When pregnant with my first child, we decided that we would mostly use cloth nappies (diapers, for any Americans reading this). We decided this for a number of reasons – cost, environmental factors, and because I’d rather poo go down the toilet than be put into a rubbish bin wrapped up in plastic then go to landfill. Okay, enough of the soapbox there. Fitted cloth nappies were just starting to become readily available in Australia at that time, so I made a few (a lot) myself.
There are plenty of patterns available to make fitted nappies and covers if you are interested. I used the Mama Bird fitted diaper and Ottobre cloth diaper patterns (and did a fusion of the two as well). These have an outer body of printed flannelette and inner soakers made from old towelling nappies. They do need a cover – I prefer PUL (polyurethane laminate) covers such as those by Bummis or Baby BeeHinds.
In the four and a half years between having each of my daughters, there is a huge range of cloth nappies now available, both online in Australia and in retail (our local bulk disposable nappy retailer also stocks lots of cloth nappies and covers). In my opinion, the secret is in the covers – you need good covers, then there are less leaks than with disposables. We do use disposable nappies when it suits us, such as overnight and when away for a whole weekend (we’re not completely purist) but the majority of the time our baby is in cloth.
The fitted nappies make it easy – just wrap around and do up, like a disposable, then the same thing with the thin cover. No pins etc. I wash every second day, line dry, don’t soak (storing the nappies in an empty bucket works fine, and there aren’t any stains), and use flushable liners inside each nappy to make poo disposal easy. The fitted nappies I made were used by my first daughter, then a friend’s child, and now by my second daughter. It makes them very economical! If you want to make your own, you can use whatever materials you have on hand, such as old flat cloth nappies, towels, flanelette etc or buy specialised materials retail or from stores such as Bubba Earth.
