BIG baby swimming fan here, its the highlight of our week, dd loves it and is really starting to swim now. I've already signed dd up for saturday morning classes with her daddy so that she keeps it up after baby is born, and I'm going to try and pursuade someone to have dd one afternoon a week so I can take the baby swimming coz we've enjoyed it sooo much that I want him/her to have the experience too.
I realised that the pre-birth plan I had went to pot in terms of the actual birth and bf, but we've stuck to routine and re-usable nappies. Funny how the bits where our body takes over end up out of our own control!
On the washable nappies topic, I can get a bit passionate like some of the breastfeeding advocates iykwim...so feel free not to read on! But hopefully you'll be persuaded by my arguments like I've been with bf-ing!
I've only heard bad things from 'people in the know' about the so-called environmentally friendly disposables. While its true that the manufacture is better for the environment, you still have the issues of packaging, carbon footprint as they're transported to the shops etc, and unless you compost them, there's really no use in using them. If they go in a nappy sack/black bin bag and into regular landfill then they won't biodegrade as there's insufficient oxygen for aerobic respiration of the bacteria that break them down. [geek emoticon]. My concern is that people think they're saving the planet when in actual fact they're just spending more, on a less absorbant nappy (we found the nature baby ones leaked terribly and smelled really bad).
I've found washable nappies easier than I ever thought - you sling them in a bucket which is lined with a mesh, and when its full, lift out the mesh and bung it in the machine on a 60o wash, then hang them out to dry. I think I've said before that I love the bumgenius best of all. Also love totsbots bamboozles, although you have to buy two sizes of those, plus wraps and fleece liners, whereas the bumgenius are birth to potty, and the waterproof wrap is integral. But, they're manmade microfibre rather than organic bamboo. We use bumgenius by day and bamboo by night. So your shopping list is:
20ish nappies
1 x bucket
2 x bucket mesh
flushable liners for solids (newborn poos can go in the washing machine)
You can't get washables on ebay any more, but you can get second hand ones at the nappy exchange and a quick google search will bring up a host of sites selling washables. My local lollipop rep is a legend too.
Right, off to help dh write a risk assessment for his football team, the fun never ends!