Breastfed baby’s nappies always leaking

[BusyLizzie21]

Hi all,

My DS is 10.5 weeks old and is exclusively breastfed. For the past week or so we’ve been having real trouble with his nappies leaking - they don’t leak wee, only poo. I’d say around 7/10 nappies end up leaking all over his clothes (and sometimes us!) and they tend to leak out of the legs although we have had them leak out of the back too.

We have tried:

• Going up a size in nappies from size 2-3. This resulted in a leak worse than most!
• Going up a size in vests - the next size up is very big and loose round the nappy which doesn’t hold things in.
• Other nappies - we’ve tried Pampers and Boots so far, Sainsbury’s are next on the list.

If anyone has any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated!

Are they otherwise well? Have you tried putting a waterproof wrap over the nappy ?

How he is fed is irrelevant. Either you haven’t found the right brand or it could be that his vest is restricting the available space. Perhaps try a bigger size nappy over the right size one and ditch the popper vests.

If you're breastfeeding and swapping boobs too often, they get a lot of foremilk, which is a bit of a laxative and gives very sloppy poos. So as he's getting bigger and taking more milk, try not to swap side too often. That was he'll get the later milk which is creamier, will fill him up and might just change the poo consistency a bit for you. Nobody told me this, and my LO was doing 10 poos a day at about 6 weeks old. The nappies were horrific!

This used to happen to my EBF baby. Her poos were just huge and very loose at that age. They were pretty much all unpreventable blow outs due to the amount 🙈 Luckily, a few months in, and my girl went through quite a long phase of only pooping once per day!

Reusable nappies (if you get the right fit) are amazing at containing mess. My first baby wasn't in them until 6 months and I always needed multiple changes of clothes for her each day. Second baby was in them from birth and I very rarely had to change her clothes for nappy leaks. It's been a while since I used them but if you are interested, go on Facebook and look for cloth nappy groups for recommendations, and see if you have a local cloth nappy library. Top tip, don't get swayed by pretty patterns, focus on fit and functionality!

Thanks everyone - some food for thought here! We will look into a nappy wrap I think as a possible next step x