If I had my time again

I think I'd use disposable nappies. Really. I love the sight of nappies drying on the line and I love the idea of cloth nappies. Sometimes in the right light, and with everything else done, I even enjoyed folding them into neat piles. Taking a perverse pleasure in how quick I had become at the origami like fold we decided to use. I never really liked the nappy covers we used. They tore at the spash of nappy soak and Target kept running out of them. Which was always really annoying if I'd gone to Highpoint or another big shopping centre. And the extra washing. And drying. Not just of the nappies but of the trousers that were wet or worse.

No, if there were a next time (not that I think there will be) I'd want to be using disposables and figuring out a good way of disposing them. Like one of those special collections (does that still operate?). Or even composting the wet ones. Whatever.

I also thought that cotton would be nicer on a babies bottom, but as my sister Betty and I were discussing on the phone tonight, it isn't. It's all damp and humid. No wonder Grace kicks and screams if I even try to put her in a clothie these days. I've given up, life is too short to argue with a two year old about nappy choice. And really I see her point. If I had to wear a nappy, I'd want the one with the ease of movement and the dry lining.

Image from an old copy of The Bounty Baby Book, circa 1985. Frightening to think that this is when I could have been having babies (I'd have been 22) and that under the table of contents there is the following statement... simply to avoid the clumsy repition of he/she all through this book, we have referred to babies as 'he', nurses 'she' and doctors as 'he'. Indeed.