It is such a treat to get to know the mums and dads that every day use our products. We have had the pleasure to get to know Ali, Stu and their twin boys.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family:
Where are you from? How did you end up where you are? Hi, I’m Ali, I was born and raised on a farm in Pauatahanui, Wellington. After school I studied as a early childhood teacher. After qualifying I went travelling to the UK. While there I met Stuart, at a friends wedding. He’s from all over; British/Japanese but born in Holland and lived in England & Scotland. After we got engaged we decided we wanted to head to NZ to enjoy the quieter beach life. We love living in Wellington, it’s such a cool little city with lots to offer. Stuart works as an architect and I’m an early childhood teacher, but currently at home with the boys.
We would love to, if you want to share, your journey on when you became a parent...We were really lucky that we got pregnant quickly. But actually thought we were miscarrying and I was sent for an emergency scan. The sonographer said, Yes there it is, and hold on, there’s another! I burst into tears with shock and relief. Once I was out I sent Stu a picture of the twin scan, needless to say it was a very shocked reply in response. We had a fairly uncomplicated but hard pregnancy, twice the normal symptoms!
What is your favourite thing about being a parent? I think it’s seeing them grow into their own little people. We love watching them interact with one another, they are pretty hilarious together.
Why is it important to you to use eco-friendly products for you, your kids and family? Our culture has a very disposable, one-use mindset. This is something we are trying to change on our parental journey. We are trying to minimise our impact on the planet, and want to raise our children to do so as well. Stu is the eco-leader in our house, and he was just as certain about using reusable products for the boys as much as I was. Some other things we do are to use refill stores as much as possible, reusable bags for shopping, keep cups for coffee.
A lot of parents new to reusable nappies, often have concerns on the extra work with washing etc..what are your thoughts on this? Babies produce a lot of washing, don’t be afraid of it! Just get use to the fact you’ll be spending more time in the laundry. We found that it just takes a little bit of planning. I think it’s important to sit down and chat it through, so the load is shared. We started using cloth with the boys when they were eight weeks, and only during the day, so we used to wash the nappies at night. But now we’re using night nappies we've changed to washing as soon as we take them off in the morning.
Our current routine is: take inserts out of nappies and leave in bucket in bathroom during the day. Poo nappies are scraped and rinsed straight away and then left to air in laundry. Every morning nappies go in a hot (60degree) wash and then put in a mesh bucket to air, every second day we put these through a hot long wash, then hang up to dry.
We had our wash routine written down for a while so both Stu and my mum could help. But now Stu knows the routine just as well as I do, so we share the load.
As a dad how do you find using cloth compared to disposables? It is a bit more time consuming but I don’t find it a big deal using them. I also dislike how much waste we go through when using disposables, plus we have to pay again for for it to be collected. So using reusable products seemed like a no brainer.
Why do you choose Little Genies products? Honestly for us it was the price point. We got two starter packs and they worked out at the best price. I wasn’t too fussed about not having the latest print as most of the time they’re wearing clothes! And with two in cloth we have to do what’s most economical. Our LG nappies are our everyday go-to as they have so many great features. I love how stretchy they are so they fit both our little babe and our slightly bigger one! They have a double gusset for catching those big poos. The pocket is a good size so easy for us both to stuff them.
How many reusable nappies do you have? I think we have about 50 nappies in total, now we are using them full time.
On a scale from 1-10, how satisfying do you find reusable nappies and why? 10 definitely! Occasionally we use disposables if the boys are sick or when we go away and haven’t had access to a washing machine.
How much money do you think you have saved from choosing reusable nappies? Well if we’ve used 8 reusables a day since they were 8 weeks old, that’s about 2000 nappies. So over $800 worth of nappies so far, which is a huge amount! But more than that it’s over 2000 nappies that aren’t sitting in the landfill.
What is you #1 tip, to a new parent? Talk about it and work on it together, just like anything with parenting, trying something new takes time. But if you’re both on board it will be a smoother transition.
Tell us your best hack? Get yourself some fellow cloth mamas to share your journey with! I’ve made some great friends on Instagram with other mums.