Pros and Cons of AI2s

Pros

• snap in inserts can somtimes be replaced reusing the shell
• spare inserts to shells reduces the initial outlay
• parts of the nappy can be replaced more easily
• extra guards for double protection in Options nappies

Cons

• slightly bulkier than AIOs
• time spent preparing snapping together nappies

All in One nappies (AIO)(smooth outer)

Pros and Cons of AIOs

Pros

• trimmer fit
• easier
• no thinking, 1 piece on, 1 piece off, 
• no checking how clean or what is clean enough, separating re snaping etc
• 1 piece to hang out, bring in, then its just ready to go!
• Easy Dry nappies come with a nappy sized wet-bag
• EOS comes with a mini booster
• extra guards for double protection, both EOS and ED

Cons

• can't easily replace absorbency
• more expensive up front

All types of nappies can and do leak at times! 

I've worked as a nanny in a few different countries, I've worked with children ever since I left school, I'm an oldest sister, I've worked in long day care, in the babies room, right through to 3-4 yr olds. I have 3 children of my own and nieces and nephews and friends with babies. Lucky me!

What all this means is I've changed tens of thousands of nappies! All sorts of cloth nappies, all sorts of rubbish (single use/disposable) nappies, they all leak at times. Why? Generally its just the nature of dealing with liquids! But there are some reasons and some things that can be done about it, so lets have a quick chat about why and what you can do :) 

Often nappies leak for 2 main reasons - 

1. They are full

2. They aren't fitting properly

Lets look at these 2 main reasons in more detail. Then we'll have a look at some "other stuff" to consider as well. 

Some quick questions to help you trouble shoot any "leaks"  

1. Does the nappy leak almost straight away? - Yes? - check the fit 

2. Did it seem to leak before you even picked up your baby? - possibly weed whilst nappy free mid change, in stealth mode ;)

3. Is the nappy saturated? Yes? - Add more absorbency --- No? check the fit

4. Does the nappy leak on the same side all the time? Yes - Is your baby a boy? Yes? - Did you point him down? Yes? - Did you check if pointing straight down was moved whilst putting on the nappy? No? Check again after the nappy is on, things can move while you stretch across the nappy to do up one side or the other.

They are full

If you put 10 litres of water in a 9 litre bucket, it will over flow. The same goes for a nappy of course! This might mean the nappy is saturated all through the nappy, or it might just be that the nappy is "full" in the wet-zone and the liquid is not getting to the other parts of the nappy before it is over flowing. Ever seen a toddler in a disposable that has been left on them so long it is hanging down between their knees? That's a quick way to understand where the wet-zone is. 

Boys and girls tend to have slightly different wet-zones, this also changes for sleep times too of course. 

Generally speaking boys tend to need more absorbency towards the front than girls. 

Tummy sleepers need a lot more absorbency towards the front and even up the front of their nappies.

With cloth nappies absorbency location can be customised. More absorbency can always be added to ANY type of nappy at ANY time of day or night. With bambooty nappies you can target the absorbency without adding more absorbency, by folding 1 or more flaps towards the front of the nappy instead of laying them all flat. Alternatively you can add in a mini booster in the wet-zone to target any extra absorbency needed in the nappy. For boys, towards the front, girls more in the middle of the nappy, sleep times, maybe at the back of the nappy or right up the front for tummy sleepers. Larger night inserts can also be added in at any time of day or night as well. 

While most people will use our nappies with the white, stay dry "suede-cloth" fabric on-top, you can also target the absorbency better if needed, by placing the absorebncy flaps the other way around and having the bamboo fabrics next to the skin in the wet-zone. As babies/toddlers get older and start holding onto their wee longer, they often start to flood the nappy all of a sudden rather than in smaller more frequent wees. This can cause problems for nappies trying to absorb quickly enough in the wet-zone. Having the bamboo fabric on-top in these times can be very beneficial. Bamboo on-top can be achieved by using the flaps already contained in (AIO) or provided with the nappy (AI2) or by using mini boosters or night inserts and laying them on-top instead of underneath the existing absorbency.

Frequency of changing - how frequently you change your baby's nappy is up to you of course. How much absorbency your nappies will need will depend on how frequently the nappies are being changed. Time of day can make a difference too. Here are some guidelines for you. 

The Mayo Clinic states, "Whether you use cloth diapers, disposables or both kinds, always change your baby as soon as possible after he or she wets or soils the diaper to keep the bottom as clean and dry as possible."

Childcare experience - when I worked in long day care, we changed or checked nappies every 2 hours to meet adequate hygiene standards for accreditation. 

Bambooty suggests - aiming for 2-3 hourly changes, for a balance of best practice in terms of frequency of changing and being practical about daily life in a family! Although we believe the very best thing is for mostly nappy free time, but that is long story. (and you thought this was a long blog post).

Personally I used to aim for 2 hrly changes, making a mental note in the morning of when they would be during the day, based on the timing of the first change of the day. I wouldn't wake a sleeping baby to change though and with my children's wetting habits, in the morning I needed to boost the nappy, by the afternoon a nappy could be almost dry even after 4+ hours. (by accident)

Dispoables tend to leak due to being full. The design seems to focus on speed of absorption rather than a fit for containment. If disposables are leaking they usually need changing more frequently, or for night times when that isn't possible, adding a cloth nappy absorbency booster will help :) Mini boosters or night inserts depending on how much more absorbency is needed and how much will fit inside the nappy. 

They aren't fitting properly

If nappies don't fit properly they can easily leak. Gaps are highly likely to let liquid out of the nappy before it can be absorbed. 

Tweaking the fit of a nappy can sometimes take a few goes or more, usually once a good fit has been found, as long as a nappy isn't left on too long, (ie: isn't full or over flowing) they usually don't leak. Hooray! 

Fit tips - We have a few different blog posts on fitting different styles of nappies, generally speaking though, once the nappy is on, run your fingers around the legs to check the fit isn't too loose or too tight, if you can't get a finger inside fairly easily, it is too tight and needs loosening. If it is too loose you also need to adjust the fit. Either way, try to move the leg elastic as high up the legs towards the hip crease as possible. This makes it more comfortable for baby and better for containment.

Other fit tricks include, adding in a mini booster or similar, this can help a nappy size to fit a bit earlier if it was slightly too big. Some bambooty nappies come with cross over snaps and One Size Options and Easy One Size have hidden hip snaps that can also be used to tweak the leg fit if necessary. 

Tummy gape with a snap closure nappy? skip a snap across the tummy. See a demo here.

Easy Dry stretching the rise - see check out these demos to see how to stretch out the sizing of your Bambooty Easy nappies. This can and should be applied to all our easy nappies. Easy Dry, Easy Nights, Easy One Size and One Size Options too. Stretching out the shell of the nappy helps to get a great fit on your little or not so little one, as the case may be. 

Demo 1, Demo 2

To fit your Easy One Size or One Size Options nappies with the newborn setting, here are some clips for you. 

Quick instructions, Real demo (5 week old baby) 

For tummy sleepers, we recommend higher rise nappies such as our Easy One Size, One Size Options or XL Easy Nights. Moving as much abosrbency towards the front of the nappy (without compromising the fit) and having the natural fabrics next to the skin. 

Boys need to be pointing down of course. Check this again after the nappy is on. If you have a baby boy who's nappy is leaking on the same side all the time (cloth or rubbish nappies) tripple check this!

Please do trial and error your own situtation and fix too! While we have a lot of expereince with lots of types of nappies, we aren't there with you, so don't feel nervous about trying something new! and let us know how you get on if you find a neat tip or trick, we love hearing from you all! 

Usually tweaking the fit and/or figuring out the absorbency requirements fixes most issues, if not, then please do read on :) 

Other Stuff

Other stuff can include factors such as potty training readiness. This happens at varying stages for all children and varying beliefs on being ready to go no nappies! Exciting stuff, unless you will miss your cloth nappies, in which case my condolances, however this is a positive milestone for your little person, so we'll focus on the positives ;) 

Day time - potty training. 

When our little ones get ready to potty training they can start to hold onto their wee longer, thus flooding their nappy very quickly. This makes it challenging for a nappy to absorb quickly enough to meet the rush of liquid thrown at it. Sometimes this can cause leaks. As mentioned above, putting the natural absorbency next to the skin will help the nappy to absorb faster and therefore reduce leaks. You may also need to add in boosting with mini boosters or night boosters as the case may be. 

Side sleepers - tricky! 

Side sleepers tend to pose similar problems for a nappy that the potty training stages can also cause. Flooding the nappy quickly. This is particular for side sleepers as the part of the nappy that needs to absorb super quickly is the narrowest part of the nappy. Again having the natural fabrics on-top (next to the skin) helps the nappy to absorb as quickly as it possibly can. Making sure any night or nap time boosting is appropriately positioned as well. It can go on-top if that's easy :) 

Washing

While it is fairly hard to damage your nappies with your washing, the obvious things to avoid, bleach and fabric softener, will both obviously reduce the nappy's ability to function, both in the short term as well as the long term. They can deteriorate the fabrics, elastics and PUL, plus leaving behind unwanted residues. These are to be avoided! Or just cope with the consequences if you choose to use them anyway I guess. If you have used fabric softner, you'll need to thoroughly wash them again at least once to remove it. How many times that will take is a bit of trial and error, it isn't the end of the world though :). Washing is one of the harshest environments that a nappy goes through, that and being soaked in urine for hours or days at a time. For the urine, we suggest in our care/washing instructions to rinse them asap after changing, this dilutes the urine so increases the lifespan of the nappy. Also washing every other day to thoroughly remove the urine from the nappy. For the general washing factor, there isn't much that can be done about this, as of course they need to be cleaned! But keep it realistic. Start with some detergent and a regular wash with a prerinse, if this is not clean enough for you, then by all means wash for longer or warmer water or more detergent until you find what you are happy with, just keep in mind even the gentlest washing does impact the lifespan of the nappy's absorbency in particular. Which is how this is relevant to the leak factor.

PUL delaminating

Thankfully this is not a common problem for bambooty nappies hooray!! :D If it has happened, there isn't much you can do about it unfortunately. Contact the retailer you purchased the nappy from if it is within a reasonable time frame. Eg: If your knickers lost their elastic or got a hole in them after you'd been using them for a year or so, would you contact the retailer to complain? I doubt it. If this has happened, the shell or cover is relatively useless and has reached the end of its lifespan. Keep any absorbency from the anppy before you bin it though, snap in inserts are obvious, but even for our AIO nappies, I suggest cutting out the absorbency flaps, they may be useful in other nappies as mini boosters. 

Old nappies

As we can see with old towels, other underwear, jeans etc, clothing does wear out. While hopefully your nappies will last at least 1 child, if not more! They aren't going to be perfect for more than 2 years and then suddenly die when you don't need them anymore. Over time they will become ever so slightly less absorbent due to natural deterioration. Mostly you won't notice it from 1 week to another, but you might start to notice it over the years of use. Snap in nappies can easily have absorbency replaced within them. AIO nappies can also get new absorbency easily enough by cutting out the suedecloth flaps and laying in or sewing in more abosrbency. The shells are the most expensive part of the nappy and they usually last for many years, with a bit of TLC. The absorbency can easily be replaced or added to with boosting so you can have reliable nappies for many many years! We have some customers who have used their nappies on 4 babies! Believe it or not, we love hearing this :D :D :D 

Clothing 

How tight or loose is the clothing that is getting wet? Sometimes clothing such as onesies can tuck themselves into the edge of a nappy (any type) and wick or draw the moisture out of a nappy. This may appear like the nappy is leaking however it isn't. The clothing has assisted the wee to get outside of the nappy. This can also happen for example with loose tees etc touching the insde of the nappy at the back or tummy of the nappy, especiallly for tummy sleepers. None of these are a problem of course! Just keep in mind this could be happening. If it is, try to be aware of it, change a bit earlier or pop a mini booster in the wet-zone, a nappy with more absorbency in it is less likely to have the liquid wicking to the outside of the nappy. 

If you are still having troubles, please don't hesitate to get in touch. We're always happy to help :D 

Resources

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diaper-rash/symptoms-causes/syc-20371636

Unfortunately, in an era where some politicians think climate change is rubbish, I suppose nothing should surprise us. But, as crazy as it is, we thought it was time to debunk this myth once and for all. 

For starters, CHOICE – the highly respected Australian consumer advocate – makes it clear in their 2014 Nappy buying guide: “For environmental and financial reasons you can’t go past MCNs (modern cloth nappies.)” 

But let’s break it down. A child uses an estimated average of 4000+* nappies in a lifetime. The plastic in disposable nappies is made from oil – about 1 cup of crude oil per nappy, to be precise. The absorbency is made from wood pulp. The manufacturing process creates carbon emissions (about half a tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent over two-and-half years).

And if you’re concerned about water usage, consider this: A disposable nappy requires about 37 litres of water to manufacture. By comparison, a cloth nappy only uses a few litres of water to wash in a machine (Most 4-star washing machines use about 10 litres of water to wash 1 kg of laundry, according to the Australian Department of Agriculture).

But there’s more good news. The most recent update to a study on the Life Cycle of Nappies, published by the UK’s Department for Environment, shows that reusable nappies are up to 40% per cent better for the environment, depending on how they are used. And that doesn’t even take into account, the impact of landfill and soil contamination from disposable nappies! Furthermore, you probably already follow the recommended guidelines for maximum environmental benefit:

• Dry pail nappies, don’t soak them before wash
• Air dry, don’t tumble dry
• Use an energy efficient washing machine
• Wash in temps below 60C
• Wash in fuller loads
• Use an eco-friendly detergent
• Reuse on a second child, pass nappies on or buy them second hand 

Even better, here at Bambooty, our nappies are designed to make it easy to “do the right thing”:

• Stain resistant layer eliminates need for soaking
• All-in-two nappy options reduce drying time and minimise need for tumble drying
• Bulk packages and BASICs options mean you can buy enough nappies to allow time for air-drying
• Organic cotton and bamboo materials further reduce ecological footprint
• High quality means they can be reused on more than one child. 

In short, using cloth nappies is not only a lot better for the environment, it puts you in the driver seat for controling the impact as well as controling what is going on your baby's skin.

Still not convinced? Let’s go back to Australia’s beloved CHOICE for the last word: “Despite the environmental costs of fabric production and nappy laundering, cloth nappies that are dry-pailed and mostly line-dried still come out ahead of disposables.”

So next time, someone tries to tell you disposable nappies are best for the environment, tell them they’ve got to be joking!

*an average of 6 nappies/day for 2 years

https://www.nct.org.uk/branches/dorking/nappuccino-advice-using-real-nappies

https://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/dangers-of-disposable-diapers

http://www.goreal.org.uk/environment-2/

https://www.choice.com.au/babies-and-kids/baby-clothes-and-nappies/nappies/buying-guides/disposable-and-cloth-nappies

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/291130/scho0808boir-e-e.pdf

How much is enough? How do you know? Who do you trust?

A common sense approach - 

When figuring out how much washing powder to use, without having vast quantities of money to spend on lab testing every year or more frequently, we need to rely on those around us, who do have the resources. It appears to me, the 2 main groups providing this information to the general public are CHOICE- (Products and services rigorously tested, rated and reviewed. No spin.) Or Main Stream washing powder companies. Lets have a quick look at both of these options.

CHOICE – Australia's leading consumer advocacy group.

Laundry detergent buying guide-

“A fraction of the cost

Depending on which laundry detergent you decide on, you may be able to use half (yes, half!) the recommended dose, saving yourself money and giving the environment a bit of a break. In the past we've tested top performers and they were just as good at half the recommended dose, and others we tested performed well at half the dose on particular types of stains. While we can't test every dose variation, experiment with your detergent to see whether you really need a full cap to get a wash you are happy with.”

For anyone interested CHOICE test every year, or even more frequently, a large range of washing detergents, both liquid and powder and provide the information to the public about how each ones rates in their lab tests on standardised samples flown over from Europe, so its well and truly set in dirt/stains! Results can be found on their website and are updated regularly -

https://www.choice.com.au/home-and-living/laundry-and-cleaning/laundry-detergents/buying-guides/laundry-detergents

Back to the matter at hand. Who to trust on how much to use? 

CHOICE, who provide, “independent and unbiased reviews, product tests, articles, information and buying guides”. 

OR

We could trust the washing powder companies.

They wouldn’t have anything to gain from lying to us would they? These upstanding companies wouldn’t try to get us to buy more of something than we actually need would they?

Toothpaste marketing is well known for doing this. The good old trick of widening the tops so more comes out when squeezed or advertising showing huge quantities of toothpaste bulging over the edges of a brush. Far more than most would ever use on a single brush! All in the aim of trying to get people to use more than they need to. Therefore, they sell more, to make more profits. That is not against the law, it up to us to use our common sense to realize that we don’t need as much toothpaste as they wish us to use. We should only use as much as we need. Saves money and its better for the environment.

 So would the washing powder brands do they same? Are their ethics squeaky clean? Or are they large companies whose focus is on increasing sales and profits at all costs? Legal or illegal!

The article below indicates that perhaps the morals or business ethics of at least some of the mainstream companies should be questioned by its customers. Colgate-Palmolive has been ordered by the Federal Court of Australia to pay $18 million in penalties for price fixing.

“Colgate-Palmolive admits limiting supply and controlling the price of laundry detergents”. “

“The ACCC said the agreements (between the 3 companies) also standardised the products offered, including pricing, package size and the strength of concentrate offered.” From this statement, it appears the price fixing collusion even specified the strength of detergent!

Cussons and Unilever aren’t yet out of the woods with hearings in June of this year.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-28/colgate-palmolive-penalised-for-laundry-detergent-cartel/7367394

A little more searching reveals, Unilever has experience in the world of price fixing cartel activities, with their application for immunity for whistle blowing and has learnt how to get away with it. Although an expensive lesson to learn, having coped fines of £280m (AUD $557m) for price fixing along with P & G back in 2008, across 8 different countries in Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/apr/13/unilever-procter-and-gamble-price-fixing-european-commission

Related brands include  

• Cold Power
• Radiant
• Omo

So it would seem perhaps that it might be worth questioning the quantities indicated on the box (or packaging) from our laundry detergent brands. One could listen to CHOICE, who provide, “independent and unbiased reviews, product tests, articles, information and buying guides”. Or we can use our own common sense with a bit of trial and error to determine what we feel is the necessary minimum quantity of detergent to use on our own washing.

Washing machines vary, washing habits vary, as does the dirtiness of the washing itself, the washing instructions of our various clothes and any personal preferences or sensitivities to different detergents we might have and desires to minimise our impact on the environment of course! 

All we need is a full scoop of common sense :)   

In our house? We use roughly half strength washing powder and dry in the sun when we can. If items are dirtier than a usual load, we will add in a soak option in the washing machine, plus do a long wash cycle. Happy washing peeps!

*EDITED TO ADD - 

Please note, this post is not designed to advise anyone on what to do or not to do. 

It is to suggest people question what advice they are given and make their own decisions! Question everything including us! We aren't in your home, we don't know each individual situation. Nor does anyone else. Trust yourself. 

Do thorough research about the ingredients in your chosen washing powder, search for the pros AND cons of a substance, question whether you want those particular chemicals in your home or on the clothing you wear every day and night! Particularly in the warm moist environment of a nappy!

Is the qty advised on the package relevant to you? Are they suggesting 1 quantiy for everyone? Does it take into account the size of your washing machine or the effectiveness of its ability to clean your garments without any washing powder at all?! Do they know if you are drying in the sun or in a dryer? Do they know if you rinsed your garments before washing? Do they perhaps need to provide advice for a worst case or unknown scenario? Are they honest?! 

Please everyone, use your common sense, do your own research into what can be harmful to you, your children, the environment and be comfortable with your own trial and error to learn! This is what I would call and common sense approach to life in general. 

A brand new cloth nappy brand, proudly brought to you by Bambooty. 

So what's different about them? 

1. The style 

2. The outer shell

3. The absorbency

4. The drying time

5. The options

6. The price

7. The colours! 

1. The Style

Modern cloth Nappy BASICS by Bambooty are snap in nappies. The Outer shell is water proof as usual, however instead of our usual All in One Style of nappy, these nappies are Snap in Nappies, meaning the absorbency can be simply snaped in, swapped over or changed separately. 

2. The Outer Shell

Deliciously soft and fluffy Minky nappies! The Minky is laminated with high quality breathable Polyurethane laminate as usual, only instead of our usually smooth outer PUL, these new Basics are gorgeously soft and fluffy! 

3. The Absorbency

These super trim nappies each come with a snap in booster for absorbency. These super long boosters made from 3 layers of super thirsty micro-fibre, are topped with suede-cloth for a stain resistant, stay dry protective layer and can be doubled or trippled towards the front for boys and/or tummy sleepers. 

4. The drying t

Drying time for these super fast drying nappies is just that, super fast! With no bamboo included in these absorbency boosters they will dry so super quickly you'll hardly believe it! Further, in the not too distant future, you can purchase more inserts for each whole nappy meaning if the shell drys faster for you, and you have spare inserts you can start using the shells earlier than the absorbency (helpful in winter with wet weeks). 

5. The options

Having the absorbency booster separate from the shells, if at change time the outer shell isn't soiled you can always just swap over the absorbency booster for a dry one and away you go! 

Further, these nappies also fit our EOS night time bamboo boosters into them as well. Giving you the option of using the 3 layered micro-fibre snap in boosters or the 3 layered super thirsty bamboo boosters. 

With both snap in insert options you can always add our smaller Plain bamboo boosters to all nappies at all times. 

For night times, you are likely to need both a microfibre snap in booster as well as the EOS Night time booster, 1 of these can be snaped in and the other simply folded underneath it within the nappy. 

6. The price 

As with all of the above options/modifications to our usual system, we have been listening to your feedback, asking questions and responding to your feedback. 

One of the key areas we know many of you are rather aware of is the upfront cost of using cloth nappies. So we have been working with our manufacturers to find a way to bring you great quality nappies you will love at a price you will also love! 

Our dear manufacturers have been left in an unfortunate position of being dumped with 1000s of meters of fabrics that was especially ordered for a customer who has left them in the lurch. In working closely with this family run business (as we have done for 6 years) we are able to bring you these great nappies at the fantastic launch price of $15 each! (We are still wondering how we are actually going to keep them at these prices, but we'll try! for the sake of our dear manufacturers and their employees, as well as all of you, who will hopefully love them!)

7. The colours

These super soft and fluffy nappies are available in 15 different colours! Which is your favourite? I can't choose just yet.

What's the same about them? 

1. The quality

2. Still fairly simple to use

3. Customer Service

1. The quality

At Bambooty we pride ourselves on our very high standards of quality. As we expect to buy top quality products in life, we also only wish to sell top quality products. Our new Basics nappies, while we have trimmed down the price we have not trimmed down the quality of the fabrics, nor the manufacturing expertise in making these great nappies for all of you!

2. Still fairly simple to use

Simplicity is another thing very important to us in our busy lives today. While our basics range is not quite as easy as our Easy range of nappies, once prepared our Basics are still very use! 

3. Customer Service

Our Basics range of nappies are still provided to you from the same fantastic members of the extended bambooty family. We are still always here to anwser your questions as quickly as we can, be it by email, facebook, responding to comments in blog posts or by phone, we will always do our very best to help you out. 

Stay tuned for launch offers and giveaways!

www.facebook.com.au/bambooty.the.baby.happy.nappy or via our newsletters.

Some people prefer to pay with Paypal and if you feel strongly about it or have other reasons to pay via paypal that is of course fine. We offer Paypal now as a result of meeting people's requests for us to accept Paypal. So we do. 

Why do we prefer credit cards? This is purely for financial reasons. If it costs us more money to do business this affects our ability to keep out prices as they are, the higher our costs the higher the end cost to the customers. Please note - We do not individually pass on any of the transaction costs as many other companies do in life these days. 

If only looking at transaction costs, then of course direct deposit is the cheapest to us, however this takes time in reconciling transactions, updating orders accordingly, following up with non-payments, also this leaves room for human error which ends up with us giving less than that the top quality customer service we aim to provide and processing of orders often takes longer with the extra admin involved. Further, occassionally customers do forget that they need to go and separately pay the direct deposit and become grumpy with our apparent slow service. This of we prefer to avoid for the sake of excellent customer service. 

Paypal transactions are an automated form of payment where it is taken directly from your account straight away for us to access. This enables us to process the orders quickly once they are placed and payment clears automatically, however there are down sides to Paypal. 

1. The transaction costs are high. Very high compared to the nonexistant direct deposit transactions and nearly double the transaction costs of Credit Card transactions. 

2. The service can be unreliable. For payments via Paypal the final payment step of check out is through their system, not ours. This does not always work properly, often causing frustration for both us and you (our customers). 

3. Lastly Paypal hangs onto the funds that you pay us with until we go in and manually transfer out the balance. This is again admin work that must be performed daily by us and reconciled. Further in Australia, once we have logged into Paypal and transferred out the balance it takes up to 5 working days for the funds to clear with us after you have paid and we have transferred the funds. This is not the case with other countries, it seems Paypal just wants to punish us Aussies! For our UK team and account the funds from Paypal clear within 2 hours of transferring them! Often only taking minutes if not instantaneously! Further the transaction costs are similar to those charged by the banks.

These are examples of why doing business in Australia is more expansive than many other countries around the world. However that is a different topic for another day. 

With the focus of keeping our costs down whereever possible (for your benefit as well as our ability to function as a business) and the aim of providing a fast turn around on orders with top quality service - for the above reasons our preferred payment method is via credit cards pretty please. 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask! We're always happy to answer any questions as best we possibly can :D

For the first 12 days of Christmas (in the spirit of one of my favourite Christmas Carols) we'll be giving away a bundle Bambooty goodies every day! 

To enter head over to the facebook page and follow the instructions to enter every day for 12 days! 

https://www.facebook.com/bambooty.the.baby.happy.nappy

Terms and conditions for the 12 days of Christmas giveaways

• Giveaways are open to Australian residents only
• Prizes will not be sent internationally under any circumstances
• Nominated entrants have to be nominated in separate comments in order to be included
• No businesses allowed to enter for the purposes of reselling for profit
• In the spirit of the giveaways being Christmas giveaways, not an opportunity for personal financial gain. Individuals please do not enter for the purposes of re-selling prizes. If you do not need or want the prize for that day, please do not enter, leave it for people who really do want it! 
• Results are final, no conversation will be entered into regarding winners. 
• All entrants must enter following the entrance guidelines, no other forms of entry will be accepted, please contact us if you are having troubles for whatever reason. Will do our best to help, but can not guarantee anything. 

Happy Christmas everyone, what ever you are up to this festive season, a good luck! :)

Do you wonder how on earth you can fold a One Size to neatly fit a newborn? Or how to fold the nappy as the bub get a little bigger?

Click here for more information and diagrams

Newborn - This size really fits from as small as 2.5kgs! Getting a really good seal around their teeny tiny legs, which is important and can be challenging for little newborns. Even if they are larger newborns the nappy adjusts well for chubby thighs and round tums!

Medium - This size fits brilliantly when using the cross over snaps and remember the snaps can be done up a-symmetrically for babies with skinny legs and big tums or vice versa. Also you don't have to do up all four snaps on each side of the nappy which allows you to customize the nappy even more to perfectly fit your unique and individual bub!

Large and Extra large - these settings again adjust to all shapes and sizes of bubs and the extra snap-in layer which is inculded in every Easy One Size nppy we sell starts to become useful and make the nappies last longer now the bub's bladder has grown. The large and extra large fits are higher rise to hold in all the nasties. There are also extra long extra absorbent night boosters available on the website so make the Easy One Size into an easy to use and convenient night nappy.

Bambooty was shortlisted in 3 categories up against some pretty amazing baby and mummy products from around the globe and from much larger companies than little us! 

The 3 categories we were finalists in were - 

1. Reusable nappy of the Year (This is the one we picked up a Bronze award in last year too)

2. Mummy Cult Product - We were shortlisted, for our gorgeous Bamboo Velour Booby Nights nursing pads in this one.

3. Baby Cult Product - We were shortlisted in this category for our Anytime, Anywhere baby/change mats! Also Bamboo velour, and funky printed PUL, perfect baby accessory for all sorts of situations and purposes.  

Well while we didn't pick up an award for our devinely soft nursing pads, (can't figure that one out, they're so soft, super absorbent and water proof! But there you go, we'll work on them further and hopefully win next year), nor our super cool and amazingly practical Anytime, Anywhere mats, we still think being shortlisted though is pretty cool :D

We did pick up a Bronze award again in the Reusable Nappy of the Year category, and we're thrilled of course! Being up against some very popular and well known brands from all over the globe really, it is such a compliment for all the hard work that goes into designing each product and making sure they keep being the high quality reliable products we expect and love providing. 

The difference in these awards and other awards held around Australia and New Zealand are these awards are actually graded by Mums who are sent out actual products to trial, put to the test and report back on. Based on these tester results the best brands are collated and awarded accordingly. 

Granted of course relying on them being tested by people who haven't used them before, there are going to be some who will quickly fall in love with a product and find it easy to use and others who will have a few hiccups and would normally come back for some of our friendly customer service to help iron out any teething issues they may be having with getting going with the product. Providing customer support whilst the product is being tested is not an option in these scenarios, which hits home with me again and the driving force of Bambooty modern cloth nappies being (we aim for) "easy enough for anyone to give them a go!" 

We believe that us being the only cloth nappy brand to win the Mother Baby Awards 2 years a row is a testament to this and how easy they are for anyone trying them out, to not only give them a go, but give them a go and love them too!

Congratulations also goes to - 

Hippybottomus who were awarded gold for their pocket nappy and Cushie Tushies who were awarded Silver for their swim nappy. Also Bambino Mio and Itti Bitti who were shortlisted.

We'd also like to mention some of our other favourite products that received Mother and Baby Awards.

Mamas and Papas - for their prams and cot amongst other awards they received. 

Sophie the Giraffe was awarded Gold too, we love Sophie in this house. 

and Bio Oil in the Mummy Cult Product - I love this stuff as well. 

You might be feeling slightly dejected about your purchase, (worrying about the worst case scenario), but you really shouldn't be! :D

At Bambooty we focus on providing the highest quality products we possibly can. 

• Highest quality fabrics
• Highest quality stitching 
• Highest quality design
• All round top quality is what we eternally strive for! 

Some of the things we do to keep our products performing for as long as possible include - 

1. Listening to our customers feedback and acting on anything that we can. For example,

• We have upgraded the elastic we now use, as the previous type wasn't lasting as long as we or you would like. While it does still have a lifespan and will degrade eventually of course, we are much happier with its long lasting performance. 
• We no longer fleece our bamboo fabric - Bamboo whilst being, super aborbent, highly breathable, and easy to grow so great for the environment is also fairly weak in itself as a fabric. For this reaon we no longer fleece the bamboo terry fabric. Fleecing is in effect pre-damaging the fabric, before it gets put through rigours and harsh environment of being a nappy. Our bamboo terry fabric is also combined with organic cotton to give it more strength too. This is to balance the super aborbent powers of bamboo, along with the strength of the less absorbent fabric, good old cotton. 
• Colour fasting - we have further listened to our customers in the area of the keeping the nappies looking great from an outside image point of view and increased the colourfastness of our nappies over the years for longer lasting, brighter colours.

2. The design

• As already mentioned above, starting from the beginning in the design stage we focus on quality throughout all our products. 
• We only use the highest quality materials we can find, continually working to avoid, breaking snaps, delaminating PUL or unreliable stitching as some examples.
• In some parts of our nappies, we double or even tripple stitch sections to ensure the stitching will last for as long as possible. This is particularly important for a product such as a nappy with what we expect it to cope with day in and day out.
• Another improtant point with the design of bambooty products is the careful attention to detail that goes into the design. Many hours have been spent researching and testing out various fabric combinations and their effects and capabilities individually and within the whole nappy. 
• Just 1 example - micro-fibre is fast drying, super absorbent and lasts for a very long time, so great as a nappy fabric. However it is too harsh to be next to the baby's skin, possibly causing rashes and it is prone to compression leaks if it is used solely within a cloth nappy. Therefore, we do use micro-fibre for its great attributes that it can bring to a reliable and well designed modern cloth nappy, but within the design of our nappies, we conteract the cons of this fabric. Micro-fibre is always sandwiched between bamboo so that it can't ever touch any skin, as well as having the bamboo fabric to soak up any compression leaks it may give and making the bambooty modern cloth nappy all the more reliable. 

This post is a work in progress - we are likely to be taking the kids to swimming lessons or something similar and will be back shortly with further information. Thank you for your patience. Please check back later, if you're wanting more :)

So you've taken the plunge and invested in your beautiful cloth nappies. You're saving money, (Or going to start soon), you're doing your bit to keep the earth beautiful, you're keeping unknown chemicals away from your baby's skin and you're feeling great about it all! 

So now, realistically, how long should you expect them to last? 1 month? 1 year? 1 child? 10 children!? 

Honestly there is no easy answer to this question. As with most things in life, it will vary from one person to the next. 

Here at Bambooty we work very hard at providing you with the best quality products we possibly can. (We have spent hours/months/years! working on this and take it very seriously). 

It should be noted that often the nappies go through one child onto the next and ocassionally even a third or more! This is not necessarily the case for everyone though and following are some reasons why. 

There are various factors that will effect the lifespan of your nappies. These include - 

• How many nappies you have in regular rotation
• How frequently they are washed
• The acidity in the wee the nappy is holding for you
• What fabrics the nappy is made from
• The quality of the fabrics/materials and the workmanship

With some common sense and a dash of practicality your nappies are likely to last a long time. Often more than 1 child.

We aren't going to tell you, you have to wash everyday or it will kill your nappies and void your warranty.

We aren't going to tell you, you have to rinse immediately after every single nappy change, as this is not always practical and by not doing so would then void your warranty. 

We aren't going to tell you to never use nappy rash cream or you'll void your warranty, we aren't going to tell you, you have to use our over priced washing powder or you'll void your warranty either. 

We hope you'll follow our simple washing instructions, including the things to avoid such as bleach and mostly you'll be fine. If you have any questions we're here to help as much as we can. 

Now for further explanation of the above listed factors. 

How many nappies you have in rotation - 

Due to the nature of nappies, they are put under some pretty harsh environments, regularly soaked in acidic wee and poo day in and day out, washed over and over again for years on end, hung out to dry in the harsh sun for hours if not days every week. Sat on, dragged along the ground, pulled tight over and over again, snapped and unsnapped regularly, its a wonder they last the way they so often do. So onto my point, given how we treat them (and that's if we're being good to them) having more nappies in rotation will mean they will last longer.

Having fewer nappies in your nappy stash, will mean they are washed and used more frequently, therefore wearing them out faster. (eg 6-10 nappies)

Having many many nappies (eg50!) will mean they are likely to last longer as they won't be used as often. You would still want to wash frequently though for hygiene reasons of course. Once you become addicted to cloth nappies, this won't seem like such a high number to have.

We recommend starting with somewhere between 18-24 nappies per child in cloth nappies at the same time. See - How many cloth nappies do I need?

If using nappies for subsequent children, some of them may need a bit of TLC to get them back into tip top shape. Elastics can be replaced as can absorbency either with boosters, snap in or not, or by sewing in extra absorbent fabric if needed. 

Sized nappies are more likely to be lasting for subsequent children, than the Easy One Size nappies, as the sized nappies will not have had the same duration of pounding as the One Size ones. 

How frequently they are washed - 

This one has 2 sides to the story. 

As with all our clothes, washing them frequently wears them out faster of course, therefore washing them less frequently will mean they'll last longer. However with nappies due to the nature of their purpose, leaving them soiled will mean they will deteriorate faster than not being washed frequently, as would be common sense for any garment that was regularly left wet for days at a time. Plus there is always the hygeine aspect of washing them frequently too of course. 

We usually recommend having 3 days worth of nappies, which means you would have to wash and dry within 3 days so you have clean nappies ready to go for day 4. If you have a little one with highly acidic wee (more on this below) you may choose to wash more frequently. This will increase the longevity of the nappy as well as being more hygienic of course.

Another point on the washing side is that different amounts of detergent will effect the nappies differently as will different types of water. Different types of water seem to need varying amounts of detergent to keep the nappies clean too. We recommend half the receommend dose of washing powder to the instructions on the box, however this may very for your individual circumstances. 

It is up to you, however I often suggest washing nappies with regular clothes etc. I put the nappies in the wash first, do a pre-rinse of the nappies by themselves in the machine to get rid of anything icky. Once this is done, they are just like any pair of dirty  knickers. I add in whatever other washing there is to do so there is just a handful of nappies in the bottom of a normal load of washing I'm already doing. 

This makes washing the nappies not an extra task that needs doing. It also saves, water, washing powder, electricy and time :)

The acidity in the wee the nappy is holding for you - 

As we've mentioned before, wee is acidic in nature as is poo. The level of acidity will vary from child to child. 

It may also vary at different stages in the same child. Teething is known to increase the acidity in wee, as is sometimes commented on with sore bottoms where the skin is being burnt by the increase in acidity too. Drinking less or more water is known to effect it too of course. 

The acidity in the wee etc will have damaging effects on the natural fibres of the nappy over a period of time, what that period of time is will vary, depending on the acidity and how frequently they are washed and used - as described above as well. Rinsing the nappies straight after changing or as soon as practicable will dilute the wee's acidity and increase the nappy's lifespan.

This is usually only a problem for children with super acidic wee, most children's wee will be fine and no need to worry about this.

If your little one has highly acidic wee the absorbency will need to be boosted in order to keep using the nappies. See more on this in worst case scenario below. 

(Wee is often referred to as acidic as we have here, due to the effects it can have on fabrics or skin, being that it causes redness and seems to eat away at fabrics such as we would expect acid to, however it is usually the alkalinity that is technically causing the problem. More often than not, we believe!)

What fabrics the nappy is made from - 

The majority of modern cloth nappies these days seem to be made from either, a bamboo blended fabric, or man made fabrics. 

Man made fabrics often last for many years even under heavy use such as in nappies. Man-made fabrics (often called polyester) are not as good for the environment of course as natural fibres, nor are they as reliable for absorbency either. 

Natural fibres are often one of the weakest parts of cloth nappies, due to their nature of being natural they are likely to be the first to start to break down as that is what they do better than all the man-made fibres in the nappy. 

Personally I would prefer natural fibres to man-made fibres however, we believe in modern cloth nappies a combination gives the best results. Combining, reliability, longevity, drying time, and comfort. 

Last but not least - Quality - 

The quality of the fabrics used as well as the quality of the workmanship and the design of the nappy are all going to play roles in the lifespan of the nappy. 

For example, from our expereince, higher grade quality fabrics such as PUL should from my experience be ok to be dried in a tumble dryer, where as cheaper PUL covers will be more likely to delaminate. 

Cheaper natural fabrics will not be as absorbent as higher grades of natural fibres as they are likely to be lower weighted fabrics. 

The workmanship of the nappies is of course imperative to its lifespan. Cloth nappies that haven't been stitched together very carefully and reinforced in weaker areas of the design will of course fall apart much faster.

Cheaper grades of snaps or hook and loop won't last as long, nor will cheap elastic.

The quality of the design of the nappy, will not only effect its lifespan, but also its reliable day to day use as well. 

Bambooty nappies are manufactured with the highest standards of fabrics, workmanship, other materials we can possibly find. We work very closely with our manufacturers regularly visiting the factory to check up on this as well as build trusting relationships and work on any issues arising along the way. 

Our nappies are all designed by Amelia, who has been changing nappies in long day care, as a nanny, a mother's help and her own 2 childrens' for many many many years! There were many prototypes before the ulitmate designs were manufactured, tried and tested along the way. Slight improvements are still continuously being made as we learn from our expereinces and those of our customers. 

This brings me near the end of this post, however still to mention is the,

Worst Case Scenario - 

We would dearly like all people to be able to use their bambooty modern cloth nappies for more than 1 child if possible, however sometimes the nappies just don't quite make the distance. With the high quality fabrics we use throughout our products it is highly likely that only the natural fibres will wear out earlier than you or I would like. 

If this does happen to you, there is a fairly simple remedy. Basically the nappy just needs more absorbency fabric replaced back into the nappy. If you are using an Easy One Size nappy, this can easily be done by snapping in some of our EOS night boosters, these will then be able to be snapped in and out if needed or not, or left there if used all the time as if sewn in the first place. 

If you are using an Easy Dry or Night and have this problem, you can simply stitch more bamboo or other absorbent material back onto the flaps of absorbency, bringing back up to tip top shape :)

We dearly hope that our nappies will at least see you through 1 child, if not more. Please feel free to share your experiences we would love to hear them. 

Update - July 2016

Elastic - 

As with anything in life there are varying levels of quality and expenses related to the quality and/or type of elasitc used. Our Basics nappies use a swim wear elasitc which is very gentle. Unfortunately it does not last as long as the elastic used in our Bambooty range of nappies. The Elastane used in our Bambooty ranges, is stronger, it is more expensive to source, it requires special machines to cut it exactly the same length each time and is harder to stitch into the nappies. This is part of the reason that our Bambooty ranges are more expensive, our prices related directly to the costs associated with producing the products. 

As with a new car you may purchase it will need servicing from time to time to keep it running and/or in top condition! Or a shirt might need a button replacing. Some of you might find that the elastic of your nappies may need replacing from time to time, particularly if you are using our BASiCS range of nappies where the gentler elastic (also cheaper) is softer for baby, but has the downside of not lasting as long. 

The good news is that it is very simple to replace! Please see the below image for some helpful tips to replacing elastic. 

BEST Of BOTH Worlds

Now that you've read Which nappy style is Best, I'll go on to explain what I would choose with the expereince I have now.

If I could redo my nappying career for our family, (keeping in mind that Bambooty nappies were first born with the sized All in One nappies out of a need for a simpler nappy design plus the financial aspects of course) I would choose a combination of Easy One Size Nappies and Easy Dry nappies. Mainly focusing on the Easy One Size nappies for their longer term cost saving aspect, but also throwing in some Sized Nappies too for simplicities sake, and to make sure someone else could help with the changes now and then.

As a result of our expereinces with our own children, our customers feedback, some common sense and some great accessories to add into the mix, we have designed the Best of Both Worlds range of Packages. Hooray! 

All Best of Both Packages come with 12 Easy One Size Nappies plus 6-12 of the size you choose. 

The Best of Both Worlds Newborn/Small comes with 12 Easy One Size and 12 Newborn/Small nappies. 

 - At this stage you are likely to need 24 nappies as you are going through a minimum of 8 nappies a day. (If you're lucky!) 

Honestly speaking, if it was my first over again, I would also have a packet of Naty newborn disposables on hand as back up as well. Just in case! - When I said 8 a day it can be 12! or even more! I'll ask my sister to write a blog post about that point.

The Best of Both worlds (or BOB) Medium comes with 12 Easy One Size and 6 Medium nappies. 

 - Often by this stage you are hopefully using 1 nappy for the night time shift (10-12 hrs) and then 5 changes during the day.               18 nappies will give you enough for 3 days worth, so you don't have to wash them every single day. 

The BOB Large is similar to the medium, only with 6 Large nappies instead of Medium.

Finally we are working at putting up a BOB NB/S and M package. This will include 12 Easy One Size Nappies, 6 Newborn/Small Nappies and 6 Medium Nappies. This would be my preference if starting over again with my first child. 

You may notice that there are only 18 nappies that will fit at each stage, this is true. You will need to supplement with some disposables at the newborn stage if you choose this package. I would recommend eco friendly disposables with as few chemicals in them as possible of course, for the health of your baby as well as the environment. (Naty seem to be one of the best we have found, and readily available in supermarkets) 18 nappies at the newborn stage will be a great start and if it is your first child, don't put extra pressure on yourself, there is a lot to learn in the beginning. Use the (gorgeous!) cloth nappies as often as you can and have some disposables on hand for times of emergency. That's what I would have done anyway.

Another positive note on the Best of Both Worlds packages is that it does reduce your initial outlay.

24 Easy One Size nappies (Full time - Easy One Size 24) costs $750.52

Where as the BOB - Newborn/Small + Medium is just $632.20. Granted there will be some extra nappies you will need to buy along the way (the very beginning and likely the very end) however you can still spend $120 on other nappies and be in the same financial position as having purchased the Full time Package, however this way you have half of the nappies as the neater, trimer easier sized nappies, packaged in their own individual wet-bags.

If you choose to use largely disposables in the very beginning and not many cloth nappies at all, going straight to the BOB Medium will further reduce your initial cloth nappy set up costs at only $569.93.

NOTE - If this is your first research into cloth nappies and you are horrified by the figures, please keep in mind the comparison figures of using disposable nappies which will cost you over a $1000 a year and I can guarantee you that none of those nappies will last for a second child! Choosing cloth is an investment, not an expense.

An investment in saving you money down the track.

An investment in saving your baby's skin from harsh chemicals.

An investment in the environment and reducing your baby's footprint.

An investment in feeling awesome! You rock!

An investment in making your baby look gorgeous! and Feel Gorgeous!

For more information on costs please read Cheap Nappies - Bambooty vs Disposables. 

Having said all of that, if you are still undecided about which will suit you better, we have 2 more options for you. 

1 - Grab one of our trial packages which will give you an Easy Dry, and Easy One Size and an Easy Night (To try for yourself and see which ones you like better) - OR - 

2 - Give one of these packages a go, don't wash and use all the nappies. Try 3 of them, keeping in mind they take up to 8 washes to maximise absorbency, and we are here to help if you have any teething issues. If you are still not happy with the nappies, any that are used, unwashed and still in a resalable condition with packaging/ tags on, return them to us and we will happily refund you. For more on this option, please read our post "Money Back Offer"

One Size nappies which last from day dot through to potty training, also known as OSFM (One Size fits Most) or BTP (Birth to Potty) nappies will save you more money in the longer term. They are often slightly more expensive to purchase in the beginning however with the one nappy usually seeing you all way through to potty training, you don't need to keep spending money to buy the next size up. 

OSFM or BTP nappies are bulkier and fiddlier in the early stages, however newborn babies grow so quickly it isn't an issue for most people for very long and a lot of people feel the long term cost savings out weigh a few months of fiddle.

Sized nappies often provide a neater fit, particularly in the early stages. This means they are less bulky, meaning more comfortable and fit better under regular baby clothes that often cater these days to plastic or paper nappies full of chemical absorbers.

Sized nappies are often easier to change with fewer snap options to remember or consider (for those who aren't doing 6-10 changes a day) and often easier to prepare for use, especially All in One nappies. Bambooty Sized day time nappies, called Easy Dry come packaged in their own little wet-bags for out and about.

The only down side to sized nappies is that you need to keep buying the next size up as they grow. You can hang onto them for future siblings or alternatively, if they are in good nick, believe it or not you can often sell them on and get some money back!

 Here are a few more tips about the different size options to help you in your journey of cloth nappies and babies - 

One Size Nappies

One size nappies can be either more or less reliable than sized nappies for the new born stage. One size nappies that actually fit from day dot (Bambooty Easy One Size nappies fit from as little as 2.5 kgs) are often more reliable with more absorbency in them as they need to cater for older children with a larger out put as well. You can often of course remove some of the absorbency too though to make them less bulky so more comfortable and easier to fit under clothes. 

When looking for a OSFM nappy, checking that the nappy will have a good fit around the legs is crucial, as new born babies usually aren't born with much in the way of muscle or fat on their little legs. New born babies are often lying on their backs as they spend soooooo much time feeding and sleeping (we hope), so a nappy that is not bulky at the back is better for bub. 

(Now that I think of it, I wonder if that had anything to do with parents being encouraged to put us on our tummies to sleep when I was a baby, so that we didn't end up with wonky backs due to bulky nappies!)

Back to the topic - Some OSFM nappies will fit from very early on as our Easy One Size nappy does, starting to fit from as little as 2.5 kgs, some you will need something to use in the mean time until they are large enough to give the nappy a good fit so not going to be leaking on you. 

For our OSFM or BTP cloth nappies, (Easy One Size) once the baby is roughly 5-6 months old (or earlier if they are speedy growers), there really isn't much difference in bulk compared to using the sized nappies. Our One Size nappy style is a higher rise nappy than our sized nappies, so they will come up higher around the waist. This can be a positive thing too, as it can potentially give you better protection if needed. 

Sized Nappies

Moving onto our sized nappy options, we have Day time sized nappies Easy Dry and night time sized nappies Easy Nights. 

Easy Dry nappies are an All in One, Modern cloth nappy, designed to be so simple to use anyone can give cloth a go! They come in the 3 sizes, Small/Newborn, Medium and Large. These nappies are seriously simple to use, however still give you multiple options to customise depending on whether you have a boy, a tummy sleeper or a bub who prefers the natural fibres next to her or his skin. 

Easy Dry nappies each come packaged in their own single nappy zippered wet-bags. This means when out and about you don't need to smell the nappy that you changed 3 hours ago, again at the current change, each one stays zippered separately. Stay tuned for a post on the many wonderful things that wet-bags are ideal for...

Easy Night nappies are again All in One modern cloth nappies, which means that in spite of having a super amount of absorbency to last all night long, they are still very easy to put together and put on :D First off there is no putting together, they already are together! 4 flaps of absorbency which can again be customised for tummy sleepers, boys, or having the natural fibres on top. 

Easy Night nappies are available in 3 sizes as well, how ever the sizes are slightly different. They come in a Medium, Large and X-Large. They do not come in a new born nappy as newborn babies are or should be changed every 3 hours at most, even during the night. Usually by the time a night nappy is needed, babies fit into the medium night nappies. 

There is also an X-Large size in the nights, as bed wetting up until the ages of 4,5 or even 6 are common (and considered perfectly normal by medical practitioners too). The X-Large nappy fits up to roughly 22kgs, depending on body shape and wetting habits too of course. Often people who haven't even used cloth nappies for most of the time will swap over to cloth for the night time nappies once potty trained during the day. Babies don't poo while they are sleeping so usually this 1 nappy a day is an easy one to get used to :)

Heavy wetting babies can or are often better off in Easy Night nappies during the day as well, for longer lasting protection. Having said that, we do recommend for adequate hygiene standards, nappies should be changed or checked every 2-3 hours. This is based on the hygiene standards set out by the Government for Accredited Child care centres, where from experience it is every 2 hours.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask them in the comments below or feel free to add in your 2 cents worth as well, if you prefer sized or one size and want to share your experiences :D

We understand that once you decide to give them a go, you save the most money, time and post expenses if you purchase the larger 3 day or full time packages up front rather than starting with a 1 day package and building your stash. However this is more risky than starting off slowly and buying more as you go. 

To help with reducing the risk of buying the better packages with the most savings, we do offer you the opportunity to return them if (after a reasonable trial) you find they aren't for you, you are welcome to return for a refund any unused* nappies or accessories. 

Heres how it works - 

1. Purchase the 3 day package you desire (either by size, OSFM or best of both worlds)

2. Wash and trial 3 of the nappies from the package

2a) Find that you love them! Go to point 4

2b) If you find they aren't working for you, please go to point 3.

3. Please get in touch. We are super helpful people and will always go out of our way to guide you through anything that isn't working for you, to the best of our abillities. (We have changed 10s of thousands of nappies between us, if not more than a 100 thousand nappies! We are Mums, we have worked in long day care centres, we have been nannies, we have cared for other peoples children as well as ours for many years and are always willing to help).

3a) If after going through our help you are happy with the nappies please go to point 4

3b) If after going through our help you still can't get them to work for you please go to point 5

4. Now that you are loving your super cool, easy to use, modern cloth nappies carry on using and loving them and spreading the word to all who could benefit from your knowledge and expereince :)

5. If you have arrived at point 5, we are as disappointed as you are that we haven't found the right solution for you. (To date this has only happened twice, in the last 4+ years) Please return any of the *unused, unwashed, as new with tags on products to your nearest Bambooty Head Quarters (Guildford, Surrey, UK, or Bondi, Sydney, Australia)

We will refund you on all returned items in the above condition, no later than 3 weeks after receiveing your order. If your baby is not due for a little longer, just let us know, we're reasonable people :D

What to do with the 3 used ones? Well, you could hang onto them and trial them again in a few months time. With a bit more time, weight gain, better sleeping, less milk throughout the night, etc etc etc they may well work perfectly for you! Hooray!

You could give them to a friend or family member to trial who may well love them! Once they give them a go.

Or believe it or not you can acutally on sell them second hand. Many people purchase nappies second hand (and prewash them I'm assuming, to be on the safe side). We have found that bambooty nappies aren't around very often on the buy and sell nappy pages as most people love them! But yes you will be able to recoup some of the cost, even on the nappies that you have used! 

Any more questions please don't hesitate to contact us further. 

Cheers, Amelia

Once upon a time there was an Aussie mum called Amelia who’s daughter Hannah suffered with terrible eczema. Amelia discovered that the eczema was made worse by disposable nappies and she brought a range of reusable nappies which improved Hannah’s eczema. 

However after a few months of dealing with leaks, bad stitching and ugly bulky designs Amelia began making Hannah’s nappies at home herself. Amelia also needed to design a nappy which her husband Nav could manage to change. Soon Amelia was making nappies for family, friends, friends of friends and friends of friends of friends and in 2008 Bambooty was born! 

Support crew 

Nav – Amelia’s husband 

Deb and Jem – Amelia parents. Who have allowed their family home to become the Bambooty warehouse. 

Emma T - Amelia’s childhood friends and mum of 2 kids. Emma helps with Facebook updates and Marketing. 

Emily – Who’s Gran is friends with Amelia’s Gran and has mum of 3 kids. Does picking and packing. 

Emma B (who’s thinking of changing her name to Trevor) – does the Bambooty customer service and first met Amelia after her daughter Ellie-Sue became firm friends with Hannah at Pre-School. 

Finally -Dave (dad of 2 girls), web designer, Sal (mum of 4) does graphic design/logo design stuff, Kim (mum of 1 girl) photographer... All work from home around caring for their kids. 

Well today is the day when we turn 4! First of all, a big thank you to the amazing Bambooty team. Without this fantastic extended bambooty family (and friends) we wouldn't be here at all. We truly can't do it without you all, we thoroughly appreciate you all.

Now onto our dear customers whom we also appreciate of course! To include you in our celebrations we going to give away some of our most popular and newest products (aside from nappies this time). 

As we have recently passed over 10,000 people as a part of our facebook community we'll be giving away 10 bundles of products. As it is our 4th birthday we'll be giving away 4 products in each bundle :D

10 lucky winners will receive 

1 x Anywhere Anytime baby change mats  

1 x Bambooty large matching wet-bag with snapable handle

1 x Bambooty bamboo velour reusable wipes bundle of 4 AND

1 x 6 pairs of bambooby nights nursing pads!

Woohoo! Don't know about you, but I'm excited. I would love to receive a bundle like this, and I'm loving giving them away too ;)

Winners will be decided by random.org for 6 of the winners and 4 winners will be chosen by me for the best answer. 

What do you need to do to enter? 

Simply comment on this blog post with a use you can think of for our Anywhere, Anytime change mats, or just what you love most about them! - Bamboo velour on one side and Printed PUL on the other side. (Silky soft, absorbent on one side and water proof on the other)

Entries close end of this week, winners will be announced early next week. 

Any questions please don't hesitate to ask. customerservice@bambooty.com.au

Good luck everyone!

And the winners are:-

Randomly chosen - Robyn Campbell, Nicole Ernst, Kate Hill, Jenny Dimitrovski, Micole Sztanski Chenoweth and Sophia Marini.

Best Answers - Emily Stedman, Louise Luke, Jill Macmullen, Jessie Hay

We had such a difficult job choosing the best answers so the following people will be sent a change mat as well - Baa baa Beep, Wing Hoarau, Bronwyn Coulston, Briony, Thoolen, Lauren Kennedy, Crystal Williams, Susan Mann, Nicole Wann, Tieng Kaing and Casey Woodward.

Please all send an email to customerservice@bambooty.com.au entitled 4th Birthday Give Away and your prize will be sent out shortly.

Did you know just 6 Bambooty Modern Cloth nappies  - 2 a day on the baby, 2 in the washing machine and 2 on the line (the other 4/5 changes in the day would be disposable) - saves over $350 and over 700 disposable nappies a year from landfill? 

6 Nappy Packages

From experience and feedback, for full time cloth nappy use – 

In the first few weeks a newborn baby needs changing 8 to10 (or more) times a day. Therefore we recommend 24 Bambooty nappies for full time use from day dot right through to potty training. This is based on enough nappies for roughly 3 days giving you time to wash and dry within the 3 days, to get the nappies back on again. Or - 8 each day in use on the baby, 8 in the washing machine and 8 drying on the line (roughly). 

Newborn Full time Nappy Package

As the baby grows and your baby establishes a routine you may need fewer Bambooty modern cloth nappies. Around 6 nappies a day, 5 Bambooty day time nappies and 1 a Bambooty night nappy. Therefore 18 nappies would provide 3 days of nappies and allow for 6 to be washed a day. Some people may choose to for example have more night nappies down the track, however 18 is a good place to start and see how you go.

Full time Nappy Packages 

WARNING – cloth nappies can be addictive, Bambooty takes no responsibility for any addictions to patterns or styles that may result from seeing how cute your baby looks in our nappies ;-)

How many nappies do you have for full time use?

Bambooty modern cloth nappies are known and loved for being ‘low rise’ hipster nappies, but if you find you’d like them to be another centimeter or two higher around your babies middle we suggest you try the following:- 

STRETCHING PUL OUTER:

To stretch the outer place the PUL print side of your bambooty modern cloth nappy over your fist and let the flaps hang down. You can pull gently on the flaps to make sure that the PUL is at its full size. Then place the flaps up one after the other  - they won't reach the ends of each other but this is a good thing as when you then turn the nappy the right way around for use it will mean the outer is fully extended. 

This will help the nappy fit better as it will be neater on the sides around the legs and a trimmer fit overall as there shouldn’t be any bunching of the outer shell. 

As usual, after putting on the nappy, lifting up the legs 1 by 1 and making sure the elastic is high up around the crease of the legs/hips will ensure a neat fit and protect from leaks. 

Any questions please don’t hesitate to ask!

The Easy Dry all in one Bambooty nappy - has two absorbent flaps which fold out so they spread on the line and are quicker to dry. They also have the following features -

• Wriggle guards at the side for leak protection,
• A choice of which flap to use on top (i.e. man made feel dry fiber – the whiter one, or natural bamboo – the creamy coloured one).
• The option to customize absorbency - One flap can be folded towards the front to provide extra absorbency for boys or tummy sleepers 

The Easy Peasy all in one Bambooty nappy - has the absorbent layers sewn inside the nappy, similar to a disposable nappy. Easy Peasy nappies are slightly easier to use than Easy Dry, but take longer to dry. 

Have you tried Easy Dry AND Easy Peasy cloth nappies? Which do you prefer Easy Dry or Easy Peasy?

To say thank you to all of you, our fantastic customers, for your support over the last 3 years we are doing a birthday day only celebratory offer on our website – buy 2 get your third nappy free for our third birthday. To further celebrate, our 3 new designs will be available too!

• Simply purchase 2 (or more) nappies as usual: www.bambooty.com.au
• Include in the comments section at checkout your requested free nappy/ies (e.g. size, style, etc).
• Please also include an alternative print/colour in case your requested print or colour is out of stock.

• Offer valid on full price nappies only
• No clearance nappies or other items included in offer
• Free nappy must be of equal or lesser value
• Offer valid through until midnight on the 12th of June 2012 AEST
• Offer valid through the website www.bambooty.com.au only
• Maximum 3 free nappies per order
• No other offer valid with this offer
• Clearance items may be added to the order but are not eligible for the 3rd nappy free offer
• No rain checks

OK, so that is pretty cool but there is more  We are also going to giveaway 3 Bambooty surprise birthday presents (to celebrate 3 years!). To enter, all you need to do is comment on this blog post with a comment on the following:

What is the most important thing when celebrating your child’s birthday?

The most interesting/inspiring/useful/awesome comments will receive a very special Bambooty pack! Please note that the winning responses will also be posted on Facebook and in our newsletter.

Thanks again everyone for your support over the past 3 years and wherever you are please raise your glass (choice of content optional) and celebrate with us!