Bubble & Pop: How our changing bag business began

It all started when…

I think I’ve left the house without wipes. Have I? Tell me I have not walked out the door and forgotten to put wipes in the changing bag. *Rummages frantically through the chaos of the bag desperately trying to locate the desperately-needed wipes*. There are no wipes. How can there not be any wipes? Nappies. Wipes. Nappy Sacks. It’s Packing the Baby Bag 101. It’s the ‘leaving the house with a baby’ equivalent of wallet, keys, phone.

Mortified, I try to ride it out as a ‘silly me and my silly baby brain’ moment as the lovely woman whose office floor my six-week-old is wriggling around on, chubby little legs akimbo, passes me wads of tissue from a box on her desk and smiles warmly trying to reassure me that ‘we’ve all done it, lovely, don’t you worry about it.’ I silently note her alphabetised bookshelves and immaculately tidy desk and know for an absolute fact that she has never once left the house without baby wipes.

Later that evening, I sob to my husband that this was all a terrible mistake, that I knew I wasn’t cut out for motherhood, that the meeting had been a total disaster, and that it was simply not possible for one person to run a business and keep a tiny human fed, warm and free of poo all on their own. ‘You can do this,’ he reassures me. ‘You’re forgetting things because you’re not getting enough sleep – that’s all it is. You’ll be fine in a few months when things settle down.’

Well, turns out I was not entirely fine in a couple of months and it was not the last time I forgot the baby wipes! Or the nappies. Or his bottle. Or Teddy when Teddy was his EVERYTHING. I forgot all the things all the time and eventually resigned myself to the fact that this was who I was now. The Woman Who Forgets Things.

Let’s jump forward a few years. I am now pregnant for the second time and diligently searching the world wide web for a new baby changing bag. This time, I want something practical that will help me stay organised but I also want it to be bright and cheery with bold, vibrant colours that will lift me out of my sleep-deprived stupor on the days when I can barely remember what my name is!

I scroll through row after row of changing bags that are all perfectly fine and look as though they will do the job for me, but there’s nothing that leaps out at me and says ‘STOP! Look no further, you have found it, THIS is the baby bag for you.’

I think: ‘maybe I haven’t given Google enough to go on’ so I update the search to include a more detailed description of what I’m looking for. And still…nothing.

‘This can’t be right,’ I think to myself. Surely I am not the only woman in the country who is looking for a baby changing bag that will transform her from The Woman Who Forgets Things into The Woman Who Is Absolutely Winning At Motherhood and never leaves the house without every last thing she could possibly need for a day out with her child. And surely I am not the only woman who adores colour and fun, vibrant design and something ‘a little bit different.’

Google…?

Google…?

Google remained resolutely silent and refused to find me the bag I was looking for. So, I decided, like any tired, emotional and hormonal pregnant woman would have done, to make one myself.

And with the help of my cousin and fearless business partner, that’s just what we did!

Jude, Bubble & Pop 

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