Hi, I'm Steph.
I started Bumby in 2007, at the kitchen table, when my first son was born. I wanted to make cloth diapers for him because I couldn't find a good source where I lived. I made some, they were pretty good, so I started a business. That's genuinely how it happened.
I'm from New Zealand, where my mum worked on a sheep farm before I was born and we had family in the industry. So when I started cloth diapering and someone pointed me toward wool covers about a year in, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. I already trusted the fibre. I just hadn't thought to put it on a baby. Once I did, I fell even more in love with it — there are so many reasons people call it the miracle fibre, and I genuinely believe them all.
After my second son was born we moved, and I shut the business down for a bit. Did some babysitting. Missed making cloth diapers more than I expected. So I started again.
That's when I met Becky. She's been with me for nine years now and she is my best friend — she's woven right into the fabric of Bumby, which I love saying because she really is. Rhonda came on a few months later. The three of us worked together in my basement for years. Becky and I both had a two-year-old and a four-year-old when Rhonda started. Those four kids grew up playing in our house — sleepovers, getting into trouble, all of it. I feel so lucky they got that.
We've grown since the basement days. We're in a 1,500 square foot industrial space now and honestly busting at the seams. There are a few more amazing women on the team. We still laugh a lot and get along incredibly well, which I don't take for granted.
The thing I want Bumby to be known for is choice. I don't like telling people what to get. I love collaborating, figuring out what's right for someone's family, their wardrobe, their life.
I'm so glad you're here.
— Steph