I started making fitted cloth nappies last October. I had just returned from a trip down to Victoria during which I picked up my old sewing machine from my parents. It is a basic model that is about 15 years old, and since it hasn’t been used in years my parents were kind enough to get it serviced for me.
I made some simple mistakes at the start. For the first two nappies I forgot to put elastic in the back, and although they work the fit isn’t good and I can easily imagine leaks happening so I use them only as a last resort. I also didn’t pre-wash all my fabrics, so the first 10 nappies or so shrank when I washed them. That’s a mistake you don’t make twice!
The first patterns I used were free patterns: Shar’s newborn and the Wee Weka fitted nappies. Most of the free patterns are sized as small or newborn. Last year, when I was making them, I couldn’t imagine that they would fit a baby, they just looked too small!! So I didn’t make many of the newborn nappies and moved onto the next size. By the time Nathan was born I had quite a stash of some 33 nappies and several covers.
I was so happy that the fitted nappies that I made worked very well….I just didn’t want my efforts to be a waste of time (and money/fabric). Now that Nathan is 5 weeks old, some of the nappies are not fitting terribly well anymore. He is growing out of the newborn sized nappies as well as some of the small sized nappies…I suspect that they are the ones that shrunk in the wash. So I have been wondering about making some larger nappies, but I couldn’t find a free one online that was a larger size and came with a pdf pattern. I looked into buying a pattern, but the one I liked the look of most was out of stock in the online shop.
Since I had problems finding a pattern, and didn’t want to spend money on patterns that may or may not be any good, I asked one of the ladies (who has given me advice on making nappies in the past) from the Birth forums what her opinion was of a selection of patterns. She gave me some great information about some commercially available patterns. She said she had some patterns in digital format that she had purchased and offered to send them to me. I figured that if I liked the pattern I’d buy it! It took me a week of stolen moments to get the pattern printed, cut out and the nappy made, but I finally got there. The interesting thing is that the shape of this commercially available pattern seems to be a lot better than any of the free ones I’ve seen.
The new nappy is now in use, and hopefully it manages to contain all the poo as well as the other nappies I’ve made.I lashed out in January and bought myself a snap machine, so this is also the first nappy I’ve made with snaps! I’m hoping they solve the problem of Velcro sticking to things in the wash and potentially ruining some items of clothing…some are already damaged from the Velcro.
So far the only poo leak I’ve had in 5 weeks was out of a disposable nappy that was put on at the hospital when the lactation consultant weighed Nathan. At Mumsense (when I had mentioned that I don’t carry a spare outfit for Nathan with me when I’m out) several of the ladies have told me that poo leaks (explosions) will happen and I definitely should carry a spare outfit or two. They all use disposables, so I’m wondering if I’m immune to these leaks because of the type of nappy I’m using. Or maybe these leaks just aren’t common, but are messy and I should be prepared.
So, the big question now is what nappies I should use for the 2.5 weeks that we are travelling and visiting friends and family. Cloth (or even a combination of cloth and disposable) is hard because it needs to be washed and dried, so we’d have to be carrying around dirty nappies in the car and we’d have to find time for regular washing and drying. It seems that using disposable is the easiest option…I just hope that all the poo is contained, otherwise we’ll be washing a lot anyway!
It amuses me, all this thinking about what covers Nathan’s bum!
oh love the green with blue snaps very snazzy!
I have to say – if you are going to get poo explosions, which you probably are at least once or twice, I don’t think you will contain them entirely with any nappy, but I think cloth (especially a fitted with a cover over) will contain better than a sposie. Simply because you have tighter leg and back elastic on a cloth than a sposie. But I’d still take a spare change of clothes – if aint poo it will be spew… oh and stick a spare shirt for you in the back of the car too! LOL
And I’d just travel with sposies. Unless there is some major reason why you don’t ever want to use them, for the sake of a week or two, save your sanity and take sposies. We like Aldi nappies, have only had one leak and nothing was going to keep that amount of poo in ROFL