Nappuccino at Born

Making friends with Born's members of staff

I love these slippers by Padraig, Wilf has the multi coloured ones passed down from his cousin but I have my eye on those white and grey ones too!

 Wilf and his new friend the beautiful Talitha

On Wednesday Wilf and I were kindly invited to a Nappuccino at Born. Years ago before I was pregnant or had Wilf I would walk past their shop on Gloucester Road and peep in at the beautiful wooden toys, brightly coloured baby clothes and tiny woollen baby shoes. It made me excited for the day when I could shop in there for my child!
Born is a fantastic shop not only for the products it sells but for the support the people who work there give each customer. Instead of getting the feeling that they are simply trying to get to you buy something you know that everyone who works there has a genuine knowledge of the products as well as the practises of such things such as baby wearing/breastfeeding/cloth nappy wearing etc. 
The other reason I love Born is that when Wilf was really little Tom and I were faced with making a potentially controversial decision about his health due to a serious reaction he had after his 8 weeks jabs. This isn't the time or place to go into this (and I'm not sure I ever will on here) but after really struggling to find any advice other than the standard NHS symptom check list we were really struggling to find the information we needed to make an informed decision. I am eternally grateful to both my NCT teacher and Eva from Born for guiding me towards other literature that (after weeks of intense research) helped us reach a decision we were completely happy with. I don't know what we would have done without this support.
Ok back to the Nappuccino! We have used cloth nappies since Wilf was around 10 weeks old, we tried a little earlier (at five weeks) but didn't get on with the brand/style we were using. I also found the first few months of Wilf's life a complete shock (who doesn't) and with breastfeeding issues and generally not quite feeling myself we decided to hold off on the cloth until we could get our head round them. Turns out there wasn't really much to get around. Using cloth is pretty much exactly the same as disposables it just involves a little more washing and perhaps getting used to carrying round a soiled nappy in your change bag most days!
When we finally did start using them again (this time some all in ones from bum genius) we got on a lot better. Since then we have used various different brands (including the Close Parent Pop Ins pictured above) which are fantastic. We probably own around 20 cloth nappies, which i think as long as you are washing them at least once every other day is enough to go by. In all honestly we actually still use an eco disposable at night due to the fact they Wilf still wakes every 45 mins and I feed him a lot still during the night which equals a lot of wee! I think when he eventually does learn to sleep for longer stretches and feeds less we can cut that one out too. 
Myself and the lovely Alex were invited to blog about the event, myself as a cloth nappy user and Alex as a mum who is thinking of starting to use cloth nappies. We were invited along by the lovely Adele who I recently met through a South West Blogger group. Adele's beautiful little girl Talitha and Wilf struck up a friendship playing with the oh so beautiful toys in the shop. I think Born coped very well with five or so excitable babies running around the place and getting into every nook and corner (I found Wilf behind the till at one point!). We were given muffins and coffee and left to look at all the nappies and chat to Andrea the representative from Itti Bitti (one of the brands that Born stock). Itti Bitti gave out free wash bags and a Rockin' Green detergent sample and Born were kind enough to supply Alex and I a goodie bag (pictured above) with some more treats!
Born stock a variety of different cloth nappies and can talk you through which style and brands might be best for your baby. Did you see all those colours??I have to admit one of the reasons I love cloth nappies is also that they come in such cute colours and prints! The Bristol cloth nappy library was also there. I had no idea there was such a thing as a cloth nappy library but its such a fantastic idea as you can borrow a trial kit of nappies and see how you get on with them before you go out and buy your set.
Itti Bitti have given me one of their nappies to review which I will write about in a separate post. We had a really fun morning, thanks Born!