Our guest is Jenna, she has just gone through toilet training which she booked 12 days on the calender. Vashti and Vicki grill Jenna on how she toilet trained her son in just 12 days.

 

Transcription: Toilet Training On A Schedule

Andrew: Welcome to Nappy Leaks with Vicki Simpson and Vashti Wadwell. How are you doing, Vashti?

Vashti: Good thanks Andrew, how are you today?

Andrew: Excellent. Vicki, how are you doing?

Vicki: Yeah good, how are you Andrew?

Andrew: Not too bad. And we’ve got a guest. Anybody want to guess who the guest is?

Vashti: Shock horror, I wonder who it could be?

Andrew: It’s Bunnicas. We know who’s in the room, nobody else knows who’s in the room.

Vicki: People can make educated guesses.

Vashti: Hi Jenna.

Jenna: Hello.

Andrew: How are you doing Jenna?

Jenna: You missed an opportunity, you could have asked me how I was first and pissed both of them off.

Andrew: Yeah true, it’s an even episode so Vashti gets it. Vashti gets evens, Vicki gets odds.

Jenna: I like that you’ve had to develop a system.

Andrew: That’s right, otherwise they fight. Disposable nappies win every time.

Jenna: Yes, we don’t want that.

Vashti: That’s still a crappy joke [laughter].

Jenna: And that’s even worse.

Andrew: It’s funny, having a dig at it gets more laughs than the actual joke.

Jenna: We used to have a term for that at our old office called Shane-ing, when the person telling the joke is more funny than the actual joke itself because they can’t get it out, or someone else makes it come back. It’s much funnier than the joke. It’s called Shane-ing. Guess who it was named after?

Andrew: I like that.

Vashti: Shane?

Jenna: He was not a funny guy.

Vicki: We could call it Andrew-ing.

Jenna: Andrew-ing? We can call it Andrew-ing from now on, makes a bit more sense.

Vicki: Because he aint a funny guy.

Jenna: It’s a Dad joke, he’s meant to make horrible jokes, it’s his job.

Vicki: He is, and he’s very good at it.

Jenna: See?

Andrew: That’s the only reason I’m here.

Jenna: You’re killing it.

Vashti: No, you do the tech stuff as well. We’ll keep you around for that.

Jenna: And he’s got the really good podcast velvet voice when you listen to it.

Andrew: No, I’ve told you before, that’s an effect.

Jenna: Well can the rest of us have it?

Andrew: Very expensive software that does that for me.

Vicki: Did I pay for it?

Jenna: Shh, she can hear, she can hear.

Andrew: So what did you guys think of that live day we did a little while ago now? Remember that?

Vashti: Yeah, that was awesome.

Andrew: Did you like that?

Vicki: It was a lot of fun. I’m having flashbacks to…

Jenna: I was going to say, Vicki had a small emotional problem.

Vicki: Yeah, that was a very emotional day where I had…

Jenna: I got to be Vicki.

Vicki: I had to go to bat for my daughter.

Andrew: Good news is, she’ll be in her new school by then.

Vicki: And the nose piercing will be out. The irony of all of it.

Jenna: I remember stealing a lot of newborns that day.

Vashti: You did.

Jenna: I was finally getting a little less scared of the whole second kid thing and I was just like sniff this baby, sniff this baby. I was like here, I’ll hold it. I got vomited on by two or three kids, it was great.

Andrew: Yeah, I asked you to send me some pictures of the day and every picture you sent me was you holding a baby.

Vicki: Yeah, and she wore the same jeans the next day. That had vomit on them, remember?

Jenna: No, no, no, that’s a bit, that did happen but it’s a video you’re thinking of. No, I didn’t wear them the next day. Andrew said aren’t you going to go, so we were recording a video and I got vomited on, and Andrew looked at me and said aren’t you going to go home and change? And I was like, no. Why would I? It didn’t even occur to me. What was the point in that? I’ve walked around with a lot more vomit on me before. Never had a job I got thrown up on before.

Vashti: It’s a new experience. Wait until you get pooped on.

Andrew: Maybe at this one, because we’re going to have another live on. Tuesday the 30^th of July is our live podcast. So on to today’s subject.

Vicki: Hear that Mum? Please don’t book anything for Tuesday the 30^th. No appointments. That would be nice.

Jenna: Oh also my Mum, if you could not do that so you can look after my child, that would be great.

Andrew: And you know what? We know they listen too, because they’re the three listeners we’ve got.

Vicki: That’s right.

Jenna: No joke, my Dad has listened to the podcast. I made him. You know when you said, I did Episode 6 or 8 or something or other, and there’s this real spike, and it’s because I forced everyone I know to listen to it. My Dad listened to an entire podcast about cloth nappies.

Andrew: Episode 6 is the third most listened to episode.

Jenna: Yeah, because I share it all the time, because whenever people ask about travelling with cloth, it’s an easy one to send them.

Andrew: Listen to what I say, that’s what you say isn’t it?

Jenna: Yeah, just do what I tell you to.

Andrew: So today, the reason Jenna is here is because Jenna blocked out some time on her calendar to toilet train her son.

Jenna: And she’s been copping crap for it too.

Andrew: That’s right, copping, like Michael Hyde is one of my favourite authors and he says, “The most memorable things will not be something you check off a to do list.”

Jenna: That’s everything, I put everything on a to do list. What do you not… what you need to understand, dear listener, is that Andrew and Vicki are anarchists.

Vicki: No, we’re not, we’re yin and yang. Andrew is completely different to me.

Jenna: He still makes fun of my love of organisation.

Vicki: You two are the organised ones. I’m the completely just…

Vashti: No, no, that’s not true.

Jenna: Does that sound believable, Andrew?

Andrew: Don’t worry, I can sound it so it sounds more believable later.

Jenna: Good, good, that filter is really good.

Vicki: But see Andrew just follows my lead. I think that’s probably…

Jenna: That’s absolutely right, you talk about it all the time, surrounding yourself with complementary people. I haven’t got the constant push forward, that constant drive you have, all the coming up with the ideas and stuff. I’m not that person. But I can take the idea and do work with them. Do stuff with them. Shh Andrew.

Vicki: And see even I didn’t swear before.

Andrew: I’m going to beep you out.

Jenna: You can bleep me. I’ll try and keep it…

Vashti: She did correct herself.

Jenna: I did immediately correct myself.

Andrew: I might put a duck sound in, just to be…

Jenna: That’s a lot more discouraging than a beep, because a beep is kind of cool. It’s very rap, whereas the duck sound is not great.

Vashti: Do a moo, a cow.

Jenna: That’s discouraging. That’s discouraging. Don’t give him ideas.

Andrew: And so I don’t have to pay anybody for the moo sound, I’ll just say it myself.

Jenna: Now you’ve just got to keep up with it and do it live.

Andrew: So…

Vicki: And that would be funny, so now you have to do it again. [laughter]

Andrew: So onto the subject.

Jenna: What are we doing?

Andrew: How did you toilet train your son?

Jenna: Magic.

Andrew: How many days, you blocked out 12 days?

Jenna: I blocked out 12 days. I’d seen around all the Facebook groups and the Mummy groups and all those things. I’d seen the Oh Crap Potty Training book recommended a lot by Jamie, I do not know how to pronounce her last name. It starts with a G and it’s got a lot of letters in it. And so I read that book when we were away in the Philippines.

Vicki: We’ll put that in the show notes. Not. Does anything ever go in the show notes?

Jenna: It does. I do it all.

Andrew: No, the show notes now are just…

Vicki: Hey Siri, send a text message to Jenna to remember to put stuff in the show notes.

Andrew: Oh no, you’re breaking a podcast rule, you’re not allowed to say…

Siri: OK.

Andrew: …the thing word. Because everybody’s device at home will now be trying to send Jenna a message [laughter].

Vicki: Sorry, not sorry. What if I asked Alexa?

Vashti: Or Google. Hey Google, order…

Jenna: OK, so I read that book while we were away, much to the amusement of all the childless people who were on a kind of group holiday for someone’s wedding and everyone’s relaxing by the pool, and they kept looking over at my toilet training book and laughing at my life.

Vicki: You were secretly laughing too, weren’t you. Or were you sobbing?

Jenna: I was laughing. A little bit of both. Probably laughing, I embraced it. I am super cool. And we…

Andrew: So no guys came up to you while you were reading this book?

Jenna: No, no. Oddly enough, no. You don’t get hit on a lot when you’ve got a two year old on top of you.

Andrew: Not even when you’re reading a book, he was reading it as well, was he?

Jenna: Most of the time. You can’t actually ditch them. They’re not as old as your kids. You can’t just leave them alone.

Andrew: We’ve done that from birth.

Vicki: Shh, you’re not meant to tell people.

Andrew: It’s alright, they’re grown up now.

Vicki: And they’re not at all screwed up at all.

Jenna: I think we all screw our kids up. The idea is to try and do it in a really unique way that other people haven’t screwed up their kids. Try and find a really different, for instance accidentally teach your child that sharks eat penises. That’s a really good one to do.

Andrew: Really?

Jenna: It did not say not to do that in any of the books I read.

Andrew: So he won’t go in the ocean now?

Jenna: No, no, just little plastic sharks. I tried to get it to eat his toe once and he grabbed it. He’s like no Mummy, penis shark. And tried to eat his penis with the shark. I said oh, I’ve broken him already. And Vashti, spot the person who’s heard this story 600 times. Vicki’s just sitting there calmly.

Andrew: I want to see you go to Sea World. [inaudible, laughing 09:17]

Vicki: Penis shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo. Penis shark, doo doo doo doo doo doo.

Jenna: Every mother out there now hates us because we’ve got that song in our head. What were we talking about? Toilet training?

Andrew: You blocked out 12 days.

Jenna: So we looked on our calendars and we blocked out, we decided to keep him, he goes to family day care two days a week, and we decided to keep him home for a week. So we started the day after he goes to day care, so Saturday all the way through to the next Wednesday. So 12 days we blocked out on the calendar to just focus on toilet training and just do that and life revolved around that a little bit. We were giving him the best support we could to give him the most success. So we did the first three days of toilet training completely nude. Which he was thrilled about. In winter, not great timing, we just ran the heater.

Vicki: In Queensland.

Jenna: In Queensland, yep.

Vicki: Because it’s 20 degrees.

Jenna: Have you been in our house? It’s an icebox.

Vicki: Queensland houses are freezing. Absolutely freezing.

Jenna: I overdress all the time, I’m currently wearing a jumper and I’m way overdressed for where we are right now because my house is freezing and I forget that. So he was naked for three days, which he thought was brilliant. He’s never had so much access to his penis. That was interesting for all of us.

Vicki: Neither has his shark.

Jenna: Neither has his shark. Little boys are lot of fun when they’ve got access to their penis. I heard the words “Mummy, penis too big” a lot. And had to try and explain if you want it to go small again you’ve got to stop touching it.

Andrew: Words you’ll never hear again.

Jenna: His Dad did think it was a bit funny. He did really good. The morning of the first day he started, he was crouching down on the mat trying to do something and he started to do a poo. He jumped up on his own, before we could get to him, ran over to the potty and finished it on the potty. So we were pretty proud. Day one, he was ready. As Vicki says, he was ready. He knew what to do. We would have toilet trained him sooner if it wasn’t for the trip. I didn’t want to take a newly toilet trained kid overseas on the plane. That seemed like a horrible idea. So we did that for the first three days. Then the book recommends going commando, so they forget the muscle memory of having something on their butt and thinking that they can poop in it or pee in it. So he went, we did commando. We started and I put tights on him without really thinking about it. Every time we put them on for the first two days he pooped and I was like what the heck is happening? You were doing so good. But I don’t want to end up with you only naked toilet trained. And then I reread the section in the book and it made a real point to say baggy clothes. So I switched the tights out for some baggy track pants and it was much better. So I really do think that that muscle memory thing has a good point. In the book she says that she recommends, she used to say if you can, commando for a month is a good idea, but now she’s moved to thinking it’s really integral. Integral to do. So that’s what she recommends. We’re actually starting underwear this weekend. First time, first undies this weekend. So we’ll see if we take a backward step or how he goes from there.

Vicki: I think he’ll be fine. We did it in three days with all the kids.

Jenna: He’s doing so good. He did have an accident yesterday, but we’ve just built him a pretty spectacular sandpit and he did not want to get out of the sandpit.

Vicki: So the cats aren’t peeing in your sandpit, it’s your son. Right. See you left this out of the story.

Jenna: He didn’t pee in the sandpit, he had a little spot on the front of his pants. I was watching, and I’m like you need to pee, you need to pee. And he’s like no, no Mummy sandpit. I’m like you need to get out of the sandpit. So of course sandpit’s been installed for like an hour and I’m running through the house with this kid who clearly needs to pee.

Vicki: Covered in sand.

Jenna: Because I didn’t take any time to stop and get the sand off him. So you know.

Vicki: You didn’t teach him to wee on the tree up the back?

Jenna: No, I’m actually trying, I know it’s different opinions, but I’m actually trying to teach him just because he’s a boy he’s not allowed to pee on the world.

Vicki: I know, it’s just something that I’m just not, I’m sorry, the world is not your bathroom.

Jenna: The end actually credit to Vicki, we’re doing something that will be a gift to my future son or daughter-in-law. We’re teaching him to wipe his penis after he pees.

Vicki: Much to Andrew’s disgust.

Jenna: Because you know what? No, we’re not having little pee drips everywhere, and I have control over this. I can teach and build a new breed of wonderful men who wipe. So we’re teaching him and he’s doing a very good job. He does wipe, he wipes his front, we’re using our cloth wipes still actually. We tried toilet paper the first couple of days and I basically went bleep this bleeping bleep. See, I bleeped myself, it’s fine.

Andrew: No I did that, it was me.

Jenna: Oh, it was Andrew. It sounds a lot like me.

Vicki: Moo.

Jenna: I went moo this moo-ing moo and went and got my cloth wipes because, trying to wipe a small toddler’s butt with toilet paper is really annoying. Cloth wipes are efficient and I’m used to them and they work well. So we have still been using moistened cloth wipes to use.

Vicki: Do teach him to shake though, because otherwise when they get to school you may have an issue where they have an absolute meltdown when there is no toilet paper because that’s the only way they know how to clean their penis.

Jenna: I feel like you’re speaking from experience here.

Vicki: Yeah, just a little bit of experience.

Jenna: You have a really regimented son.

Vicki: Yes. He’s so unlike me.

Andrew: They don’t put toilet rolls at the trough.

Vicki: No, they don’t.

Andrew: Have you girls seen a trough?

Both: Yes.

Andrew: OK. They don’t put toilet rolls in.

Vicki: Men don’t wipe.

Vashti: Do you know how hard it is to get a female toilet at a festival or a concert or any sort of large gathering? You don’t get female toilets unless you want to line up for three hours.

Jenna: Yeah, so you go to the mens.

Andrew: The festival that I just went to…

Vicki: You can actually get even plastic things that you can actually standing up…

Jenna: She-wee.

Vicki: Thank you.

Jenna: We got free sample ones of those at my last job.

Andrew: Really? Somebody came in and handed them all out.

Jenna: Oh no, they were to do a review on. It was a fishing magazine and we got one to test for when you’re out. And one of the girls tested it. She likes to fish, that’s not me.

Andrew: The festival I was just at they closed the male toilets and turned them into female toilets.

Vashti: Really?

Jenna: Good, good, because it’s not, it’s bathroom unfairness. Anyway we’re teaching him to wipe, cloth wipes, he’s doing really good, but for us it worked really well. We didn’t leave the house for the first three days. I made sure I did the groceries while my husband was still at home and could stay home with him. Credit to my husband, he was absolutely so much better at the first few days of toilet training than I was. So much more attentive and so much more on top of it.

Andrew: It actually sounds like you love your husband.

Jenna: Yeah, he seems pretty good. He’s OK.

Vicki: You’ll keep him around?

Jenna: Yeah.

Vicki: Have another child with him?

Jenna: Working on it. Give it a go. Don’t think we can say what Andrew said to me. Can you cut this bit out?

Andrew: No, I’m keeping it in because he’ll want to hear it.

Jenna: [indistinct, speaking fast, 16:08] It was when I flew to Sydney, Andrew. Andrew goes, there’s a lot of sperm between here and Sydney.

Vicki: Yeah, I did hear that.

Jenna: Yes, but we’re after a specific type.

Andrew: But you met him at a bar. Couldn’t you have just gone to a bar?

Jenna: Nonsense, I met him at a friend’s apartment at St Paddies day. Then we hooked up later at a bar. At Gilhoolies, where all good things happen. Anyhoo, toilet training, husband. Actually I had him booked out. I have three friends who are having some trouble toilet training, who all said can we leave our friends with Casey for the week and we’ll go away for the weekend? I had three toddlers booked in. Casey was not keen on this idea. So yeah, Ryan did really well. We weren’t planning on night training. We were going to keep using nappies until actually I got pregnant and my sleep was already messed up, because I didn’t want to give away my last few good months of sleep.

Vicki: Are you, are you, oh my gosh, are you intending to have another baby?

Jenna: Yeah.

Vicki: And how does that affect your work?

Jenna: I think my boss is really excited about it.

Andrew: We promote it.

Vicki: Isn’t that an inhouse model?

Andrew: We went and bought the sperm for you.

Jenna: I’m pretty sure a trip to Sydney is cheaper.

Andrew: Depends on where you get it from.

Vashti: We could have gotten some George Clooney or you know…

Jenna: Pretty sure that’s more expensive than an $850 trip to Sydney. I think that’s a lot cheaper. But no, I think this is the only workplace I’ve been encouraged to have a child. Inhouse model. At your service. Working on it.

Andrew: That’s right, we’ll have pictures of him, him or her, in every…

Jenna: We’ll have him in the fricken hospital.

Andrew: Every single babe, every single month we’ll have pictures of him in a nappy.

Jenna: Have all the child. Have all the children.

Vicki: You didn’t want to have another one?

Vashti: Hell, no.

Andrew: Well she can’t with Brent.

Jenna: That’s OK, we can get a lot of sperm between here and Sydney. We could find some.

Vicki: Well I’m heading over to Germany, there’s even more. And I just found out I’m going to be in Germany in the middle of Oktoberfest. There’s a lot of sperm then I bet.

Andrew: Both of you are going to be in Germany at Oktoberfest.

Vashti: Well that hasn’t been revealed yet.

Jenna: Are you going?

Vashti: I am going to Germany.

Jenna: Oh my goodness.

Andrew: Do you want me to take that out?

Vashti: No, go for it. We’re breaking news. When does this actually air, Andrew? Will it be breaking news by then?

Andrew: I think they’ll be back by then.

Vicki: And still drunk.

Jenna: Yes, we would like to update you that as listening to this podcast that Vicki and Vashti, Vishti, as I call them, are still drunk.

Vashti: And there is plans to possibly stop in at Amsterdam as well.

Vicki: Yeah no, I can’t remember where we’re doing. Didn’t we decide Bruges?

Vashti: Bruges.

Vicki: Bruges isn’t Amsterdam. We got like five days free.

Vashti: So there’s some really nice cafes in Amsterdam, I’ve heard.

Jenna: What kind of cafes, Vashti?

Vashti: Oh just ones that serve coffee and brownies. I love brownies. Love chocolate.

Jenna: See I’ve been to Amsterdam but I was like 15 at the time.

Vashti: I was five, the last time I was in Amsterdam.

Vicki: I have never been to Europe.

Vashti: My father is Dutch. Or was Dutch, he’s no longer with us.

Jenna: I wouldn’t, is that your last name? No. Is that English?

Vashti: Maybe, I don’t know, somewhere back there.

Jenna: I dated a Dutch guy all the way through high school so I went and had Christmas with his family when I was 15 or 16 or something like that. Went to Amsterdam.

Andrew: So, back to cloth nappies.

Vicki: We were very busy, Andrew.

Jenna: Back to cloth nappies. Yeah.

Andrew: The interesting thing you said to me before the podcast was, you aren’t using cloth nappies anymore. And you’re washing as much.

Jenna: So we’re out of nappies. I actually feel like I need to make an announcement in the groups that I’ve toilet trained. I’m not quite sure why I need to do that, but I feel like I do. I think the big thing I’ve found, at expos we say to people that the amount of laundry you do with kids, adding cloth nappies in really doesn’t make it that much more. It actually makes it more convenient for dirty, stuff with food on it or wet stuff.

Andrew: Milk.

Jenna: Milk, kids who have poured milk all over themselves. Mums who have poured all over themselves. It makes it really convenient, I know friends who have had mouldy nursing tops and stuff. Because I do cloth nappies I wash so frequently I never had that problem. So we always say this at expos, but the truth is, I’ve done cloth nappies from two weeks, so I don’t have a lot of experience with washing kids laundry without cloth nappies. And I’ve been, I must admit towards the last couple of months, knowing we were about to toilet train, I was getting like I’m a bit done with laundry and cloth nappies and stuff like that. I want a break before we do this again, and I was looking forward to the laundry load getting lighter. Fun fact, it doesn’t get lighter, that is true, when we say it doesn’t make that much of a difference, and I’m finding this out in the bad end of things. I’m like oh, this is not that much better.

Vashti: I literally with three kids at home, Mr Nest is away at the moment and I still do a minimum of one load of laundry a day.

Jenna: See I’m not doing that much but I’m doing, I have, I’m still doing nearly as much laundry as I was doing before. I’m probably doing one less load a week. And what’s happening is things are getting damp. Like we said, we’re using cloth wipes so they’re wet. My son spilled milk down the front of his shirt the other day, that’s what Andrew is talking about. He gets, I’ve never been good with bibs, because I did cloth nappies, and was washing all the time, I just threw dirty clothes in with that. Threw them in the prewash and everything came out sparkly clean. So I’m now dealing with all these damp, dirty clothes that I’ve never dealt with before that aren’t getting washed. With toddler wee, we were washing nightly at the end. We were doing prewash every night. So I’m dealing with all the stuff I wasn’t dealing with before. My laundry system is out of whack. I’m doing nearly as much laundry as before and I’m annoyed that it’s true from a personal perspective. And thrilled because it’s another great expo spiel to use. From a professional perspective. A bit torn about that.

Vicki: So you didn’t use any toilet training pants at all?

Jenna: Nope. I’m a rule for law, and the book told me to do these things and said that Pullups are just another type of nappy. Just different style.

Vicki: That’s always been, because I get asked a lot, why don’t you do a toilet training pant? And honestly it’s my stand on it. I just think it keeps kids in nappies longer.

Vashti: See for me, I was different. We used toilet training pants on all three of our kids, but…

Andrew: Toilet training pants, are they tight on the bum?

Vashti: They’re just like a pair of undies. But they’ve got a little bit…

Vicki: They’re pretty much another nappy.

Vashti: …well yeah, there’s not as much absorbency in them, but a little amount of absorbency through the wet zone. But they’re shaped like, they’re designed…

Jenna: They’re helpful in cars and stuff so you don’t end up in a position where you have to wash your car seat and remove the fire retardant stuff.

Vicki: But if they’re not as absorbent and a toddler weed, I actually, to be perfect honest, I cannot see the point.

Vashti: See for us, for me, toilet training pants, they’re designed to catch those small leaks. So if your child is not ready to toilet train, toilet training pants aren’t going to help because they’re going to let out the whole rush. But if your child is ready for toilet training…

Jenna: A bit like what Ryan did in the sandpit yesterday.

Vashti: Yeah, toilet training pants will give you that, if you’re at the shops or in the car or something like that…

Jenna: It will give you time to run back to the car, like I did when Ryan said I need to go potty in the middle of the grocery store the other day.

Andrew: Or you could get all the sand off him before running in the house with him.

Jenna: No, just run the sand everywhere. Actually, sorry to interrupt but while I remember, in the car what we’re doing is working well, because we aren’t using toilet training, in case we have any leaks, I’ve got a newborn prefold, folded in half, kind of folded in thirds I think, just put up against his penis, under the belt buckle. Where a cloth nappy would sit. No more bulky than a cloth nappy would be. And then I’ve got a mini wet bag on the other side of that, so if he does have an accident in the car and I can’t pull over quick enough, that will catch it and it’s got a waterproof lining there. So still using some of my cloth nappy stash there. Also actually side effect of training is I’ve actually got all my nappies clean and away now. I’m seeing how many they are. It’s not a small amount, no. Sorry, I interrupted you, do continue.

Vashti: I found that toilet training pants worked for us, because we were able to not be contained at home. For us, being stuck at home for…

Jenna: Twelve days,  yeah.

Vashti: …twelve days, it wasn’t viable for any of our kids, especially not number three, who…

Jenna: You’ve got school runs and all kinds of things.

Vashti: I was doing school runs for the older two. I was working in the shop, I own my own business, I was running around. And Mr Nest was away a fair bit as well. So he was travelling for work and stuff. So it was just me. So toilet training pants were my saviour, because it meant that even though Kylan knew when he needed to go to the toilet, he didn’t quite always catch it. He’d dribble a little bit. So having the toilet training pants meant that we weren’t changing clothes, we weren’t washing car seats, we weren’t having puddles in the middle of Coles and stuff like that.

Vicki: So curious, did that extend the process?

Vashti: For Braith, no. Braith was fully toilet trained by the time he was 18 months.

Vicki: No, no, no I mean time-wise, when you start to go was it still done in a couple of days?

Vashti: Yep. So Braith was very quick. Mikayla we had, I think we started her too early and because of issues she’d had from her allergies from disposables in those first few weeks, she was quite slow to toilet train. And Kylan, he was down pat, he knew what he had to do. But I didn’t really push him. So yeah. I don’t think it extended the process for us in any way, we still got through it fairly quickly but it was always good to have those toilet training pants afterwards just for that peace of mind, for me.

Jenna: On night training, still using nappies and I suppose this might be the same with toilet training pants, for washing, in case anyone out there is wondering how the heck you do your washing if you’ve got toilet training pants that have wee in them, if you’re still doing night nappies and you don’t have day nappies and stuff. Best advice there is do a really good hand rinse with some detergent and hot water, a couple of rinses, just by hand, and then just throw it in with your normal clothes. Make sure you give them, especially night nappies, because by that age if they’re toilet training, their night nappies are pretty full of wee. So giving that a good hand rinse in a lot of hot water and a little bit of, just a teaspoon of detergent and then throw that in with your normal laundry is the best way to go about that, in case anyone’s curious. We were doing that for a week or two I think. And then what happened is Ryan was waking dry a lot of mornings and we really didn’t want to night train. As I said, I was waiting until I was pregnant and my sleep was already interrupted and he started waking dry. And then at 4 am he started crying one morning. And I was like, what is his problem? Because he sleeps through the night now. I went in there and I was trying to work it out and I couldn’t quite work out what was up and I put him down, and I noticed his nappy the next morning was wet. I was like OK. And then the next morning, I wonder if that’s what it was. The next morning he woke at 4 and weed again. He’s my child, he’s very regimented. And I changed his nappy and realised he’d just weed in it. So I’m getting up, I was like OK. My husband was like, we need to listen to him. He’s screaming out to us that he’s ready to night train. So we took the side off the cot and put his potty out. And I think day two of that we woke up. I looked at him on the monitor and he’d taken his pants off and he was sitting on the potty doing a wee on his own. Like he woke up in the morning and sat down and did a wee all on his own before we woke up. I was like, he was so ready. Telling us, we’re not listening. We adjusted…

Vashti: In that as well…

Jenna: I changed plans. It hurt, and Casey had to tell me to do it, but I did it.

Vashti: But not all kids night train at the same time as they day train though.

Jenna: We really, we hadn’t, most of my friends that I know do it at a different time, and we were not intending on training at all. Ryan just was like no, we’re doing this Mum and Dad, can you please listen to me, I’m ready for this. So we had to.

Vicki: Now what’s really interesting is you toilet trained pretty much the same way we did, and our kids day and night trained at the same time. So I wonder whether, who knows?

Jenna: It’s that whole, I very much, I was planning on sending my nappies down to my Mum to have an extended dry, to be honest, and I was going to say, we’re putting them in the car, let’s get rid of them. But Ryan seems pretty chill with the fact that they’re still in his room, we just don’t use them anymore. So we’ve just kind of left them there.

Andrew: How many did you have?

Jenna: Oh Andrew.

Vashti: That’s not a good question to ask somebody who works for a nappy company.

Jenna: I would like to very quickly clarify this by saying we’ve done a lot of product photos, a lot of videos, and I think altogether, of all in twos, I have about 60. I’m not done.

Vicki: That’s not even, you’re not even trying.

Jenna: The thing I was thinking about, I’ve easily given away about 30 nappies.

Vicki: You’re still not even trying.

Jenna: Because I know, I had a couple of friends they’d come over, I love that print and I missed out. I never felt comfortable, even though we didn’t need them all, selling any of my nappies that I got for photo shoots or to do product imagery, that didn’t sit well with me. I wanted to do something nice with them. So if friends came over and said that, I’d be like here, have it, and hand them the nappy. Or I had a friend with a mould incident and I helped her get back into cloth by giving her 15 nappies, I think. So I gave a lot of nappies away. So that’s just my all in twos, by the way. Then I’ve got night nappies. I’ve got fitted, I’ve got about 10, 12, between bamboo delights, bigs, I was just going to say what are the big Bam Bams, and then I worked it out myself.

Vashti: Ecoposh? You’ve got some Ecoposh in there?

Jenna: Yep, I’ve got four of the, yeah fitted nappies I’ve got Ecoposh, I’ve got our bamboo delights, I’ve got Bigs, I’ve got a few Seedlings and Gro-Vias in there. And then prefolds. I’m not up to prefolds yet. I’ve got may 15 prefolds, some flats that I had, if we talk about those muslin flats that I used for boosting for night nappies, I’ve got another 15 of those. I could cloth triplets.

Vicki: I think Andrew underestimates how many nappies I actually have.

Jenna: I could cloth triplets.

Andrew: So they’re still in Ryan’s room, you haven’t actually shifted them yet?

Jenna: Yeah, they’re still in the change table in Ryan’s room. That seemed an easy place to put them. I was planning on moving them, but he doesn’t seem at all fussed about the fact. He pointed to them the other day and went “Nappies over there” and I went yep, and we don’t wear them anymore do we? Because he’s a big boy. He doesn’t like being told he’s a big boy or grown up, he’s smart, he’s onto it, he knows it’s a trick. He goes, he’s like “No, Ryan not grown up. Ryan little”. And I’m like yeah, growing up is a trick, dude. But he really likes if you tell him he’s clever. If you tell him he’s clever he’s really chuffed with that. But he’s onto us about this whole grown up thing. He knows that it’s not good. He knows that it’s a trick.

Andrew: So when you store them, how are you going to store them?

Jenna: I’m not, I’m just going to leave them there.

Andrew: OK, you’re that confident you’re going to have another baby so quickly you’re not even going to put them away?

Jenna: Well where am I going to put them?

Vicki: We had four years before our kids and they just hung around in a basket somewhere.

Jenna: Well the thing is, I have to find somewhere to store them if I do that. At the moment they’re all stored under the change table, neatly in boxes. I’ve tidied them all. I did go through and tidy them all because it was a bit of a, what’s another word for [indistinct, 31:49]. I was a bit of a cluster…

[audio cut 31:57]

Vicki: I’m going to moo so much in this episode.

Andrew: I’ve never had to edit somebody so much.

Vicki: When it’s not me.

Jenna: And here am I, the prude that never swears on radio. A bit of a mess, there we go. It was a cluster under there, I just shoved nappies in left, right and centre. I have a few with some small holes that need repairing or ones that I couldn’t find the booster for or stuff like that.

Andrew: Yeah, so that’s my next question. What sort of condition are they in? Are you going to be able to go straight to the next baby?

Jenna: Absolutely. Most of them are, and keep in mind I’ve been “collecting” nappies as we go. So not all of mine have a full two years use on them. But they’re all really good. The only ones I have that…

Andrew: Well when you’ve got 60 nappies, none of them are going to be…

Jenna: Exactly, I’ve got a huge stash so the rotation on them is not bad. And the Bamboo Delights, two of them I bought a week before he night trained because we weren’t intending on night training, and that’s where the stop came in. I do have that have, the Candys and the… Vicki help me. Snaps. The snaps on the trifolds…

Vashti: Vicki’s a bit too tired actually. Are you getting a migraine? Because your circles are getting really dark.

Vicki: She travelled through China with me and she can see, she can actually just look at me and say you’re getting a migraine aren’t you?

Jenna: A little warning sign.

Vashti: Eight, nine days in China, I think I picked it up on day two. Like…

Vicki: You just see it coming.

Vashti: It really is obvious.

Vicki: So I go dark under the eyes everybody, it’s not lack of sleep, it’s actually stress.

Jenna: Why would you be stressed? Snaps is the word I was after. So the fabric around the snaps is disintegrating around two of mine. I’m using air quotes here, you can’t see that, it’s a good idea for a podcast. And I know which ones those are because I cut the label, I split the label so I could pick them out of the other ones. What they are is, I don’t know if you remember, she doesn’t care, Cleese Berryman. She bought some nappies second hand and it said they were in a good condition. She got them and they were atrocious. And she stripped them a couple of times and then she brought them to the expo and said Jenna, do you want to have another go, because they’re still coming up really crap. So I had another go with slightly stronger bleach soak and I managed to get them up to a good condition again. They didn’t smell, they were white again. They weren’t stinky as soon as they came off Ryan. They were nice and clean after that. But those two had the most wear and tear. It shows a lot about washing.

Vicki: Ammonia. Ammonia build up from…

Jenna: Yeah, that’s exactly what we talked about. It’s around the stress points.

Vashti: The stress point is the snaps, because they’re constantly pulling at the fabric.

Jenna: Exactly, but those had really bad ammonia damage. I’ve been using them and had them in rotation just out of curiosity. And you know what? Except for around the snaps, they’re actually holding up pretty well. Not really any other problems other than that. But you can tell the ones that…

Vicki: And the PUL is OK in them?

Jenna: No, she only bought me inserts. She had them. I had one nappy that’s a little sticky. It’s not delaminated but I think it might be heading that way. But I think it might have been, it’s one nappy, something’s happened to it.

Vicki: Well actually Amy, Amy from Clean Cloth Nappy Hire actually posted something just in…

Vashti: One of our industry groups.

Vicki: …yeah the other day about a nappy that she had left in a wet bag in the car.

Vashti: And it was eight days.

Vicki: Yeah, and there’s actually marks on the wet bag where the nappy was sitting, where there’s a little bit, it looks like it’s starting to delaminate in its spots. You can actually see almost like bleach spots. And so she’s going to do a little bit of research with that. Pretty much ammonia is hands down the most damaging thing for your nappy.

Vashti: She’s got a toddler though as well, so they are very strong wees.

Vicki: Yes, she does.

Vashti: It’s quite funny though, I had a nappy, I remember I had a nappy, it was one of my favourite nappies when Mikayla was still quite young, because we were living in Victoria so she was less than six months old. And it got the poonami of all poonamis in it. Threw it in the wet bag and it fell underneath the front seat of the car. And it wasn’t until two or three loads later that I went where is that nappy? Went hunting and found it.

Andrew: Wait a minute, wait a minute. It was in a wet bag and it was in there for three days…

Vashti: Two or three loads. So about a week.

Vicki: It could be a week.

Vashti: About a week.

Andrew: And you couldn’t smell it?

Vashti: Nope.

Andrew: So that wet bag was holding that smell in?

Vashti: Yes.

Andrew: Wow. That’s great.

Vashti: It was an exclusively breastfeed baby poo though, so it’s not as smelly as other poo.

Jenna: That’s just custard.

Vashti: But in a car in central Victoria in summer, parked in a garage that had no insulation or anything like that, so you open the car door and a wall of heat hits you. Pulls the wet bag out when I realised it was still in the car, opened it  up and near got knocked out by the smell. Considered, very, very strongly considered just throwing it in the bin, but decided I’d clean it up and it cleaned up OK and it was all fine. There was no issues with it. Because it was one of my favourite nappies.

Andrew: You guys always say don’t leave wee on the nappies, but you’re ruining that by saying this.

Vashti: I know, well…

Vicki: What we’re saying is, and this is where, and it would be good to do a podcast actually on busting some of the cloth nappy myths of long ago. But what we’re saying is that whilst that nappy may not have been damaged that day, the treatment that it had means that in two years time, it’s not going to be in that same condition because of the treatment that it’s had along the way. The ammonia has damaged it and it will…

Vashti: Which is what Jenna found with those inserts, that had been…

Jenna: And also it’s consistent ammonia damage versus a one off bad time, which would actually be worse. And also you’re asking about condition. I did have some inserts from two different brands, both bamboo cotton blend that had some holes in it that did need to sew over and those where from when I tried a three day wash cycle to see if I could get away with it and the answer is no, I couldn’t. Because I started getting holes and what I did at the time is I sewed over all the holes so I could know if I was getting new ones or if it was the same ones. And when I switched to daily prewash, with my three day wash cycle, I didn’t get any more holes. So absolutely I saw very easily the effects.

Vicki: Very distinct.

Jenna: I saw very distinctively how ammonia was damaging my nappies very immediately by doing that. And like I said, sewed over them so I could see if there was more or less, and when I switched to a daily prewash that all resolved itself.

Vicki: That all really makes sense. Those nappies towards the end of Gabriel’s toileting, when he was only using one or two nappies a day…

Vashti: And you were washing once a week.

Vicki: If that, if that. It’s no wonder, it’s absolutely no wonder that pretty much by the end of it, those nappies fell apart.

Jenna: And I have a friend who recently replaced a lot of her inserts from her old nappies because she, her oldest is five and she was using the old school wash routine and stuff. And she wasn’t, it was cold, eco detergent, not enough of it, that kind of stuff. And you could see the ammonia damage in all the nappies, just shredded. And she’s replaced them with Candies and she’s actually, through no prodding of me actually, it was one of those times when she was, I don’t think she wants to be pushed, I’ll just let her. And she actually…

Vicki: Oh this is your friend who pretty much was right into the whole eco detergents and she didn’t think her nappies were dirty? Is that the friend you’re talking about?

Jenna: No, no, I think I just didn’t have the conversation with her. She wasn’t in the best place at the time, I didn’t want to be like here’s something you’re doing wrong. I was trying to approach it with more kindness. And not pushing her. Her kid was near toilet training, it was neither here nor there. But she ended up messaging me, how do I do a strip and sanitise? What’s your recommended procedure? And she’s actually like I’ve switched to this, oh my God they’re all so much cleaner. Blah, blah, I didn’t realise. She actually…

Vicki: Because you don’t know what you don’t know.

Jenna: And the thing is, I think so many people don’t realise their nappies are dirty until, I’ve had a few, you know how I said I was giving nappies away at some point? I had three different friends, no sorry two different friends, three nappies, two different friends, message me and say I didn’t realise my nappies were dirty until I brought one of yours home. And she was like, they didn’t realise theirs were all grey and brown, off colour and stuff, until they had one of my well-worn but very clean inserts up against it, and they were like, can I have some watch advice? That actually led to a bunch of wash advice. I forgot about that.

Vicki: That is actually, I know this is going to sound completely off topic but I will bring it through, but this is like when you breastfeed a toddler. When you start breastfeeding, you breastfeed a brand new baby, and this baby grows, and every single day this kid is getting bigger, but you don’t see it because you’re just feeding them every day. And then all of a sudden you’ve got a three or three and a half year old, and don’t get me wrong, I see a three or three and a half year old breastfeeding, it even takes me back, but I did it. But it’s weird. And I think it’s the same thing with washing, because it’s a slow process you don’t know

Jenna: You don’t realise, it’s slow, you don’t notice it. And it’s funny you say that, I had a friend, she was breastfeeding her toddler and Ryan was very young and I was breastfeeding him, and I looked over and I went, that looks weird.

Vicki: Yes, it does.

Jenna: The head is bigger than your boob and it looks very, very strange. And I said that, and I was like not judgemental, I was like it looks very strange. And then she was like OK, that’s interesting, flash forward a year and a half. Ryan was a toddler breastfeeding and she had her second, who was a newborn that she was breastfeeding and she looked over and went oh, oh, I know what you’re talking about now. I just had that weird… I was like uh huh. I’ll have another newborn because I get to do it again. But yeah, you’re so right because it happens so…

Vashti: Slowly.

Jenna: I remember being pregnant and arrogant as you are at the time…

Vicki: No!

Jenna: I know, right.

Vicki: Such a, is anybody not a sancta-mummy?

Jenna: I tried very hard not to do, Andrew’s raising, Andrew is not a sancta-mummy. That is very true.

Andrew: Me, I’ve got my hand up.

Jenna: Sancta-daddy. I tried very hard not to do the thing you do when you’re pregnant, when you’re like this and this and this.

Vicki: My kid is not going to eat McDonalds. Yeah everyone laughed at me too.

Jenna: There are a lot of things that I didn’t do that with, but the one that I did was like I want to breastfeed, but anything past a year is just weird. I got to a year and I couldn’t imagine weaning Ryan at a year. It was just like wow, I didn’t know what the hell I was… anyway it was really funny around that time people were asking me, when do you think you’ll wean? And I remember saying I don’t know. Any idea, roughly? Do you want to go fully with them weaning, or do you want to just do… I kept saying I’ve had hubris about this before and I’m not going to do it again. I’m literally not putting a time or a date or an age on it or anything, because I thought I knew what I was talking about before and I didn’t. And at that point I very much was just following, not even following his lead, but following the ethos that as long as both of us are happy we’ll keep doing it. And we got to a point where I wasn’t, so I did initiate weaning. But it was very much something that I couldn’t have understood until I was there, because you don’t start, and Mum said this to me once. I’m like, I wouldn’t know what to do with a ten year old. Mum goes, you’ve got ten years to work that out.

Vicki: Yeah, you do.

Jenna: And I was like, it was one of those really crystallising moments for me where I was like oh, you’re right. You don’t need to know how to deal with a newborn and a ten year old at the same time. You’re doing one of those at a time.

Vicki: Because I can tell you, if they actually gave you a ten year old, or worse a fourteen year old, you seriously, nobody would dump that on you because you would literally be flailing, because I’m flailing with a fourteen year old as it is. And I know this kid inside out.

Jenna: Teenagers suck, people, they suck big time.

Vicki: There is a time you will go back, you will wish for the two year old tantrums.

Jenna: I don’t know, I had a hysterical toddler at 10 pm I’d like to point out Casey and I had gone to bed an hour earlier. We’d gone to bed early. Hysterical last night, because he wanted his water bottle in the corner of his cot and it was not.

Vicki: It was in the middle of his cot?

Jenna: But I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t work that out until he’s suddenly screaming after I’d gone in, Casey had gone in, this was my take two, half an hour of this hysteria, and he farted and then he said “water bottle corner”. And I put the water bottle in the corner and he calmed down. I’ve no idea if it was the far upsetting his stomach.

Vicki: See I just got the fart from my son and the giggles. That was our night. But parenting isn’t…

Jenna: I co-slept last night and remembered why I don’t do that. It’s horrible. Vashti and I have very different sleep opinions. I can see why it should be good, but I don’t think my kid has that setting. Four o’clock I gave up after I still don’t really know what his hysteria was about last night, but he got upset and we both tried. No idea what was up with him. He wasn’t even scared. Ended up bringing him into the bed and was like screw it, I’ll try, 4 am I was just like do you want to come and cuddle in Mummy and Daddy’s bed? He spent an hour and a half sitting up, sitting down, jumping on us, moving around. He did not sleep a wink. He did not try and sleep.

Vashti: That’s because he’s not used to it. It’s something new to him. Whereas…

Jenna: Yes, and it was just like he headbutted me and he kicked. And I was like oh yeah, you don’t do this, but from a newborn if we lay him in bed, that’s why I didn’t understand, I think I told you this, I didn’t understand co-sleeping wasn’t breast sleeping. Because if I lay him in bed with us he’d just scream. From a newborn and I was just like OK, that mustn’t be… so I started breastfeeding him lying down and he’d do that. But if he slept in the bed with us he’d do that all night. He wouldn’t, there was no, and if I tried to take him off and lie him next to us, he’d just start screaming again. OK, that’s not a setting you have. And he was, oh goodness, six, seven months old when I said that to a friend. She goes you know that’s not co-sleep. That doesn’t mean, co-sleeping doesn’t always mean breast sleeping, right? And I’m like, no? I literally didn’t understand there were two different things.

Vicki: All of our kids had different variations. Abbey wasn’t a co-sleeper. Gabriel is. Gabriel still. He would happily at seven, still be in our bed.

Vashti: Kylan still happily sleeps in our bed and he’s five next month. We’re actually redesigning the whole house at the moment and moving everyone around, so he will be in his own bed for the first time. He’s got the cot side carted to our bed, but especially with Brent away, he’s in our, we’ve got a king bed, it’s OK. And do you know what? I will start him over his side of the bed, right next to the cot. I’d love to put him in the cot but I know that that won’t last. So I’ll start him all the way over the other side. He will still leave to me in the middle of the night so I can’t move.

Jenna: Even going on two and a half, Ryan last night didn’t want to sleep next to us, he wanted to sleep on top of Casey. Again, he doesn’t get that…

Vashti: Your child just doesn’t do co-sleeping.

Jenna: He just doesn’t understand. But yeah, I said the words if you don’t lie down you have to go back to your bed, like 72 times this morning. It’s someone else’s problem today. I dropped him at Guy’s and went have fun, bye, he’s been up since four, he might need an early nap. I’m going now. And then I came here. What are we meant to be talking about, Andrew?

Andrew: Andrew’s gone. Andrew’s not here.

Vicki: Please leave a message. After the beep.

Jenna: Toilet training.

Vicki: Moo, moo.

Jenna: I have an unrelated but cloth nappy thing to say.

Andrew: I’m actually sitting here wondering when the best time to end this podcast is.

Jenna: Can I put a bonus fun fact at the end of it?

Andrew: I don’t know, you guys are just bringing all the cool stuff in. You guys got more to talk about, we’re already over 50 minutes now.

Jenna: Well I’ve got a bonus fun fact.

Andrew: Except for all the swearing I’ve got to take out.

Vicki: It’s mooing, just moo it.

Jenna: Moo.

Andrew: It’s going to take it back to 40.

Jenna: I am sorry. I am not. I hope my mother’s not listening now actually.

Vashti: Should I just join in, just for the hell of it?

Jenna: Yeah, why are you not swearing? Quickly.

Vashti: I don’t know [laughter and clapping].

Andrew: You know, every time you say a swear word it takes me five minutes to fix it.

Vicki: You love it though Andrew.

Andrew: I’m going to keep all the swear words and string them together on one… and play it to you. Think of that.

Jenna: I think it sounds like a good song.

Vashti: Can it be my new ring tone?

Jenna: Yes, love it. My bonus fun fact was about muconium [sic]. Yah, everyone’s…

Vicki: Muconium [sic]?

Jenna: Muconium, meconium?

Vicki: Meconium.

Jenna: Meconium, it’s one of those one’s I’ve always read.

Vicki: It’s an E not a U. Me-conium.

Jenna: Meconium, OK, meconium. It’s not as hard to get out of nappies as you thought it was. Well I didn’t think it was, but…

Andrew: This is something that happens at birth.

Jenna: Did you not know I had a newborn?

Andrew: You don’t have a newborn.

Vicki: No, she’s sick of washing, she can’t wait to stop washing and then she offers to wash a friend’s nappies.

Jenna: My friend wanted to start cloth in hospital, what do you do for another cloth mum who wants to start in hospital? You offer to wash her nappies for her. So my friend had, congratulations Jess, you can be the creepy one, the one creeped out by being spoken to on the podcast now. My friend had a little baby boy last week.

Vashti: I know, and she announced it and didn’t share photos, so I said…

Jenna: I know, she didn’t announce it she randomly commented somewhere and said she had a one day old.

Vashti: And I’m like, photos or it didn’t happen.

Jenna: He’s very, very cute.

Andrew: Keep on subject, this is not a Facebook rant. Podcast, not a Facebook rant.

Jenna: You sure? I think it is. So she had a baby and I went and I offered to clean her nappies for her so she could start in cloth without any fuss at the hospital and not have to worry about it until she got home. So I got the nappies, and the thing is, the meconium by the time I picked them up had been on for, I want to say a day and a half, maybe two days by the time I rinsed them. So a little bit. I rinsed them off, I’ve got a sprayer, rinsed it off. By the way, first time I’ve ever seen meconium, because I never saw Ryan’s, because Ryan was four days old before I changed a nappy.

Vashti: Nice.

Andrew: Three days, it would have turned into amber by then wouldn’t it?

Jenna: I very clearly turned around to my husband and I was like, when you have stitches in your genitals, you can change a nappy. No, thank you.

Vicki: Get out of changing nappies.

Jenna: I need to eat lunch. Anyway. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway I rinsed it off with my sprayer and it was still really stained, like a maroon colour, think Queensland.

Vicki: The best state. Or not.

Jenna: And I was like, honestly what happened was I was a bit tired and I wanted to go to bed. So I was just like you know what, I’m going to put these on, when they’re stained in the morning I’ll grab out the ones that are still stained and I’ll soak them in some Napisan and get it out.

Vicki: You did not sun them? Let’s not go there.

Jenna: No, I wasn’t going to sun them to sanitise them. And I took them out the next morning and couldn’t find a stain anywhere. Two step wash cycle, I did spray stain remover on them, and I did delay the wash for half an hour so the stain remover sat on it for half an hour. And I did a 60 degree prewash and a 60 degree main wash, just to cover my bases, and yep, came out sparkly clean, absolutely no problem. So I know that’s something a lot of people stress about, if they want to use cloth from birth. And honestly, it came out so easily, it does look horrifying and sticky and I definitely didn’t chase my husband around the house saying hey, want to look at this? I’m a nice wife.

Andrew: That’s your favourite game, isn’t it?

Vicki: No, that’s his.

Jenna: Have a look at this. It’s a very different game. But yeah, it came out. I know that’s something people stress about using cloth from birth and it came out so easy, it wasn’t a problem at all. So that’s my completely unrelated fun fact.

Vashti: So just in case you wanted to know, this started about a toilet training episode and ended up in breastfeeding and co-sleeping and meconium.

Vicki: And another fun fact, parenting doesn’t actually get any easier, it just changes. So don’t think, here I rant about teenagers because that’s what I’m going through. You’re ranting about two year olds having tantrums, you’re ranting about four year olds who just can’t sit still. It’s all relevant, it’s all relevant.

Jenna: I will say this, I don’t think, from my experience at least, any of it is as, I wasn’t to say intense is the word I’m going to use, as the newborn stage. That stage…

Vicki: Oh my gosh, I found that the easiest.

Vashti: Oh no, the newborn stage is so easy, they sleep and feed…

Andrew: [Quacks] [laughter]

Jenna: Vashti, stop bringing down the tone, OK? She’s gone red.

Vashti: I didn’t even mean to do that.

Andrew: You’ve just confused everyone, because what they heard was breastfeed, sleep, moo.

Vashti: Oh sweetie, if your newborn is mooing, something is very wrong.

Vicki: But that actually just goes to prove the point that everybody’s experience is different and it’s just each stage has its own challenges.

Jenna: Yeah, I think for me it’s the whole like, he can play on his own for half an hour. It’s the whole like you’re holding them, they’re needing you constantly.

Vicki: No, you know what it is? You’re so organised, you like structure, and newborns do not offer structure at all, even the most…

Jenna: And Jess says that, Jess will say this to me, like my friend, I find a lot of people who don’t have your hormones have a better memory of your life from different stages. And she said to me, she turned around, yeah…

Andrew: Quack, quack.

Jenna: Moo newborn. And as a toddler he is great at independent play, and he’s a really chilled kid. Whereas the newborn stage for me was such a struggle. So I found it got, it’s the around the clock-ness. I like that it’s not around the cloth anymore and it’s not…

Vicki: That’s because your kid sleeps through, like ours, Gabe didn’t sleep through until he was four.

Jenna: Even during the day, the fact that he can sit and play and not need to be held, not need to sleep on me. I don’t know, I just found that so, and even going over and seeing friends with newborns, I’m like I just think that’s so intense.

Vicki: It is, it is.

Jenna: They need you hugely. I can leave the house and someone else can feed him. And again, everyone’s experience is different, because if you had no luck breastfeeding or didn’t want to and you’re bottle feeding, you can leave the house. Or if your kid takes a bottle, my kid never took a bottle. Like you can have expressed milk. I think…

Vicki: See I think carrying a baby hooked up to your boob and being able to do stuff was actually probably the easiest part of…

Vashti: I was back at the shop when Kylan was seven weeks old and he was going with me. He was at the shop with me until he was 14 months. He was in the carrier. I was serving customers and breastfeeding him at the same time. So you know, it was just…

Jenna: Just scrub my face.

Vashti: …it’s weird, you’re sitting there going what the…

Jenna: It’s a confused look.

Vicki: It’s different for everybody and each and I don’t think any stage is good or bad, it’s just different. That’s the best way to explain it.

Jenna: I was listening to you talking about the teenage problems and they’re just so complicated.

Vashti: But you’ve got another 11 years to work that out.

Vicki: And then you still won’t have the answers.

Jenna: Ssh, I’ll know everything.

Vicki: No, he will know everything, you won’t know anything.

Vashti: Braith’s 14, and you know what, I’m just so over it. Braith’s 14 in October.

Jenna: So toilet training, that’s where we started here.

Andrew: So thank you Vashti.

Vashti: Thanks Andrew.

Andrew: Thanks Vicki.

Vicki: Thanks Andrew.

Andrew: Thanks Jenna.

Jenna: I think you’re welcome. I’m not sure how much I derailed this.

Andrew: Bye everybody.