Weeks four to five

The knitted longies have been great, but she's leaked a couple of times onto them, and its been raining non-stop, so they take ages to dry when I wash and relanolise them. I quickly sewed up some fleece longies. These were just simple polar fleece pants with an extra layer of microfleece in the nappy area.

The fleece longies are soooo simple to use and to wash; its tempting to just use them all the time. They are certainly handy when there is a lot of rain. If I didn't feel so strongly that natural fibres are better against baby's skin I'd probably use these a lot more. Fleece longies do still "breath", so it isn't like using a plastic nappy cover, but they don't breath as well as wool longies. They can just go into the washing machine and dryer though.

I've also been having to put nappies into the dryer a lot. This is fine for the nappies, but they are getting a bit stained, especially the liners. I'm looking forward to some sunny days to get the stains out.

About week three - additions to the nappying

At about week three I got sick of using the nappy pins, especially during the night. Bub had also grown a bit, so I wasn't folding down the nappy tail any more. This meant I could add snaps to the nappies without worrying that I'd have to add them to a different position down the track. I added 8 snaps across the front at one inch intervals, and two snaps to each wing, 2 inches apart. On one of the wings I put an extra snap in the middle so that the wings could be crossed over.

I also sewed some two layer boosters using scraps of hemp/cotton fleece and terry. These boosters were added into the nappies to increase absorbency.

The knitted longies are not covering her feet as well as they had been already!!!

The nighties have been great.

What I used - first couple of weeks

The hemp fitteds were great - used them. She was put into a disposable by the nurse as her first nappy, but hasn't had one on since. Using them in hospital was fine - I just put dirty nappies into a plastic bag and sent them home for washing with her dad.

I used the woollen longies every time - haven't used the PUL ones at all.

I had planned on using a snappi with the hemp fitteds, but didn't like that and was also told by one of the nurses that they don't recommend them any more because they have been known to come off and then hurt bub, so I went back to nappy pins, which I've used in the past. They were made a lot easier to get through the nappy by just running them through my hair first - amazing what a big difference that makes!!

The nappies fitted beautifully. We just folded down a little bit of the "tail" so they weren't too big.

The longies were quite long, but great that way as I could just have them covering her feet to keep them warm. All the tops that I'd made were also too long in the sleeves, so I just folded the sleeves up and they were fine.

One really helpful thing that I remembered from my last baby was to use some baby bottom balm with each nappy change so that poo is easier to clean off. I really love the Nature's Child Bottom Balm, as its really smooth and lovely to use, and also the ingredients are natural and organic. I just smear a bit of this over her with each change, and nothing sticks - no "scrubbing" to get her bottom clean!

Preparing for Baby

My baby was due end of May, so I was preparing for a winter baby. My plan was to use entirely cloth nappies and to focus on natural fabrics, using organic where possible. So I figured the easiest way to clothe her for winter was knitted longies, as they are both pants that will keep her legs beautifully warm, and nappy cover.

Longies are knitted pants. They should be made from 100% wool, and after washing they should be lanolised. Here is some info about lanolising longies. I'll add info about lanolising woollen nappy covers later, as well as a pattern for longies.

Although lots of people like to use prefolds (see http://www.withawareness.com.au/aboutnappies/p15.htm) or traditional terry flats for newborns, I really wanted the easy to use fitted nappies, so I wanted to design a fitted nappy that I could sew lots of quickly, that would be easy to use, and that would fit a good range of sizes. That's what I did. I sewed up lots of those.

I've also sewn 3 or 4 nighties (with more cut out to do), about 6 to 8 hemp/cotton interlock tops and a few fleece nappy covers as back up. I already have a couple of PUL nappy covers (purchased) and a pile of cotton prefolds and other flat nappies - muslin, terry and flannelette. Here is a count of what I have in terms of nappies:

*about 18 fitted nappies in hemp/cotton blend
*3 fitted nappies in bamboo/cotton blend
*3 woollen fabric covers
*5 PUL covers (not sure about the sizing of these - have done them all differently)
*15 or so muslin liners
*about 12 cotton prefolds (purchased)
*3 muslin flats (purchased)
*many flannelette flats (purchased)
*about 10 or so terry flats (purchased)
*a couple of bought PUL covers (purchased)

I have a heap of knitted cardigans/beanies that I made for my first daughter. And of course, I have heaps and heaps of other clothes like rompers, etc.