On the 21st of April Amsterdam Mamas helped to host the Great Cloth Diaper Change 2012. Part of a world record breaking attempt to change as many cloth diapers at the same time around the globe as possible.
Here at Amsterdam Mamas we love our cloth bums! Most of the Founding Mamas used cloth diapers with their little ones and it was always a hot topic in the Facebook group during the early days.
We quickly realised that the availability of cloth diapers in the Netherlands was much more limited than we were used to in our home countries and what’s more, using cloth didn’t seem to be very common at all.
Never one’s to follow fashion though we set about researching what we wanted and how we could get hold of it. We amassed so much information that by the time our babies came along we felt like pros. So when one of our members asked if we would like to participate in hosting the Great Cloth Diaper Change in Amsterdam, we didn’t hesitate, of course we would!
If you haven’t heard of the Great Cloth Diaper Change before then this is the background: Started in the USA in 2011, the Great Cloth Diaper Change was a record breaking attempt to change as many babies using cloth diapers, in as many locations as possible all over the world. Last year they changed 6,363 babies (with 5,026 qualifying for inclusion in the world record) and this year they wanted to change even more.
So we set about collecting our co-hosts. Tamara from BabyBum offered to come and host a talk on using cloth diapers as well as bringing samples for people to try. Ingrid from Magada brought along a selection of her healthy food products for the babies and parents to try. Simone from Jacaranda Tree Montessori generously allowed us to use her space for the event Tze Moi from Moi Studios came along to photograph the event. On the day 19 babies, and their parents, assembled at the allotted time to prepare for the Great Cloth Diaper Change. In sychronicity with other events all across the globe we waited for the official start time of 18:30 (GMT+1), took our before photos waving our new diapers around before starting the change. After the change we got to take photos of all our cloth bums in their new diapers.
We didn’t have enough participants, unfortunately, to be counted for the world record but we certainly had a lot of fun and are already looking forward to next year’s event! In honour of the Great Cloth Diaper Change we will be publishing a series of articles on our experiences with cloth diapers in the Netherlands, how to choose them, where to buy them and what comes next. Follow our series “Cloth Diapers: A Parent’s Guide” for more information.
Photo credit: Simone Davies
Emmy Coffey McCarthy
Emmy McCarthy was the Director of Stichting Amsterdam Mamas. She is a Mama, Entrepreneur and Connector on a never-ending quest for balance in her life.
