How easy is it to know if newborn has weed in cloth nappy?

[PositiveVibe]

Daft question...
Disposable nappies usually have an indicator that baby is wet (yellow line turns blue).
How easy is it to tell if baby is wet with a cloth nappy? Thanks

Ha ha ha. I thought you meant The illegal kind of weed, not "had a wee"!!!!

But - why would you need to know if a baby has had a wee? People managed for millennia without knowing whether a baby has done a wee. You don't need to change a nappy after every wee.

You can see the heaviness surely?

Weed 😂

Because most of my friends who had difficulty with breastfeeding were eventually asked to keep a log of what went in(nursing times)/what came out.
Of course there are other signs that indicate a baby is unwell/dehydrated but knowing for sure how many wees a day is helpful I think.

They will feel wet?

In terms of counting wet nappies for monitoring for dehydration - I used to change each feed and check whether it was wet &/or dirty as I was taking it off. You change a newborn often enough to know if there's an issue.

Good question. When I had mine the hospital policy was their own cloth nappies so that you could record output i.e. wet nappy. You honestly couldn’t tell most of the time.

Second time parents were in the know as they ‘defied’ policy and brought their own newborn disposables in and told them to get knotted knowing you couldn’t tell squat with the cloth.

We had to record everything. What breast(s) we had fed from and every wee and poo. I’m presuming it’s tied up with liability as there are clinical signs if a baby is not fed/hydrated and as the average stay was 5 days it would be bleeding obvious if there was an issue.

Weigh the nappy dry and again when you change the baby.

It smells wet feels hot hangs away from the body

We change every 2-3 hours and you can tell because the core / insert is wet. Once you're used to them you'll be able to tell by the weight as well.

Having said that, DS was in disposables until 2m old. We had enough to do in those first 2 months, we wouldn't have managed the extra laundry as well!

Pull back away from baby, sniff. If it doesn't smell of poo shove your finger in and feel if nappy is damp.

Surely it feels bigger/fuller than a dry nappy? We used pampers but I didn’t even know it had a wetness indicator until someone pointed it out to me when my baby was 4/5 months old.

Disposables have colour changing bits because they have gel in which absorbs the liquid so they don't feel wet. A cloth nappy will feel wet if you change frequently, which you would for a newborn. It is very easy to tell if a baby has wee'd in a cloth nappy!

We used washable nappies with our twins. It’s not difficult. They feel heavy, you can smell the urine and the nappy liner looks soiled.

I kept a log when they were little for the first few weeks, it wasn’t hard to tell.

You can't really tell 'number' of wees in any nappy though, as some do smaller more regular wees.

Cloth nappies are easy to tell if the baby weed - as the absorbent bit is wet. Knowing what type you intend to use would be useful if you'd like some more info. I used prefolds, fleece liner and wraps for the newborn stage.

Yeah I think number of wees would be impossible to gauge unless you were checking constantly, and had them unclothed bar nappies all the time.

👍🏻Thanks everyone!

We were never asked about timings of wees! Just “are the nappies wet” and number of dirty nappies and colour of contents in the beginning when they wanted to check the meconium was clearing. And DS had a tongue tie, so loads of problems with BFing. He didn’t lose weight though, so that might be the difference.

DS is 14mo and I have no idea how often he wees. More than six times a day, because that’s how many nappies he gets through and they’re all wet. But it could be one big wee every three hours, or one small wee every half hour. No idea.

And it doesn’t really matter does it? The important thing is the overall daily urine OP (which you can get by weighing the wet nappies) not the individual wee frequencies (which will just be down to bladder capacity).

We used cloth from birth and just noted that there were lots of wet and dirty ones, not the actual output.

They wee all the time. If it goes in, it has to go out. Unless there are questions over their health, the nappy will be wet.

If you’re using all the same type of nappy you can weigh just one and then weigh any wet ones. Would only be necessary if there were concerns though.