impact on the environment, we would recommend that you dry your nappies on a washing line. However, cloth nappies don't take long to dry. A manufacturer may use a deep pile terry fabric which dries as fast as a bath towel, or will incorporate a design that allows the nappy to be opened up when drying.

Having too few nappies may result in your not having a dry nappy for the next/immediate change.

nappy types

Modern fitted nappies are usually categorised in three types.

The two-part nappy system, the most popular type of nappy, consists of a shaped nappy that is very absorbent but does not have waterproof qualities. You will have to purchase a separate waterproof wrap (also called nappy cover) to use over the nappy.

The pocket nappy is made from a waterproof material that has a slot opening where an absorbent pad is inserted

The all-in-one nappy (AIO) is, as its name suggests, in one piece, rather like the disposable, whereby the nappy consists of layers of absorbent material and the outer layer is waterproof .

Other more traditional nappies are square terries and prefold nappies

NAPPIES CAN ALSO BE CATEGORISED by size-type:

Birth-to-potty nappies come in one size only. These nappies can be made smaller or larger by means of poppers or by folding them so that they will fit baby from birth till when she is out of nappies completely.

Multi-sized napppies normally come in two or three different sizes. When baby reaches a certain weight, she will need to wear the next size up. Some multi-sized nappies have extra special sizes that you might not need such as xsmall for premature/tiny newborn and xlarge for big toddlers
AND NAPPIES CAN ALSO BE CATEGORISED by the main fabric they are made from
Bamboo nappies made from bamboo fibers
Cotton nappies, hopefully unbleached or somewhat environmental, by having for example environmental dyes
Hemp nappies, a very sustainable fibre which growns well with not much water
Organic cotton nappies
Organic velour nappies

There can be a mix match of categories such as a birth to potty two part bamboo nappy, or a multi-sized AIO organic cotton nappy, ect. It is this various mixtures of categories that can lead to people being confused about cloth nappies, but I hope now you will no longer be confused and start to be a master in the cloth nappy jargon.

8 Million disposable nappies used every day in the UK

Nappies are a major problem for developed countries. Such large numbers are used that the authorities are now faced with the huge problem of disposing of them. In the UK alone eight million disposable nappies are used every day.

At present the majority are being placed in landfill sites. However, they are being filled so quickly that they are running out of space, and sites for new ones are simply not available.

Understandably, no one wants to live near a landfill site and yet we don't mind sending our rubbish to where other people live. London, for example, sends 71% of its waste to the countryside.

Disposable nappies when soiled are so heavy that rubbish collectors know straight away which houses have babies and the ones that don't. In Kent, for example, nappy waste accounts for 4% of the total waste, when only 10% of families have babies. Kent County Council spends £2 million a year disposing of this waste in landfill sites. It is like burying £2 million that could be spent in education and health. And the problem doesn't end here. Disposable nappies biodegrade so slowly, they can stay in the landfill for the next 500 years.

With cloth nappies, faeces go where they are supposed to go, into the sewage system. Here the waste water will be treated to reduce the environmental impact before it is released back into the environment. Cloth nappies can be used again and again, so the energy used to make them (energy, water, etc) is completely justified.

nappy reviews

coming soon...

website status

Welcome to the new Green Me website. We still have some empty pages (such as the organic baby clothes pages - sorry!) and some links might not yet be working. However, the new website has many more features. There are now blog-pages such as this one, where everyone can post a nappy review, or check what others say about the nappies we stock. We will also provide unbiased information on how best to use and care for cloth nappies with troubleshooting tips. We hope it will help you to make the most of your cloth nappies... and baby carriers.