If you’re new to cloth nappies, you’ll notice there are different types of fasteners. You may be wondering which one is best for you, or you may already have a favourite.

Hook & Loop

Hook & Loop, more commonly known as the original trademarked name Velcro, is a popular choice for modern cloth nappies. It’s easy to use, cheap to buy, and requires only a sewing machine to attach it. You can buy it in different widths for different projects. You can cut it to a particular shape – for instance, to fit with a curve on the nappy tabs. If you do nappy changes in the dark, hook and loop nappies are a good choice. It’s also a bit easier to get the right fit when you have a full strip of loop tape on the front of the nappy.

However, many parents find that because it’s so easy to use, it’s also easy for their curious toddler to pull the nappy off and do a nudey run. It’s also easy for the hook side to catch on every fabric it comes in contact with. Many nappies now have a ‘laundry tab’ where you can anchor the hook side during a wash, but the hooks can also catch on your sleeves during a nappy change. The hooks also tend to catch fabric fluff and get filled up, so you’ll need to clean them out once in a while. A Snappi (see below) is useful for this.

Snaps

Most modern cloth nappies these days use polyacetyl resin snaps like the ones from Snaps Australia. These require a snap press to attach them, which makes the initial outlay a bit pricey, but many nappy sewers say it’s worth it. It’s much trickier for a young toddler to take off a snapped nappy. However if you’re in the middle of toilet learning, snaps may not be your best bet if you want your child to be able to take the nappy off.

Pins

Nappy pins, which are larger safety pins with plastic heads, have fallen out of favour with cloth nappiers because, basically, they’re sharp and pointy. Most of the time you won’t poke your child – just yourself – but when you do, you’ll hear about it, and you’ll feel like crap. They’re still around – in fact I have a set of them – but they’re mainly used for things other than nappies now.

Snappi

A Snappi is a T-shaped piece of rubber with hooks on each of the three ends. These are mainly used with flat terry nappies. You’ll need to stretch your Snappis before using them the first time, and the hooks at the ends are quite sharp, but the newer ones have a safety loop you can flip over to keep the hooks covered. My husband and I used them extensively for the first two years of our son’s life, and caught our own skin with them several times. They’re also useful for cleaning out the hooks on hook and loop nappies. Just drag them along the rows of the hooks and you’ll be amazed how much fluff comes out of them! Snappis are inexpensive and last for ages.

Whether you’re starting cloth with a new baby or an older baby after using disposables since birth, starting out with cloth nappies can seem like a daunting task. When the cost of a box of disposables costs as much as a single modern cloth nappy, on the surface, it does look unequal. However, it’s easier than you think to build up a decent stash while still keeping to budgetary constraints.

First, do a search on where to buy secondhand nappies. Buy for Baby is an Australian site (similar to eBay) for secondhand baby items. eBay also allows the sale of secondhand cloth nappies with some restrictions. Check out places like natural parenting forums, as many members of these forums will sell their nappies there as well. Nappycino is an online hub of all things related to cloth nappies. Your Google search may come up with other options. Sometimes op shops and baby shops will have secondhand nappies so have a look locally as well. And you never know – garage sales may turn up some nappies too.

Now that you know where to get them, make sure you buy all different types and brands of nappies. A few pockets, a few fitteds, a few all-in-ones, and some flat nappies, either terry flats or prefolds. Try them all out and find out which ones work for your child. Different nappies will fit different babies. Some nappies fit better on babies with chubby thighs; others are better on skinnier babies. Some babies react to synthetic fabrics while others don’t.

After you’ve worked out the best nappies for your baby, join those companies’ Facebook pages and newsletters, and subscribe to their blogs. These will keep you abreast of any sales or special offers they’re having. If you need to, set a little money aside every fortnight so you can be prepared for any sudden sales. If you’d rather buy secondhand, you can go back to the places you bought your original nappies in the first place, and buy more of the ones you like whilst selling the ones you don’t like. This way your sales can fund new purchases, and everybody wins!

Do you sew? Watch for sales at Spotlight, Lincraft, and any other fabric shops near you. You can make up fitted nappies easily enough without having to order in any special fabrics. Just some flannelette or terry towelling, swimwear elastic, and velcro or a Snappi will be enough to get you started cheaply. You can find nappy patterns online which are free as long as you don’t plan to sell them, or you could draft your own pattern.

And if you’re still pregnant, don’t forget about friends and family. When they ask what you need for the baby, tell them you’d like to use cloth, and you’d appreciate some cloth nappies or a bit of money to put toward your purchases.

If you want liners, you can make your own from microfleece or polar fleece. One metre of either fabric will give you about 30 15 cm x 30 cm liners for only a few dollars. Since they’re knit fabrics, you don’t even need to sew – just cut and use!

As you can see, it doesn’t have to be expensive to build a cloth nappy stash. If you use these tips, you can save a lot of money and still have nice nappies. And what’s more, when you have a big enough stash, you’ll be saving even more money by not buying disposables!

One day I was out shopping with my son Caleb. He was about 2 1/2 at the time. After he hit about 18 months, I didn’t generally bother taking an extra nappy along if we were just going out for a couple hours, because the ones I had were absorbent enough to last that long.

So there we were sitting in a pizza shop waiting for our lunch, when suddenly I saw a wee trail running out of his pants, straight onto the chair and the floor! And no spare nappies! What do I do? Home was about 20 minutes away, so I couldn’t just run back and get a nappy. No supermarkets anywhere close. There was one of those big baby shops, so I could get a pack of disposables, but they gave Caleb a rash. There’s a Spotlight; sometimes they sell packs of flat terry squares, but we already had about 60 of those at home, and he refused to wear them anymore anyway!

So I asked the guy at the counter to hang onto my food while I rushed off to fix up the problem. I decided to just go to the car and have a quick look to see if there was a stray nappy anywhere in the car before I decided what to do.

And then I remembered: my whole nappy stock was sitting in a plastic tub in the back seat. All I had to do was commandeer one for personal use. Crisis averted!

Do you have a funny nappy story? Please share!