ad / How I'm Going To Try To Be A Sustainable Parent

This post contains gifted items, but opinions and words are my own.

I think parenting is one of those areas where you really have to cut yourself some slack when it comes to sustainability; I can't speak from experience just yet, but it seems like it's a difficult enough job already! However, babies and children create a lot of waste and there's a lot of (often unnecessary) plastic and general consumerism involved in bringing a baby into the world. 

So although I'll definitely not be beating myself up for the odd bit of plastic, there are some ways I'm planning to try to be as sustainable as I possibly can (while not causing myself too much of a headache in the process!).

R E U S A B L E  N A P P I E S  //  I feel like a lot of people will probably be put off reusable nappies thinking it's just a bit gross, but babies have poo explosions all over their normal clothes all the time anyway and still rewear those don't they? We will definitely have a pack of disposable ones for the hospital/emergencies, but reusable ones just make sense; obviously they're so much better for the environment and despite the initial outlay you can save so much money! Some local authorities even do free starter or trial packs and there are reusable nappy libraries to help you save even more money too. 

We're initially trying out the newborn nappies (which last from newborn up to approximately 6 months) from Baba+Boo, which were kindly sent to me. The designs are so cute and they feel like they'll be super soft for baby. We were also sent a zip up wet bag for storing dirty nappies on the go, which will be really handy. It may sound like an odd thing to say about nappies, but I'm really looking forward to trying these out!

R E U S A B L E  W I P E S  //  We'll be using reusable wipes both for face and bum for pretty much the same reasons as above! (Just to clarify we will be using separate wipes for face and bum!). As above I have no doubt we'll have an emergency pack of babywipes, but the plan is to use those as little as possible. 

S E C O N D  H A N D  C L O T H E S  //  Almost all of the clothes I've bought for the baby so far are second hand (I also have a lot of second hand ones that have been passed on). As babies grow out of their clothes so quickly buying second hand just makes sense so that the clothes get as much wear as possible rather than going to waste. There are some absolute bargains to be had on Vinted and I fully intend to embrace that circular life and sell them / pass them on afterwards too as I'm sure they'll still have plenty of life left in them!

M I N I M A L  P L A S T I C  T O Y S  //  Something both Matthew and I agreed on was that we didn't want our house to suddenly become full of lots of plastic toys that may only get played with a few times before being discarded. The general plan is to look for alternatives (wooden toys are super cute) as well as just generally keeping the amount of toys to a minimum to ensure they're all properly played with and appreciated. Once they are finished with we'll be either passing them on, donating them or selling them.