EDIT: We’ve set up a new blog called Becoming Self Sufficient that you may also be interested in visiting.

Its a new long term project that has just emerged for this family but since Bealers has been Head of Veg Gardening and really enjoying it (having never planted or grown anything before he’s [...]]]>

EDIT: We’ve set up a new blog called Becoming Self Sufficient that you may also be interested in visiting.

Its a new long term project that has just emerged for this family but since Bealers has been Head of Veg Gardening and really enjoying it (having never planted or grown anything before he’s now growing chillis, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, peas, pumpkins, all manner of herbs and salad items, raspberries, strawberries and LOADS of potatoes!), since all the recent talk of predicted economic doom and gloom, soaring fuel prices/import costs as well as the UK’s ageing population, increased violence have lead us to believe that there may be some really tough times ahead for those not well equipped to look after their own. We have started to think seriously about becoming more self sufficient as a family and less reliant on others for food and energy requirements.

At present we’re not doing much more than a bit of idle internet research and have found a load of good sites (added to the blogroll here) but have also started to collect books on the subject of self sufficiency, allotment gardening and keeping chickens and livestock.

Bealers is now happily enrolled on a 10 week Beginners Carpentry evening course at the local college from September and I’m really keen to do the NVQ in hairdressing (but at the moment the small baby at home means I’m unable to leave the house without her). Other interests we’ve identified as being useful for those who aim to be more self sufficient are fishing, shooting, first aid, general building skills, plumbing, teaching and counselling, dressmaking, knitting, crocheting. About a lifetime ago I trained to be a primary school teacher and although I never actually got paid for doing it I do still sometimes have an urge to home educate our kids.

At the moment we are fairly close to being a typical modern family but perhaps where we differ is in our new attitude to doing things for ourselves. We are raising our children (twins aged five and a new baby) to know about food (cost, growing, preparation, nutrition), how to enjoy their free time without classes or clubs where people tell them what to do, to spend plenty of time in the fresh air and to understand that money is a finite resource which for most people is hard to come by and too easily spent. We teach them how to sweep, how to make their beds, how to hang clothes up, how to load/unload the washing machine, how to donate old things no longer required to the charity shop, how to borrow books from the library. We holiday in a twelve year old five berth touring caravan and we write letters to friends and family members. All this is fairly new to us as only two years ago we wer, like so many others, enjoying the luxuries that a two salary household could enjoy.

At present we rent a fairly big Victorian house with a good sized garden on a busy main road in rural Worcestershire but aim to one day live somewhere with enough land, outbuildings etc to grow vegetables, raise some animals for food (chickens, ducks, pigs?), to have access to somewhere to fish. We don’t know where this will be. We sold our house in London last year and now are settled and happy enough for the time being where we are taking the small steps towards a totally different lifestyle to our old city ways.

The only conundrum for me is how we will have enough time and energy to manage such a lifestyle. At present we watch very little television, have not much time for sitting and reading, I get up with the three kids early in the morning and I am just finishing cleaning, washing, drying, feeding etc by the time it is our bedtime. My hope is that as they grow older they will be more independent on us and will have their own role to play, Bealers will presumably work away from the home less as theoretically we will need less cash to pay for things and will therefore have more time to spend on managing our home environment.

http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/

http://www.goselfsufficient.co.uk/

http://www.simpleliving.net

http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/

As we were fortunate enough to be given LOADS of second hand washable nappies I am really enjoying not having to use disposable nappies which I’m glad about as disposables cost a fortune (about £10 for a week’s worth of botty changes) and they also are super stinky in the household [...]]]>

As we were fortunate enough to be given LOADS of second hand washable nappies I am really enjoying not having to use disposable nappies which I’m glad about as disposables cost a fortune (about £10 for a week’s worth of botty changes) and they also are super stinky in the household refuse bin (even when bagged in a nappy sack). The washable nappies are collected throughout the day in a lidded pail with a mesh drawstring bag as a liner and few drops of tea tree oil to keep fresh and they are washed with a load of laundry at 40 degrees each evening or every other evening if I’m feeling slack (we have so many I don’t ever run out of nappies).

Before our baby arrived three months ago I wasn’t aware that people who use washable nappies also tend to use washable wipes and I had stocked up on a box of ‘environmentally friendly’ disposable wipes. These went fairly quickly and it was just by chance that I came across a woman on eBay selling brand new washable wipes made from fleece in a huge range of cheery patterns. I bought one pack of 10 from her (£1.50) then another and now we just use lovely pure warm water to clean the baby. The fleecey squares are kept in a little basket near to the babe’s changing station.

They are so soft and really big that the task of cleaning a really nasty nappy is far less trouble with these cloths than with any thin shop-bought tissuey wet wipe which must be full of chemicals. They get popped into the nappy pail along with the nappy and being fleece they don’t colour run in the wash.

I always have a few in my baby’s changing bag and get lovely comments about how pretty, soft, thick and useful they are. When the bub starts to eat solid food I’m sure I will get through plenty as little face cloths. I shudder to think how much I spent on disposable nappies + wipes with the twins before they were toilet trained it must have been close to £2,000 during the two years of their lives.

Luckily for my purse and our bank balance we don’t live near to any shops apart from the butcher, the bakery, a small grocery shop and a few charity shops (full of old ladies’ things mainly). When we lived in East London and I worked in the City I found that [...]]]>

Luckily for my purse and our bank balance we don’t live near to any shops apart from the butcher, the bakery, a small grocery shop and a few charity shops (full of old ladies’ things mainly). When we lived in East London and I worked in the City I found that the majority of my spare time was spent idly wandering around the shops with no real purpose.

I often came home with plenty of so-called bargains as we lived near to cheap shops like Primark, Matalan, Woolworths, Superdrug, Tesco and Poundland and for about five minutes I would feel great. Over time the house became full of stuff. I had several gift drawers stuffed full of things that could be given away as presents, every cupboard was full and so were all the shelves and the loft and cellar too. The things I bought cost little per item but over time the amount spent was almost certainly huge (especially as the idle purchasing had started when I was a young teenager with pocket money frittering tendancies). Buying everything cheap and new ensured that somewhere in the world factories manufacturing these good were profiting from my spending and that the goods had been shipped around the planet using unnecessary energy. More often than not the new things were broken and therefore discarded shortly after they arrived in our lives and so filled up a tiny bit more of the world’s landfill with non-biodegradable junk.

Recently (about 18 months ago) I’ve been consciously de-junking our lives a little at a time (and still the house is very far from being stark or empty). I’ve taken loads of boxes of books to our local library where they either add them to their collection or sell them for cash, loads of clothes and linens to my favourite charity shop (worth noting that I only found out last week that they will happily take bags of unsellable clothes (ripped, stained, old underwear, threadbare towels, unfashionable things) if they are in a bag marked ‘Rags’. They can sell these for money to another purchaser. We’ve freecycled larger items and sold just a few on eBay and I’ve used most of the things in the gifts stash as gifts for people.

The fantastic feeling each time I get rid of further unwanted things from our lives is very similar to the buzz of previous years after another shopping spree. It feels fantastic to be liberated of things that are neither useful nor give any pleasure due to their aesthetics. For items I have a irrational reluctance to part with I stash them away into a trunk and then several months later I am able to prove to myself that I have lived happily without it and had actually forgotten that it existed at all.

Now when we hit the shops it’s with a specific purchase in mind (childrens shoe measuring and fitting, Bealers’ new suit). For the huge majority of household purchasing I’m a big eBay/Freecycle/charity shop fan. I love the surprise element and I really love re-loving something which someone has finished with but still has plenty of life in it yet.

This afternoon was one of my twice yearly treats – a nearly new sale held by the local NCT (National Childbirth Trust) branch. These sales are absolutely brilliant for anyone with/expecting a small baby or child or wanting to sell on things that their baby/kid have outgrown. Anyone is allowed to sell items and the sales are superbly organised so that all the items of a similar nature are grouped on different tables and the kids clothes are hanging up by sex/age.

I spent £35 which felt like an awful lot then I realised it wasn’t it’s just that I’ve become so unaccustomed to shopping. For my money (and the huge adrenalin rush, shoppers buzz) I got:

• A pram/car seat mobile
• A mirror to place in the car so I can glance at the rear-facing baby
• A towelling baby bath hammock
• A cute crib sheet and blanket gift set (unused)
• A big new nappy changing bag
• Two baby swimming costumes
• A set of brand new Marks & Spencers sleepsuits, bibs, baby vests
• A set of brand new baby vests
• A musical cot mobile
• A baby sleep book
• Some funky bibs
• Cute summer shortie bodysuits ‘I love mummy/daddy’
• A pretty bed guard (actually from a local lady via Freecycle yesterday but it was free so I’m throwing it in to the general 2nd hand shopping triumphs!)
• A pair of girls pyjamas
• Two long sleeved tops

Our little baby daughter is now 12 weeks old but for the first 10 weeks of her life she has been in obvious discomfort/pain. She has cried an awful lot especially when put down on her back for nappy changes, naps, in the car seat. She has also suffered with [...]]]>
Happy now… 

Our little baby daughter is now 12 weeks old but for the first 10 weeks of her life she has been in obvious discomfort/pain. She has cried an awful lot especially when put down on her back for nappy changes, naps, in the car seat. She has also suffered with what appears to be highly acidic regurgitation of small amounts of digested milk. The only time she was not crying would be the first half an hour of the day when in fact she was a very alert and incredibly smiley little thing.

Apart from be worried about her and defend her when my husband nicknamed her The Bad Baby I was pretty sure there was nothing much I could do for her as when I took her to the GP they checked her ears, throat and temperature and declared that she was fine. She was gaining weight at a very good rate, being breastfed we knew there were no allergies to cows milk causing her pain and I just hoped she would turn a corner as she grew, became more sturdy and upright and her stomach became more mature.

Every nap time was taken in my blessed sling which she was constantly carried in as there was no way I could leave her crying on her back to do even the smallest household chore. If I stopped moving for even an instant she would wake up with a start and the crying would resume. Unlike my previous babies she did not nod off instantly in the car but if she did she would only stay asleep while we were moving and traffic lights caused her to wake up howling again.

I felt so so sorry for her. My mum was concerned for her as she remembered my brother being in a similar state when he was an infant and she claimed it (a) broke her heart and (b) held him back developmentally as instead of people cooing and interacting with a baby who is crying so much they are just in their own world of distress.

I chanced upon a leaflet at the local baby weighing clinic for a local osteopath which mentioned the benefits of treating ‘unsettled’ babies with cranial osteopathy as traumas from the pregnancy or birth can leave some babies with constant chronic pain such as headaches, stomach disorders, and can even hinder them from establishing breastfeeding if their little jaw bones haven’t popped back into the position they were designed to be in.

As a complete and utter sceptic but having reached the end of my wits having listened to my poor poor baby scream in my ear for so many hours each day especially when a bit of milky sick came up I made an appointment and trundled her down to the osteopath clinic.

Peter the osteopath took many details about what had brought me to his door, the baby’s symptoms, what kind of pregnancy I had and how she was born (by emergency c-section due to her being entagled with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck). He explained that every time she had moved in utero the cord around her neck would have yanked her stomach where her belly button is and also she may have stayed in an awkward position to accomodate this discomfort.

He lay the tiny tot on the huge treatment couch and very gentley placed his hands underneath her back, then her pelvis, then her neck and determined that he could indeed feel areas of treatable tension in one of her shoulders (the side she hates to lie on when being fed) and around her pelvis. He then worked with tiny tiny movements to release this tension for her.

While she was being treated the baby stopped crying, looked intently at the nice gentle man and smiled her beamiest smile (meanwhile I was blubbling into my hanky). For the rest of that day last week she then cried more than she had ever cried, refused to feed or to sleep at all, she conked out at bedtime as she always does and then ever since has cried only when hungry or tired just like normal babies do. She now naps in her own bed with just 5 minutes of ‘I am not sleeeeeeepy’ tears before she nods off. We no longer have to rock her vigourously for hours just to help her find a comfort enough to sleep.

I was still slightly sceptical and thought it may just be the coincidence of her growing and may have been much improved without my paying £40 for the cranial osteopath session but then Bealers my husband found himself at the same osteopath when an old recurring back complaint flaired up. Bealers purposefully witheld all the details of the back injury but the osteopath’s diagnosis was consistent with x-rays he has had in the past and the massage/manipulation he performed on him has left him feeling much better if a little sore.

Somehow his faith in the powers of osteopathy has made me come to terms with the fact that I am so extremely grateful for this man’s work with my newest 12 week love and only wish I had found his leaflet in the post-natal ward the week she was born rather than her be in pain for the first 10 weeks of her little life.

Further reading:

http://www.cranial.org.uk/page3.html

The Mooncup Menstrual Cup – An Innovative Alternative to Tampons

“3 days after using my mooncup for [...]]]> [This post is for the girls...Blokes - look away now as not much here in this post for you other than persuading your women to use these two fabulous new products]

The Mooncup Menstrual Cup – An Innovative Alternative to Tampons

I can’t remember how I discovered the Mooncup I think it was reading a post on the ever-wonderful www.mumsnet.com/Talk/ forum. An environmentally friendly way of dealing with monthly menstrual periods which happy users were saying were better (cleaner, needing to be changed less frequently and more comfortable to wear) than any of the disposable sanitary protection products on the market? It sounded too good to be true so I read up on the manufacturer’s website and very shortly afterwards bought one (for about £15 I think).

The claims were absolutely spot on. One small silicon egg-cup shaped product is used in place of a tampon and collects the fluid. The fluid is then tipped away down the toilet and the Mooncup resinserted. It can be washed in water and between periods it has its own discreet little unbleached cotton bag with pretty pink ribbon to store in. No more shelves of bulky sanitary protection or being bamboozled by the bewildering array of choice in the ‘feminine hygiene’ aisle at the supermarket. No more spending good money on disposables products which clog up landfill every month of your reproductive years (how much does that add up to?!)

It holds more than an tampon so needs to be changed/dealt with less frequently, it is made from hygenic soft supple silicon and so one is less aware of it than other products.

I listened to a good debate on Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour yesterday about how ridiculous it was that was too much choice of products to buy for this bodily function each month. Apparently there are even scented products available now, tampons with ‘skirts’, panty liners for g-string wearers and panty liners for days when you haven’t even got your period (surely that’s what pants & their gussets are for…). According to the person who wished more people would become aware of the Mooncup and similar products female society have become disengaged with their bodies and many may be uncomfortable trying a product like a Mooncup as it requires the user to put it in place. But surely there are many women out there who are not at all fearful of their own bodies, don’t like throwing away money and used disposable products and would be more than happy to have a personal product for life?

LilyPadz® – Reusable non-absorbent breast pads for nursing mums (LilyPadz® Putting The Glamour into Breast Feeding and Taking the Frumpiness out!)

I’ve been breastfeeding our new baby for the 38 days she has lived outside of me and thankfully we both love it . I know some new mothers and babes have trouble with feeding and despite there being a lot of pressure from health professionals to breastfeed it is something many women give up on or don’t attempt at all.

One thing I remembered from breastfeeding my other children was that it was a hugely messy business with duvet covers, pyjamas and baby saturated in milk by the morning due to milky leakings/pourings.

Having become environmentally aware since I last breastfed I bought myself a pack of 4 washable breast pads which I hoped to use instead of disposable breast pads (filled with the same kind of gel crystals found in disposable nappies). They were all sodden within the first few hours of the day, got lost in the wash and curled up into awful scrumpled-tissue shaped things after drying. I reached into the box of pricey disposable pads I’d been given by a kind friend who no longer used them and was relived that they were far more absorbant but often got scrumpled up in my bra and looked awfully lumpy under t-shirts. Was there nothing available for a breastfeeding woman trying desperately to feel ‘normal’ again after the birth of her baby and not constantly sporting circular wet patches on the front of her tops!?

Thankfully I chanced across mention of LilyPadz (again on the blessed, life-saving Mumsnet forum) which sounded amazing as they claimed to stop the flow of spare milk from the unutilised bosom whilst yet being sleek, hygenic, comfortable and almost invisible under clothes. Obviously I bought a pair immediately and have been delighted since they arrived last week as they do indeed stop leakage and so there is nothing to keep dry. The pads work by placing gentle pressure on the nipple stopping the let down of milk and preventing the leak. The most amazing thing is you can wear them without a bra so even in bed they are in place and hooray – no more daily washing of bed linen on top of looking after the new baby and the house!

Like the Mooncup they are made from flexible silicone. They are very thin and lightweight. One does not feel them at all once they are in place and the marketing from the LilyPadz website tells us that as they just need a quick wash in water each day and ry so quickly they are even better than being ‘reusable’ products as they are ‘constantly usable’.

Having read a leaflet entitled ‘Real Nappies’ about informal drop in sessions being held locally for people wishing to find out more about using washable nappies I went along to a ‘Nappacino’ event and saw a very knowledgeable woman who knows all about using disposable nappies as a cheaper, more environmentally friendly and [...]]]>

Having read a leaflet entitled ‘Real Nappies’ about informal drop in sessions being held locally for people wishing to find out more about using washable nappies I went along to a ‘Nappacino’ event and saw a very knowledgeable woman who knows all about using disposable nappies as a cheaper, more environmentally friendly and altogether less stinky alternative to using costly disposables which are well documented to be an expensive, highly processed, chemical containing, non-degradable yet time saving modern phenomenon. She bought along samples of the range available to parents and took the time to explain in great detail why cloth nappies are so wonderful.

I’ve been exceedingly lucky to have been given nearly 20 brand new OneLife ‘birth-to-potty’ cloth shaped nappies by my very good friend Jane to use for our newest child when it is here. I’ve also collected another 15+ of various other brands from generous Freecyclers in response to an advert I placed several months ago.

I went along to the ‘Nappacino’ event held by the local council in conjunction with Mandie who sells reusable washable nappies at her baby shop (www.honeybees-store.co.uk). I went because I wasn’t sure whether I had enough nappies, whether they were the right size or whether I needed any extra equipment.

My friend who also came along and I were both astounded to learn that there is still A LOT of awareness building to be done as so many parents-to-be just don’t know how lovely and how cheap washable nappies can be in comparison to nasty old disposables.

When my kids were in nappies (2003-2005) there were always some evil smelling nappy sacks containing foul nappies waiting to be taken outside to the bin, in the summer the wheelie bin would reek with a weeks worth of nappies being roasted inside. We added at least £10 extra to each weekly shop to cover a packet of nappies and calculated that we probably spent getting on for £1000 on disposables before they were potty trained. It was only when they were nearly 2 that I learned that had disposable nappies been around in King Henry VIII’s time we would still be surrounded by his generation’s festering nappies today a good 500 years later as they are not biodegradable. Yuck!

The facts I found out at the nappy awareness thing were as follows:

There are loads of different nappy manufacturers these days but they roughly fall into a few main catagories of the following types. They are all used with a flushable liner inside so that all the solids can be flushed down the loo into the sewage system (where it belongs) instead of sitting on a landfill site leaching its contents into the water supply. Flushable liners for washable nappies are sold at large supermarkets, online (eg. Mothercare) or at healthfood shops.

The types:

1. Terry towelling (or bamboo) squares:
   
   Cheapest, easiest to wash & dry, not at all scary to fold (once shown by someone who knows how to do it properly) which can be done in advance into a satisfying pile ready to use by a changing station. Terries have the added advantage of being useful beyond the life of an untrained bottom as can be employed for all manner of household jobs, mop ups etc. A waterproof pant goes over the top (lovely soft fabric more like lycra than hard plastic – covers are now made from supersoft polyester cotton blend jersey fabric with a wipe clean surface on the inside.). They can be fastened with nappy pins as our mothers did or with a ‘Nappi Nippa’ which is a three pronged velcro type clip which grabs loops of the towelling and keeps it secure). I loved the look of these once they were folded (a 1 second job) and found myself urgently buying a pack of 10 so I have extra nappies on the days when the washing machine breaks, I’m too shattered to do a load of washing etc.
   -
2. Pre-folds (eg. BambinoMio):
   
   Similar to terries (I think, but I wasn’t paying too much attention as I knew I had none of these) but come with a waterproof pant into which a folded rectangle of cloth nappy fabric is inserted into inside pouches to hold them in place. I seem to recall that the nappy lady wasn’t particularly impressed with these as the way the nappy was folded inside on itself rather than on and around the baby’s lef meant they have a tendancy to leak more…
   -
3. Birth-to-potty: (eg. Motherease or OneLife)
   
   My friend who accompanied me on the excursion was totally sold on this nappy and is now preparing to buy the full kit to take her expected baby (and any subsequent babies) from birth to age three for £199 (slightly different cost to the £1k we spent on disposable nappies for two children). I was pleased that it seemed to both of us to be the easiest to use (wash, dry, fasten onto a wriggly babe) as I knew I had been given so many. With these nappies they are made from very nice soft, thick, terry towelling but are shaped in a similar way to disposables with some gentle elastic around the leg holes and a huge range of poppers to fasten so you really can have them fit a tiny new born to a great chunky toddler. They come with extra booster pads (also towelling) to put in the centre of the nappy for an older baby, a heavier wetter or for use at night/long car journeys. The waterproof covers/pants come in four different sizes and you need about 3 of each size to see you through to toilet training but as they don’t get soiled during the day they aren’t changed at each nappy change.
   -
4. All -in-One (eg. Kushies):
   
   For this I gather you would need to buy several of one size and then buy more once your baby gets to a certain weight. This put me off as well as the fact that the ‘all-in-one’ washable nappies I have been given from Freecyle are apparently a bit of a pain as they take a long time to dry as they consist of a waterproof pant containing a cloth nappy and a thicker pad down the inside center. They can’t be tumble dried or put on a radiator because of the waterproof outer and can whiff a bit damp by the time they finally are dried. My friend and I also sussed out (and the nappy lady confirmed) that the elastic leg holes tends to be a bit rigid and can leave a painful looking imprint on a little bubber’s soft skin. I get the impression that this kind are not very popular anymore.

Do excuse me if I’ve left out another type of nappy. There were some incredibly light fluffy ones on her display table which I gather are made from bamboo fibre rather than cotton which has the advantage of being more absorbant yet less bulky (good for a baby who drinks and wees a lot), much much softer to feel, quicker, easier and more environmentally friendly to produce than cotton.

Small yet highly valuable nuggets of wisdom were also passed on to us during the washable nappy session which I will share here.

Changing and Washing Tips:

• Have a dry nappy bucket (no need to ever soak apparently unless they are hideously soiled and you want to remove a stain) with a large mesh bag inside next to the changing station or in the bathroom. As you remove a nappy put it and its components (except the flushable liner) into the mesh bag.
• Wash and dry the baby using a small washable flannel and some warm water (no need to spend loads on chemical ridden wet wipes each week) bung this in the mesh bag too and put the lid on the bucket.
• As you go to the bathroom to wash your hands take the discarded liner and flush away.
• At the end of the day lift out the mesh liner full of nappies and wash at 40 degrees with detergent and some sanitiser added to the detergent compartment (Napisan or an enviromentally friendly alternative).
• Hang out to dry or tumble on a low heat setting and when dry reassemble them (including a liner) into a pile or into a nappy stacker so they are all ready to be used by you or helpful relative when the baby next needs a change.

Although I feel that washable nappies will be brilliant for us (washing machine already on once or twice a day, large washing line in the garden, lots of time already dedicated to drying and putting away laundry) I *can* see that for parents who both work full time and have babies in childcare it may be that disposables are just one more thing that helps find the right work life balance. There is certainly enough to do after collecting babies from childminders or nursery, getting them to bed, feeding the family, doing laundry to then have to find the time and energy to wash a bag full of nappies and get the next day’s dry supply ready to take in the morning with the baby. Maybe the next generation of day carers will offer the service of washing & drying reusable nappies.

So it turned out that I do have enough nappies as I have 17 OneLife nappies which are one-size-fits-all-babies (Mandie recommended having 20 and then you have enough to last two days without being forced to wash and dry in one 24 hour period), I need extra waterproof covers as I only have 3 of the size 1 (for a baby 10lbs-20lbs) so will get a few tiny ones and several larger ones, I already have a nappy pail bought from an NCT nearly new sale and I already have an unopened pack of flushable nappy liners (donated by a very kind friend).

I’m surprised that out of all my friends who have had babies in the last 5 years I can only think of two who are using washable nappies. Goodness that means that between me and my close girlriends we are guilty of spending well over £15,000 on disposable nappies which have taken up a fair bit of landfill…

I do wonder whether I’ll sneak back to the occasional disposable nappy when on a caravanning holiday – I’d be interested in hearing if anyone has been exclusively reusable nappies and even used them on camping excursions.