I think it’s super important that we all make eco- friendly changes once in a while, but I think it’s also super important to remember that not everyone can change there ways with a click of their fingers.

I think it’s incredible that some people can live 100% eco friendly lives, but in the society we live in now a days, I completely understand why some people struggle to make changes.

If you’d have said to me this time last year that I’d be using reusable nappies and reusable sanitary towels, I’d have laughed and been pretty grossed out…but here I am, living the dream!

I think a huge part of the lack of ‘change’ is availability of sustainable alternatives. How many recognised supermarkets sell reusable femcare products? 1! Tesco are the first UK supermarket to exclusively offer an organic and reusable femcare range! But I’ve never personally seen them in their stores…

A second huge part of the lack of ‘change’ is cost! It can be expensive buying reusable / sustainable products. For example, baby wipes! On average, biodegradable disposable baby wipes range between £1.50-£3.00. Whereas supermarket baby wipes can be as little as 50p! If a family with 2 small children (that’s us!) use 3 packets a week, we would be spending up to £9 a week on biodegradable wipes, whereas we’d be spending £1.50 if we brought them on a multi-buy offer they have on at Tesco’s! That’s £468 vs £78 a year!

Now I’m not saying ‘bin all of your unsustainable things and buy eco-friendly things’, I’m saying ‘use what you have, then make a change!’ Don’t go binning your children’s brand new plastic toothbrushes to buy a bamboo toothbrush… use the plastic one, then when it needs replacing, buy a bamboo one! Because wasting is just as bad!

Here I’ve noted a few of my changes that I have made!

Reusable Baby Food Pouches

I’ve been using NomNomKids reusable food pouches since 2017. They’re fab! My eldest son, Leo loves a pouch (even now!). They’re a cheap and sustainable alternative to premade, expensive food pouches…that taste nothing like ‘real’ food! These pre-filled, branded pouches are not recyclable.

We tend to buy frozen fruits from Aldi, defrost them, then blitz them up for Leo! We can make about 5/6 140ml pouches for under £2! We always use NomNom pouches with his dairy free yoghurt. We buy a bigger tub of it (it’s works out cheaper and uses less plastic than buying individual pots!). NomNomKids food pouches are super easy to fill and super easy to clean as the open from the side making it easy to clean!

NomNoms: https://nomnomkids.co.uk

Reusable Straws

This sounds crazy, but I never thought about reusable straws until McDonald’s changed their straws into paper ones…that turn out too not even be recyclable!! We found a 4 pack of metal straws with a straw in TK Maxx for £3.99. They keep your drinks cool and they’re easy to clean with the bendy straw brush. I have since found a 4 pack (with a cleaner) in Primark for just £2.50!

Reusable FemCare Products

I first saw reusable sanitary products sold on a small Instagram page. I didn’t buy any as I was a little grossed out! A year later, I swear by them! I brought 2 extra heavy flow, postpartum pads from an instagram shop called ‘Red Rags’. I didn’t use them in the postpartum stage as it’s all a bit extreme post baby, but I’ve used them as nighttime pads since and I regret not using them after birth! I found another lovely Instagram account called ‘Honour Your Flow’. I went on their website just after I had Rosie and brought a ‘daily liner’ just to give it a try. It arrived the next day and it was so soft. My collection has continued to grow! They are really easy too clean, I rinse mine under the tap then leave it in water over night. I then put them on a 60’c wash. Their pads last up to 120 uses, then you can cut them up and put them in your compost bin! They may be a little more expensive up front, but if you buy 1 or 2 pads a month (this is what I do), it spreads the cost and grows your collection without breaking the bank! HYF also has ‘Happy Hour’ most Sunday’s which gives you 20% off!

RedRags: https://redrags.co.uk

Honour Your Flow: https://www.honouryourflow.co.uk

(Photo taken in Nothing But Footprints in Banbury)

Reusable Nappies

I couldn’t believe it when I read that 1 nappy can take up to 500 years to decompose…we go through about 10 nappies per child a day! That’s over 7000 a year!

During the Aldi’s Baby Event week, we picked up a Bambino Mio reusable nappy! After using it just once, I fell in love with it! We’ve had no leaks or poops up Rosies back which was our biggest issue with disposable nappies! I was so upset when I returned to Aldi a couple of days after and they’d sold out of all of their Bambino Mio nappies! I ended up ordering one (and a packet of reusable baby wipes) on the Bambino Mio website…I had a 15% off code and they had free delivery, so both came to less than £20, bargain! That same week, Sainsbury’s had the Bambino Mios on offer for £12 instead of £16, so we picked one up from there as well!

I’ve been searching eBay daily to find a second hand bargain, but I never found one worth while. But one Saturday, I found a 6 pack of Bambino Mio nappies being sold 5 minutes up the road from me for £40… that works out to be £6.67 a nappy…. bargain! Not only where they cheaper than new, they where 2nd hand so helping to reduce landfill waste!

Each month we plan to buy 1 reusable nappy. This will help to spread the cost! I wish I’d used reusable nappies since Leo was born…it’d have saved us a fortune!

We have also purchased 4 reusable nappies from CC Nappies. They where a bargain! At £3.90 (plus a 95p insert) they where an absolute steal! We brought 4 nappies and 4 inserts for just £19.40, wow!

They are so, so easy to clean and they dry super quick due to their microfibre design! Whilst the sun is shining, it is great to hang them outside as the sun acts as a natural stain remover!

If you use just 1 reusable nappy twice a week, that’s 104 over the year! The best thing is, the Bambino Miosolo and CC Nappies are all in 1 and last from newborn to potty training, so there’s no need to keep buying more as they grow!

Bambino Mio: https://www.bambinomio.com

CC Nappies: https://www.ccnappies.com

Bamboo Children’s Plates & Spoons

Weaning your baby is a super exciting time! It is very easy to get carried away buying 20 spoons, 10 bowls, 10 plates… but you really don’t need to!

I have always thought that bamboo plates and cutlery where really attractive, so I was super excited to receive 2 from EcoPanda. We have a simple circle plate and a fox shaped plate with 3 different sections. These plates come in 3 designs; Fox, Bunny and Plain. I have given Leo the Fox one And Rosie a Plain one! The divides make preparing Leo’s lunch and portion sizes a lot easier!

The plates are 100% biodegradable, BPA free, Phthalate free and made from natural bamboo. They delayed releasing their Suction Plates to tweek the suction pad as they weren’t 100% happy, but now they’re up to standard!

Although cheap plastic plates can be convenient, they scratch easily and stain even easier. Whereas I have yet to have a single problem with the bamboo plates after over 3 months of daily use! Because they have no scratches on them, it makes washing them up a lot easier as the sponge doesn’t pull!

Eco Panda: https://ecopandauk.com (ZOE10 will give you a cheeky discount on their website!)

Bamboo ToothBrushes

I would never have thought that toothbrushes would have an effect on the environment, but when you think that there’s about 63 million people In the UK alone…that’s a lot of toothbrushes!

Now, there are a lot of arguments when it comes to dental hygiene and the environment. The 1st being that although electric toothbrushes aren’t biodegradable, dentist recommend and electric toothbrush over a manual one. The 2nd argument being that most eco friendly toothbrushes (the ones that I have) have soft charcoal bristles that have tooth whitening benefits.

We have kindly been sent a family pack of 4 Bamboo Toothbrushes from Eco Panda UK. 2 of the brushes are adults and 2 are children sized.

Personally, I will continue using my electric toothbrush because of my dentists recommendations, however I will be using my Bamboo toothbrushes when I am on holidays, away from home or when I have my surgeries next year! This saves me buying disposable plastic ones!

However, I will be using the Bamboo toothbrushes for the children! The Eco Panda ones are great, each toothbrush has a different coloured base, so you don’t get mixed up!

Eco Panda: https://ecopandauk.com (ZOE10 will give you a cheeky discount on their website!)

Baby Wipes

Like I said in my introduction, biodegradable baby wipes can be expensive. But ‘normal’ baby wipes can take up to 100 years to decompose in landfill! Personally, I can’t afford to change every packet of baby wipes into biodegradable ones. Instead, once a month I will buy 1 or 2 packets (depending if they’re on offer) of biodegradable ones. That’s at least 720 less plastic wipes each year. (Small changes make a difference!)

What I have brought is 2 packets of reusable baby wipes from Bambino Mio. I simply store them in a tupperware box, half filled in water and leave the wipes in the box. When I need a wipe, I ring it out, wipe, then pop it in my dirty nappy bucket ready to wash! There are kits available to buy, but this is a cheaper, easier option!

Bambino Mio: https://www.bambinomio.com

Reusable Breast Pads

I exclusively expressed milk for Leo for 7 months and I am exclusively breastfeeding Rosie. Any mum (breastfeeding or not) has at some point produced breast milk! Whether it was during pregnancy or after! Leaking boobs are no joke! I was spending about £6 (if not more) for 30 pairs of breast pads. In the early days, it’s easy to go through 3 or 4 pairs! I saw that Mama Designs sold some reusable Bamboo breast pads at the Baby Show at the NEC in 2017. I brought them straight away and I still use them now! I’ve also used some Boots ones (slowly dying on me after 3 months), I’ve got 2 pairs of RedRags breast pads and I’ve recently purchased some Honour Your Flow ones! It’s so nice to know I’ve not got to keep spending £6 on space consuming breast breast pads!

Mama Designs (they also sell reusable wipes!) : https://www.mamadesigns.co.uk

RedRags: https://redrags.co.uk

Soap and Shampoo Bars

Just like most household products, shampoos, conditioners and body washes tend to be in plastic bottles. Although lots of these bottles can be recycled, lots of plastics don’t end up being recycled, they end up in land fill or worse, in the ocean. Now I’ve used up my body wash and shampoo bottled products, I have switched to Soap and Shampoo bars. The shampoo lathers up more than bottled shampoo and it leaves your scalp feeling fresh and soft. I have purchased some of my soap products for myself and the children from an instagram shop called Hubble & Bubble! I couldn’t believe how affordable these products where! £3.50 for a shampoo bar and £3 for a body wash soap! Hubble & Bubbles products are SLS free also. SLS is a cheap, nasty ‘moderate hazard’ that has been linked to cancer, organ toxicity and skin irritations (according to Environmental Working Groups Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database). Not only are their products safe, they are beautiful also! I am now on the search for an affordable conditioner bar. I’ve heard great things about the Lush conditioner, but it’s a bit out of my budget at £7-£8 a bar.

Hubble & Bubble: https://www.hubbleandbubble.org

Second Hand Clothes

For those that who follow me on Instagram will know, I do love a bit of shopping! But my new pledge is to stop shopping brand new and be thrifty and buy second hand! Obviously, you can’t buy everything second hand and certain things like underwear and cosmetics I would always buy brand new! But for clothes and houseware, it’s very possible to get most things second hand! Recently, I’ve brought 50+ items of clothes (kids and adults) from charity shops and carboots for less than £30! You could buy 2 maybe 3 things from Mothercare for that… Second hand shopping is great fun, you never know what you’ll find! I brought a reusable Bambino Mio swim nappy for Rosie for 50p at a car boot… instead of £9.99 online! We’ve also picked up a play kitchen and 4 crates of wooden play food (in perfect condition) for the kids for Christmas! It’s cost me £62.50 (including postage) instead of £118 brand new!

A couple of other products I have recently brought (but yet to try) are reusable make up pads, a Himalayan rock salt deodorant, bamboo cotton buds and reusable face and hand wipes. As I said in my introduction, I will always use up what I have before starting a new product; eco friendly or not!

Now I look back on this list, it feels so small…but I know this is just the start of my planned changes. I aim to start walking more, instead of driving. My next few purchases will be beeswax food wraps, metal cups (Leo can’t be trusted with glass around him!), more reusable baby wipes nappies and sanitary pads! I also aim to be more eco-friendly with my cleaning. I want to try out chemical free cleaning, apparently lemons and bicarbonate of soda are a great team!

But remember guys, even if you just make 1 change, it’s better than nothing, and please remember, not everyone can make huge changes. Concentrate on supporting their change, whether it’s buying metal straws or buying an electric car. 1 change makes a huge difference.

To follow my Eco change journey, follow me over on Instagram @life.with.the.hjs