Next up in our meet the changemaker series, is Peter, a dad of 3, who is a big advocate of reusable nappies and is a known cloth nappy enabler and has converted many families.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family
I am dad to 3 amazing children, Eddie is 6, Poppy is 4 and Fox is 1. I am married to my fantastic wife, Frith and we’ve been married for 7 years. We recently moved from Edinburgh to the Scottish Highlands and a more rural life to try to give our children an upbringing similar to our own. We both have great memories of our rural childhoods and feel it shaped us for the better.How did your journey with cloth nappies begin?
My personal journey began soon after Eddie was born and Frith’s friend helped us get started using cloth. She eased us in and made it seem so much easier than we might have imagined. Although not nappies specifically I remember using cloth wipes for the first time and realising how they were not only good for the environment but much better at the job and beneficial in so many other ways. This actually helped me really understand the many, less obvious benefits of using cloth beyond the environmental ones.
What do you love most about cloth nappies?
The biggest love to me is that they feel important. Disposable nappies are throw away by their very nature. Our babies are important and I like that I put important things on them to do a very important job.
What's your favourite cloth nappy hack?
We've been using cloth so long now things we do every day don't occur to me as hacks. If I think back to when we began and the things we did then that we would not do now. I think of simple things like un-poppering the clean nappy before you start changing. Seems obvious now but I used to always make the mistake of getting started then trying to un-popper a nappy with one hand while holding a squirmy baby on the changing table with the other. The air often turned blue I'm ashamed to say.
If you could speak to yourself before starting with cloth nappies, what's the one piece of advice you would give yourself?
Take an extra one with you. Don’t think they’ll just need the number they usually do in any given time frame. Take another because this time they’ll need it and you don’t want to be left nappiless in a time of crisis.
6) Has your love of reusables transferred to other aspects of your life, if so, what's your best zero-waste swap?
Absolutely. When Eddie was first born we used single use nappies for a while and I always remember every time I went to put a used one in the bin and saw them piling up in there it made my heart weep. Even now I cringe, and think twice every time I drop something in the landfill bin. Do I really need to bin this? Can I avoid doing this again?
What do you love most about the Baba+Boo community?
I’ll confess I’m not really in the community but I have an ambassador who keeps me up to date. I love that the community provides inspiration for how to try to live a cleaner life and leave less of a mark on the planet that our children will inherit.
What's your favourite Baba+Boo print?
I have a soft spot for the earlier ones because some of the prints were worn by all three of our babies. Probably something like Ladybird because it’s simple but says so much, it just says childhood and discovery of nature and nice things like that. It’s also the colour of my team, Aberdeen. I’d love to see some sporty prints to maybe bring a bit more of a masculine appeal and try to encourage more dads into the wonderful world of cloth without feeling they have to somehow become less of a ‘man’ (as wrong as that may be) to do so.