Kit & KIn

The launch of the Kit & Kin nappies pretty much coincided with the launch of my third baby and this time round my postpartum anxiety had me obsessing over plastic. And not just plastic. Waste in general. The thought of nappies, worn by me as a baby, still existing somewhere made me feel sick and I realised my usual plan of ignoring it til someone else fixes it was exactly the problem. That and supermarkets not giving up plastic bags altogether and sorting out paper ones but that's a whole different issue.

I've researched reusable nappies but with two children still wearing them it seemed pretty much like a full time job and a huge monetary outlay for something that may well not work for us. I'd tried Naty and though I love their, occasionally flimsy, biodegradable bags, the nappies always sprung a leak. So I ordered a pack of newborn nappies from Kit & Kin for Jack to test drive. At the time of writing this review Jack has been wearing them for 7 months.

I have to say I love the design and the packaging. Looks great, arrives in a cardboard box (unfortunately delivered by Hermes who aren't that reliable but I know that posting stuff is hard nowadays). We get the Tiger ones but you can choose from fox, bear and panda. They are really sweet and so easy to tell which way round they should be when you are frazzled.

They definitely aren't as absorbent as Pampers. We had a few leaks, especially when he was a newborn but to be fair I probably wasn't changing him enough as I'm used to a 2.5 year old. We've worked our way up the sizes and are now in a 4. He hasn't leaked for a long time (though in fact between writing this and taking the pictures he did) but while we're still working on getting him to completely sleep through he does sleep in Pampers as I don't want a leaky nappy to be the thing that wakes him up. However, even when there were leaks when he was tiny I still wanted to use Kit & Kin, they were totally avoidable if I just changed him more often and using biodegradable nappies all day and then one or two non-biodegradable ones at night is at least a step in the right direction. I'd say these can do about 4-5 hours max. If they are pretty saturated they will leak if there is a massive weaning explosion... if you get what I mean.

I signed up for the subscription service which sends you a months worth of nappies every month which is fantastic. If you feel like you are getting too many nappies, which I often do, then you can put your subscription on hold and then restart it again when you need. This works really well. I've also added their new wipes to my subscription - you get a pack of 4 and I'm genuinely surprised about how good these are. Not the easiest to get out of the packet these are wet enough to work, fragrance free and don't irritate any of the boys, Jim in particular has very sensitive skin and has reacted to every wipe except Huggies fragrance-free. He's absolutely fine with these and actually 4 packs is plenty for the month even with two in nappies.

The majority of their nappies and packaging will biodegrade between 3 and 6 years which is a massive improvement on the 500 years of conventional nappies. It's not just their products that are ethical, for every 10 subscriptions they will fund the purchase of 1 acre of of tropical forest through Wood Land Trust.

I really love using these nappies. I'll update this post when we've used them at night which I will do when he's having fewer bottles and reliably sleeping through. Every time I've spoken to one of the team I've had a prompt helpful reply - I love a company that's nailed its customer service. As long as you are prepared for the odd leak I definitely recommend these.

UPDATE OCTOBER 2018: for the past 2 months I have been using the Mum & You nappies. I bulk ordered their wipes as they are biodegradable and when I couldn't get Kit & Kin through Ocado one week I decided to try their nappies as well. I have to say I much prefer them to Kit & Kin. They are incredibly soft and absorbent. We haven't had one leak or explosion and the customer service is really spectacular so we are now making this a permanent switch.