Nappies for Russia

Sorry I haven’t been around much - i’ve been busy washing! (and doing Christmas!)

I hope everyone out there had a lovely Christmas break!

I”ve just updated our progress table but to be honest I’ve lost count on a lot of stuff, plus the table includes items for sale so it’s hard to judge exactly what will be available to send, but hey!

I THINK we are ok for creams now, we will be a bit short on snappis still (anticipating a few from interstate) and I think we are still probably looking for more wool, fleece and PUL covers. Liner fleece has rolled on in (Thanks to Maz, Cass and Cat mostly!) but as I haven’t cut it up yet I have NO IDEA how many liners we have or need yet. Hopefully I’ll get that attended to today!

I am excited that the interstate collection courier has been sponsored by Australian Air Express and stuff from Melbourne, Sydney and Perth should arrive this week. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in these parcels! Other drop offs will be posted if needed - interstate coordinators - I’ll contact you today - thanks for your patience!

On a slightly less positive note - the parcels we sent recently (15) cost $470 to mail!! What’s worse though is that our packages were heavier than the required 2kg max so the post office worker just started pulling stuff out willy nilly and the parcels got rather mixed up. Never mind, these were all going to the same place, and we are sending the extra stuff that got removed to make them up again, but the poor Russian workers on the other end will have to play mix and match a bit! From now on we will pre-weigh our parcels, and we might have to keep more of the heavy fitted nappies here for auction.

Lastly, now that interstate collections are closed off we will be saying goodbye to the lovely Mel who has been SO wonderful helping me out to organise so much stuff. She will be taking a well deserved break to look after herself and her growing family. Thanks so much Mel, I couldn’t possibly express how helpful you’ve been!

Thanks for all your support everyone - we’re getting closer!

Hi Everyone out there,
My mother and I got together today and put 15 packages all ready to go! Just 85 to go, lol!

I’ve now got a better idea of what we’re going to need, so I’ll put the call out there for more microfleece and more woolen or good quality fleece covers. Most of our fleece covers will be the acrylic pull up style ones, or the $4 covers with pvc from big W (we remove the pvc). Neither of these have a good size range and all will only last a few months of washing, so we really need to get some better covers in. Hopefully that will happen soon!

I have decided to finalise what we will send, and adjust the progess table accordingly. So yes, the numbers needed have gone up slightly. We will be sending:
-100 nappy packs for mums
-10 newborn “loan packs” (with the same things in them as the mum’s packs, except only a sample of cream, newborn sized nappies (or flanelette flats) and 3 covers as newborns tend to soil their covers so often.)
-Pvc pants, training pants and big bedwetter AIO’s are going separately to the orphanages.
-We have already sent a “demo pack’ to an influential community member (with a baby son) to show the local women and this contained the same as a mum’s pack, but is an extra.
-We have a number of nappies that are to be sold rather than sent due to either exceedingly long drying times, heavy weights or being donated specifically for the purpose. So far, these have been counted in amongst the nappies received but as they are to be sold they don’t really “count” towards how many we need. However for the moment, until we know how many we will need to sell for postage money, they are being included in the total received.

Thanks to everyone who has donated this week - it’s been great!

Last Thursday, the 29th (our Brisbane volunteering day) was so huge that it has taken me until monday to recover and get a chance to update the blog!!

Unfortunately in the mass of my mental confusion, we lost track of how many nappies we have collected - just the flats. I put the stuff I had already washed (and therefore counted) in a separate section to the new stuff that arrived, but as some new flats were already washed by their donors bringing them on the day, and we were folding up flats then and there - I put them into the already counted file and forgot! D’oh!

Anyway, I have guessed (fairly accurately I think) the number we have now and have updated the progress page to 750 nappies collected! On the day we had an even 250 flats, not counting the ones brought in near the end of the day - so we did really well!

I was completely exhausted, but it would have been much more ridiculously impossible without the lovely ladies from Essential Baby and KYB who came to help - thanks all!

We got 4 newborn packs sorted and packaged - these will go out on loan to new mothers just before their babies are due - then they will return them at 8 weeks to exchange for a permanent pack for older babies. This will hopefully mean that newborns won’t have to wear stuff that’s far too bulky for them. We did these first as a priority as we feel that preventing nappy rash in the newborns will be really helpful for them as they get into the older baby packages which we’ll send as soon as we can. We hope to do another 6 newborn packs. We cut out over 100 fleece liners for the terry flats on thursday as well, on top of assembling all 100 pea pods, stretching 180ish Snappies (OUCH!) and removing all the excess packaging from nappy creams. We also got the large sized AIO’s, PVC pants and training pants sent off to the orphanages for bedwetters and semi-toilet trained children. These can be put to use straight away with existing rags/nappies while we sort out how many nappies they want to accept and what sizes etc. There are lots of logistics involved when there’s so many kids in each orphanage.

Now that the first volunteering day is over, I’m just taking it a bit more easy - trying to do a few loads of washing per week, rather than a few a day like last week! Please note that in order to reduce my workload, amongst other things, we have limited slightly the things we accept. We no longer need training pants, any items containing pvc or nappy boosters (unless they come with a specific nappy that you are donating) as we have heaps of these now. We are also cutting back on accepting knitting wool for the time being just so there’s one less thing to count/sort - but we will take it again later in all likelihood.

We are clearly going to have to have some more working bees to get this sorted - maybe on a smaller scale however! I’m happy to hear from anyone in Brisbane who could help me out for a few hours - even if it’s just with doing a load of washing or entertaining my bub while I try to get some sorting done!

Thanks a lot everyone! Keep up the good work!