When The Munchkin was around 18 months old we made the switch to cloth nappies and it’s been one of the greatest decisions we’ve made. Never mind the environmental impact that it has, but the number one reason for me was the savings. We’ve worked it out (we have a spreadsheet) taking even water and detergent usage into account and this just works out tons cheaper. Anyway, I’m not here to sell cloth nappies to you. I’m here to work through my thoughts about whether or not we should attempt the insane idea (to me) of newborn cloth nappies.
Love it when I get to match his nappy and outfit! 🙌 #clothdiapers #clothnappies #clothbum
As an aside: Check how cute this colour coordination is
You see, The Munchkin is at a point where he poops maybe once a day, on the odd occasion twice or thrice. But his poops are solid enough to just plop into the toilet and that’s that.
Do they stink? Yes. Are they gross? Of course. But here’s the thing – so are they in disposables, except this smell doesn’t linger in the house and is flushed down the toilet instead.
Newborn poops are messsy and runny and they poop SO MUCH. Just all the time. Sleep, Eat, Poop. That’s basically all they do. So that means we’d need about +-30 changes to wash every second day.
But once a baby hits the 4kg/5kg mark they can go on to the OSFM (one size fits most) size nappies – which is currently our entire stash right now. Just for reference sake The Munchkin hit was 5.5kg at 6 weeks. So if history repeats itself we’ll be in OSFM very soon and spending a lot on a newborn stash makes almost no sense to me. Yes, I know we can re-sell them.
But I do want to try out newborn cloth nappies. For one, they’re just so damn stinkin’ cute! So I’m thinking about doing it part time and then selling them to buy more OSFM nappies at a later stage
Asking around on the South African Cloth Nappy Users Facebook Group, many moms gave the advice of using flats (your ouma’s old school kind of nappies) or prefolds with covers. But you guys, I am not about that folding life. I just can’t and frankly, I just don’t want to. The appeal of modern cloth nappies for me was always how easy they were to put on “just like a disposable” but without the yucky chemicals and stinky nappy bin waiting to be thrown out.
The next best thing they recommended was Kangacare’s Lil’ Joey AIO. LOOK HOW CUTE AND TINY IT IS!!! I love that it has a snap down for the umbilical cord. It comes in a pack of two and Kangacare has a South African website which makes me very happy!
The next thing that was recommended was a contoured nappy. Which is a shaped nappy, the whole thing is absorbent so it needs a cover. The ones I really like are from a South African store called Heart & Soldier. I like that they are elasticated not only at the legs but that also you can opt for one at the back. Very handy for containing those messy newborn poops.
These would obviously need a Snappi (did you know a South African invented these?! So cool) and a cover.
Then once again Kangacare’s Rumparooz range has been recommended as one of the best newborn covers around.
So I’m thinking to start with perhaps 4 Lil’ Joeys, 6 contours and 3 covers and see how that goes. I think we’d probably use disposables at night like we do with The Muchkin.
Omg. The prints are just too cute! Maybe you should try just a couple (with back up disposables) and that way if you find juggling a newborn and a toddler too much to still bother with cloth nappies, you’re not a bunch out of pocket and you have disposables on hand?
Very, very cute!
I think you should try it. from what i see you are all about trying things out so why not. you got nothing to lose. and like you said they go throught that new born explosive poo phase so kwikly.
I am soooo happy you just said now that Rushdi started at 18 months on cloth. you know i have always wanted to try it out but some people who know me too well said im way to lazy (and too freaked out by poo STILL) to go the cloth route. which i am. so with my newborn i gave up the dream. lol! now he is 6 months old and has started on solids already so its now all solid and im thinking about trying it again.
aaahh Zayaan nb fluff is sooo darn cute!
good luck on your new cloth journey 🙂
I need some newborn cloth tips from you this time around!!