Not being a mother, and to be honest a pretty rubbish godmother, my knowledge of changing nappies, disposable or otherwise is strictly limited. And of all the pros and cons of parenthood I’ve considered I’m sure no-one disagree surely this is one of the downsides.

I vaguely remember my sister’s nappy being changed some time around the Queen’s silver jubilee (clearly it was changed more than once otherwise we’d have been in a social services situation) and this was still terrycloth time. Other than the requisite safety pins and nappy rash cream, it involved something, which even to me at the age of 7, seemed particularly ineffective, the nappy liner: an A5 sized sheet of sheer webbed material, presumably to either keep the terrycloth away from child’s rear, or prevent the worst of the expulsion seeping too far into the terrycloth, thus rendering it forever green.

However recent wisdom has been that terry is best and disposable nappies are almost single-arsedly responsible for global warming. Filling up landfill with their filthy vile contents, the green mummy martyrs sneer smugly at their disposable counterparts while their unfortunate children chafe in their morally superior nappies.

However, you might as well rescue your children from nappy rash as apparently disposable IS better for the environment. Yes, you heard it. All those years of expensive laundering services, or washing shitty nappies yourself, you were actually doing more harm than if you’d been using pampers-pull-me-up-little-miss-huggies.

According to a £50k nappy research project by the DEFRA (Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs) in order to make them worthwhile and deliver a smaller carbon footprint than the more convenient alternative, you’d have to dry them outdoors all year round, wash them at no hotter than 60 degrees (probably not the best if you’ve had a particularly nasty expulsion), use the same nappies on about 5 children and then probably use them as tea-towels afterwards.

This is of course quite embarrassing for the Govt so it’s not exactly been publicising the findings. But mums, time to chuck out your pegs.

However, as Tony once said, there is a third way. In the 1950s children were often out of nappies soon after learning to sit up. It’s become later and later as the decades have passed.

If parents – let’s face it, usually mums – are able to pick up signals more effectively early on, known as mind-mindedness and critical for all parent child connections, then as Maggie Howells said in a Woman’s Hour feature last year, if you know what you’re looking for, it’s possible to have your child using the pot from the age of 5 days. That’s right: 5 daysQ It’s currently about 3 years in the UK – think how may nappies and shit in your fingernail moments that would save.

Recognising those key times such as after nap, or noticing signals the child gives you in the same way you’d learn to recognise tiredness or hunger will enable you to put the child on the pot at the right time and this will then just be completely routine for the child if not completely possible at all times.

Much earlier toilet training is just utterly normal in many African and Eastern cultures with children in China wearing pants with a split in them for easy access to the loo. So, it seems it’s just us filthy freaks in the West who allow our children to fester in their own faeces for years on end.

So terry or disposable, if you can get the training out of the way incredibly early on, then you’ll have a tiny carbon footprint and presumably a few less shitty finger nail moments.