Ethan is now eight weeks old, and we’ve been cloth nappying him part time since he was about two weeks old. Prior to that, he was in disposables full time. Yes, I know that sounds funny coming from someone who makes and sells cloth nappies.

I was hoping to be using cloth full time by now, but unfortunately I kind of messed up my estimates of how many a newborn would go through! So we’ve had to keep using disposables as backup, and will until I get a chance to make some more nappies for him. Anyway, here’s a rundown of what we’ve been doing and using up till now.

One size fitted nappies: we have three. They fit him really well! He’s now a whopping 6.5 kilograms and doesn’t need the front folded down anymore. As I said in a previous post, there’s no leg gaps or wing droop. I don’t think I’ll need to adjust that pattern much at all for him.

Flat terry nappies: I think we have about 14 of these. I started putting them on him a couple of weeks ago using the Jo fold. They look a bit big but do the job well enough.

Microfleece lined ‘budget’ pocket nappies: we have six. These are sized small and look like they’ll still fit for a couple of months. The legs did have a gap for a little while when we started using them, but he’s filled them out since then.

Small all-in-one (front snapping): We have one in our rotation. I don’t think the rise is quite big enough for him so I’ll be adjusting that pattern when I get the time.

Small pocket (side snapping): There’s one, and he’s already pretty much outgrown it!

Medium pocket (side snapping): One of these as well, and it fits him easily. Problem is, I think I put the microfleece in the wrong way, so it seems to repel urine rather than letting it pass through. He never stays in it for very long because he fusses after even one wee in it.

Newborn prefolds: Heh. Yeah, I made six of these and I think he wore each one once before he was too big for them. That’s what happens when your baby is born at 4.6 kilograms! Still, when they did fit, they fit him well enough. All I have to do is sew another six pocket shells and I can use the prefolds as the inners for those.

One Fit Wonder: We have one but haven’t used it yet.

I’ve also been lining all the terries, fitteds, and the all-in-one with a microfleece liner to keep moisture away from his skin.

And now the other bits & pieces.

Cloth wipes: We have about 20, mostly hemp/flannelette with a few bamboo/flannelette ones thrown in for good measure. We’ve been air drying everything, so they do get a bit stiff, but they soften up when they’re wet so it doesn’t seem to matter. The bamboo ones are definitely softer than the hemp ones, even though they’re much older!

Ginormous wet bags: We’ve got two. The intent was to put all the soiled nappies, wipes, and pooed-on baby clothes into one bag, wash the bag with its contents when it’s full, and switch to the other bag. And it’s working out pretty well. There’s only two problems that I can see. One is that the handle is just sewn into the side seam, and I can see it starting to pull away on both bags. I’ll address this problem in all future wet bags I make. The second problem is that it’s kind of a pain to dump a bag into a front-loading washing machine. I expect it would be a lot more convenient in a top loading machine.

And that’s just about everything I can think of! So far Ethan hasn’t had any rashes or issues with the disposables, except for a few times when he’s done a Stealth Poo that we didn’t know about till much later. They do however tend to leak a lot more often than the cloth ones, so I really hope I can find the time to do some sewing soon, so we can ditch them for good!