Preparing for baby, the pursuit of inner peace & other stories

The last few weeks and months have really been taken up with trying to maintain as healthy and peaceful a lifestyle as possible during my pregnancy, and preparing materially for our new baby.

Staying healthy and happy has been something of a challenge, especially at the beginning of my pregnancy where I was very ill over the winter, and with the significant changes to my moods, eating habits and enery levels, and I will admit that at the time where it has been most essential to maintain good health and balance I have quite often struggled to do so. In fact if I'm honest the first few months of my pregnancy passed by in a bit of a blur or just trying to do anything to make myself feel better (and not always being sensible about this! Cue fizzy cola sweets...)

However, the last couple of months have bought with them a strong sense of mental clarity and more physical and mental strength and energy, just in time to prepare for our new arrival.

We have been following a much simpler diet these days, observing a mostly macrobiotic approach to cooking (and lifestyle) and have felt huge benefit from having a more natural diet and slower pace in life. The main additions to our meals has been eating more sea vegetables and fermented foods, and trying to eliminate all sugar and processed foods, especially processed grains, entirely. Obviously still eating organic food as much as possible (which is almost entirely). I can't recommend the change enough for generally improved health, well-being and inner peace. There is a line in a book I'm currently reading called Meditation and Life: World perfection through self perfection. I believe strongly in the truth in this, and that we need to look inwards and find peace within ourselves in order to bring peace to others.

In short, I have become very calm and am generally feeling much better (though this may be largely as a result of moving to Wales!)

Practically, we've not been up to all that much. Without the garden to keep us busy we don't really have a main focus in terms of making things, and really we're just back to repairing things around the house.
Having moved to Wales Will has taken up spoon carving and is well on his way to having his first home-made spoon, carved from driftwood found on the beach. I have also had a go myself and am quite keen too.

I continue to fix clothes (mainly Will's pants - pointiest bottom in the West) though these days mostly either hand sewing or using my very ancient manual Singer, as my electric machine and I aren't currently seeing eye-to-eye. The peace and quiet of using slower methods has been wonderful though, and I have realised that I would like to gradually eliminate most of our electrical devices. We are already on our way as I broke the blender last week, so I am now in search of a large pestle & mortar (if anyone has any leads??)

Despite all of my good intentions I have only made a small handful of items for the new baby, including a single pair of booties (though why I think a summer baby needs booties anyway...?), a woollen blanket and a small patchwork quilt (which I am particularly proud of as it is made from the wadding from our old mattress protector which finally gave up the ghost, fabric scraps from a local shop, and secondhand edging, all put together slowly and without electricity!)

In an attempt to keep myself busy while I wait for the new arrival I also crocheted a jumper (during a heatwave, naturally) with wool Will & I got for Christmas. It's a little long in the sleeve but all in all I'm feeling pretty chuffed and now itching for the weather to cool down so I can start making jumpers for the baby!

Other than that really all I've been doing is trying to prepare for our homebirth, which I am very excited about. Last month Will and I did a course on hypnobirthing and we are feeling very positive and confident about the natural process of childbirth. We have been trying to prepare the house to make it a clean and comfortable place to labour in, have been smudging the rooms with homemade smudgesticks and working on keeping ourselves calm and peaceful. I think this is something I would like to talk about more, but after the baby is here and I am able to reflect on the experience. This will be my last entry until then as I am now nearly 40 weeks pregnant. So until then, think of us and  we'll see you on the other side!

Reusable vs Disposable

One thing that really gets my goat is the amount of ‘disposable’ items there are available, and how in most instances the disposable item, while being more popular is usually more expensive and less efficient. This has become even clearer in our preparations for the new baby with so many books, people, and other resources suggesting you equip yourself with a vast list of disposable objects (nappies, wipes, breast pads, nappy bags, cotton wool, maternity pads, and disposable bloody knickers!)

Quite often when I’ve talked to people about this I find that they reel off a list of reasons why disposable is excusable – it’s cheaper, less time consuming, easier, more convenient – and it can be really difficult not to get frustrated about all of these untruths. In fact a number of people I‘ve spoken to have talked about reusable items such as nappies etc being a nice idea, but simply not practical, as if disposables have always been around! It's hard also not to feel as though this is an opinion we have aquired rather than come up with ourselves based on experience. Someone - be it your parents, a neighbour, the Guardian - tells you that something is impractical, and you accept it.

Although we are still waiting for our baby, so this may sound a little naive, I absolutely refuse to believe (because it is definitely not true) that in order to reproduce, keep clean, have a period, that you need to be creating bags and bags of waste, because it has not always been this way. I also refuse to believe that it is really any more difficult to do a little more laundry than it is to have to dispose of things in the bin (which by the way once they leave your care do not dissolve in the rain, they go to landfill, where they stay, forever.)

It goes without saying that we have equipped ourselves with reusable everything – breast pads, wipes, nappies, wet bags and maternity pads, and have bought some eco friendly nappy soak (sold by Bio D). Out of these the only thing that I haven’t been able to find second-hand so far (though given time I no doubt would have) is sanitary/maternity pads, so these I have made with second-hand fabrics. This is incredibly cheap and easy to do either by hand or with a machine for anyone with even the most basic sewing skills, and means that you can produce an item that instead of lasting a number of hours will last you years. 

I already owned a few which I bought new a year or two ago (the brand cheeky mama if anyone is interested), however when I came to buy more I decided they were absurdly expensive & how could I have paid that in the first place?! Because I had these however I modelled the first towels I made on them, using just a couple of layers of fleece, lining the inside with absorbent towelling, and adding a popper closure. 

 Cheeky Mama

Cheapie Mama

Then last week I went to a workshop at the Environment Centre where we were shown how to make our own sanitary towels (in my case maternity pads) in a different way, so this is what I will share here. 

You will need:
Cotton material. I use secondhand - bedsheets are great as they are massive & you can always get them in charity shops
Fleece or brushed cotton for the absorbent layer. In the workshop we used old brushed cotton pajamas. At home I've used a ropy old fleece throw
Either poppers or buttons & elastic (always check charity shops for sewing supplies too, I got a whole load of elastic recently for 10p per 5m)

Decide on the size & shape of your towels. It'll be easiest if you make a template from cardboard that you can reuse. When  you have this, cut two of these from your cotton for the outer-layers.

Depending on the thickness/absorbency you need, cut 3-6 layers of fleece or brushed cotton for the inside. When you have done this, layer up your towel & pin with the two layers of cotton on the outside, facing out.

 

You can either pin the elastic in a loop inbetween the layers now, so that when you sew your layers together it is fixed then, or you can add it on after. It looks a little smarter to do it now, but I'm not sure if it's the best idea as when the elastic starts to go it will be more difficult to replace this way. 

When  you're all layered together, just sew around the edge of the towel to fix it all together, then sew a big S (or shape of your choice) down the length of the towel to make sure that the insides all stay where they belong & don't get crumpled up. You can either finish with a blanket stitch or just leave as it is. I think either is fine. Lastly, fix on either your button & elastic or poppers. Again, while poppers look a bit smarter I think buttons & elastic might be better as easier to replace/repair, and in my experience I have found poppers a bit hard on fabric & can cause tears eventually. Up to you!

When you use your towels, just rinse in cold water if you can, then stick in the wash with the rest of your laundry. 

Happy menstruating!

Cutting back on Casual Plastics

Recently Will and I went to a discussion group at the Swansea Environment Centre about ways to reduce plastics in Swansea, and in our lives. The conclusion of this discussion group was pretty much that we all hate plastics, but we were still left pretty clueless as to what we could do to reduce use of plastic. A few people suggested alternatives to disposable materials such as clingfilm and sandwich bags, however many of these alternatives, while reusable, are still made from plastic, albeit recycled. The issue I have with this is that I have huge concerns about plastic full-stop. This doesn’t just apply to single-use plastic, but plastic as a material, specifically plastic coming into contact with food and drink which will then be consumed. We have been trying to reduce our use of plastic over the last few months and years, and have done so by changing the kinds of (and for me significantly cutting down on) toiletries that we use. For example only buying soaps that come without packaging or with paper packaging, switching to bamboo toothbrushes (if you do this, Save Some Green is the brand to go for), and switching from plastic sponges etc to loofahs and cotton flannels.

One of the main hurdles of going plastic-free is that, while that is in itself enough of a challenge, if you combine it with other ethical concerns it is near enough impossible. If for example we are going to try and remove plastic from our lifestyles, while also buying local, organic foods you are really quite stuck. 

About a month ago we decided to cancel our weekly organic vegetable delivery. We did this for a number of reasons, I suppose the catalyst though was that over the last few weeks we have been adapting our diet and lifestyle to make it more macrobiotic. We found that our delivery of vegetables then included a number of things we would have preferred not to eat despite being local such as potatoes, but also more exotic foods which we had overlooked because they were organic, for example peppers. We considered that we didn’t even want these foods, but we were just taking them because they were what was available organically, and this is very important to us. We decided to trial putting in a custom order with this farm instead, choosing vegetables such as greens and carrots that were more suitable for our diet, but hit a wall there because not only did this work out more expensive, but there was also no way for us to find out beforehand whether these vegetables were local or imported, and in the event a lot of them turned out to be imported. Another issue we had overlooked in order to support this local business and buy organic was the fact while many were in paper bags, a lot of these vegetables arrived wrapped in plastic and we had no control over this.

When we decided to cancel the vegetable box we weren’t really sure what to do. We looked at a couple of other schemes but ran into the same issues, so in the end decided that we would just have a go at shopping at the supermarket, buying organic vegetables. When I came to do this however I found that absolutely everything came in plastic, even quite often in instances where the non-organic alternative was available loose! There was also a very limited selection available of British organic foods. 

The short and short of it is that we were left feeling pretty disheartened and not really knowing – short of growing them oneself, which is the aim for the near future when we have a garden – where you are meant to get your vegetables from, when someone tipped us off about the local market now stocking a small selection of organic vegetables, something which hadn’t even occurred to me. So I took myself down the market and found a pleasantly limited amount of organic vegetables. I was able to talk to the woman who served me and she showed me the invoice from the farm proving the vegetables’ organic credentials (I didn’t ask, but it was nice to have it confirmed!) I came away with two big bags of vegetables feeling very pleased, but when I got home found I still had rather more plastic than I would have preferred. So when I went back today I did the most ridiculously obvious thing, and I asked if I could leave the plastic bags behind for them to reuse, and they said yes, something you definitely couldn’t get away with in sainsbury’s! So, although we’re certainly nowhere near perfect, by talking to a couple of people and asking for what we wanted we’ve managed to cut down our weekly consumption of casual plastics almost completely! (Nb. For several months I have also been taking a reusable tin to the market for our laverbread. We occasionally get some quizzical looks, but they have always been happy to spoon laverbread into our tin for us rather than give us a polystyrene tub)

I  guess the point that I’m getting at is that though we’ve met several hurdles along the way, if you persevere with what you’re after there is usually a way of getting it, and sometimes all you have to do is talk to people, an instinct I feel has almost completely left us, especially with the modern shopping experience of either ordering online for  delivery, or whizzing around the supermarket and then paying using a self-service machine – no human contact required!

Spot the difference! What happens when you just ask for less plastic - must remember to tke my onions bags back next week too!

I have been shopping at the market once a week now for the last month, and it’s something that I really look forward to. I walk into Swansea with my cotton bags, I pay in cash, I chat with the ladies on the veg stall, and I come away feeling satisfied and comfortable rather than confused and helpless. 

This has been a bit of a ramble, but I will finish it with a list of easy-peasy ways we have reduced the amount of plastic we both dispose of and come into contact with in our daily lives. 

• Switch from plastic to bamboo toothbrushes
• Stop using shower gels, shampoos etc that come in plastic bottles. Lush do everything you might need without packaging, or even better switch to a natural all-purpose soap bar
• Stop using scrubbers (kitchen and bathroom) made from plastics. In the kitchen we use a recycled aluminium scourer (which can then be recycled again) and a piece of canvas as a cloth. Bathroom use cotton flannels & loofahs/other natural materials (but please no natural sponges!)
• Shop for your vegetables somewhere where you can ask for the plastic to be removed and reused. Take paper bags, or reusable bags with you if you prefer for loose items such as mushrooms
• Where possible buy grains, flours etc. in bulk – even if these are still coming in a plastic bag you are using much less plastic. We also buy all of our cleaning products (washing up liquid etc) in bulk containers, and decant into smaller bottles for use
• Have a reusable bottle made from metal, or even better glass. We have a large glass bottle & two smaller glass beer bottles which we always use
• Exchange any plastic cutlery, utensils, plates, Tupperware etc with ceramic, metal, wood (acquired second hand where possible!) I also have concerns about deposits left buy metals on foods, and we try to mostly cook with ceramic and glass pans
• Never ever use plastic bags – remember your own! We also do not use bin bags – we line our household bins with (very) old plastic bags. When they are full we sort the contents for recycling and leave the plastic bag in the bin
• Bake rather than buy (actually make as much food yourself as possible). When you buy bread it comes in a plastic bag. Bake it, and you can wrap in a clean tea towel to keep it fresh, no contact with plastic required! Baking bread needn’t be a lengthy process with proper forward-planning
• Stop using clingfilm. Cover foods with clean cotton tea towels. Sandwiches etc  can be wrapped either in paper or put in a tin
• Ditch the disposable razors. Will uses a metal safety razor, you only have to change the blade every month or so and there is no plastic. Better still, switch to a cut-throat razor which can be sharpened (this is next on our list)
• Stop buying new! Pretty much everything you buy new comes coated in plastic. You can buy almost everything you need second hand at car boots, second hand shops, gumtree, ebay etc without all of that packaging to worry about. Even many items which label themselves as green or eco friendly come covered in the stuff, and would be better replaced with a preloved alternative
• Something we recently found out – tea bags are sealed with a glue containing plastic! Not only does this mean they are not completely biodegradable, but this plastic will be finding its way into your tea, and therefore into your body. We will be using up and phasing out teabags and switching to loose tea in the coming months
• Recently we have sold quite a few things on ebay. We have not needed to buy any packaging, as have always reused what we have or managed to scrape something together. So when buying second hand stuff on ebay, in a sense we have also bought some packaging that can be reused.
• Ditch disposable nappies, sanitary towels, sanitary bags etc. More to follow on this...