Prewashing new nappies? And a few other questions...

[charchargabor]

This may seem like a really stupid question, but please indulge me! I know you have to prewash new cloth nappies 2-3 times before use, but my stupid question is do you have to dry them in between each wash or just wash them 3 times then dry?

Also, I am making my own booster/fleece liner combo. I though I would do two layers of terry with a layer of fleece on top and overlock the edges. Do you think that will be an ok booster? Will I need to use boosters all the time? DD is 12 months. TIA!

no need to dry them

the thing you describe is a liner and sounds fine - a booster wouldn't need the fleece top

dd is 11m and I only use a booster at night but by God she needs it.

Thanks MrsBadger. So should I overlock a few pieces of terry and use them at night to boost and just try using a fleece liner in the day?

what nappies have you bought? I have bimbles / bumbles which are fleece-lined so never bother with a liner and tbh I just use an old flannel in the pocket for emergency boosting

They're prefolds. I wanted shaped nappies but they were just completely out of my budget. Haven't actually arrived yet as I only ordered them the day before yesterday.

We used a prefold as a booster over night with shaped, so you might get away with 2 prefolds at night with no booster. You will want fleece (or other) liner day and night though...

Thanks mistlethrush! I've read loads on the internet over the last few months but they never seem to answer my random questions! Will have to wait til they get here and experiment a bit I think!

OK - basics - liners good for keeping bottom a bit dryer, and catching things that you really don't want in your washing machine . We ended up with paper ones - normally we rewashed these at least once unless soiled, so not really that bad for environment!

Prefolds great - we used them alot, and often only used shaped nappies when we were going out etc for a little bit more security (ie, even if the worst happened, rarely needed complete change of clothes if in shaped nappy). If we hadn't used shaped nappies for nursery I think we'd probably have got away with only having about four or 5.

Nighttime nappies can be bulked up - they don't actually need to walk although you might have to buy the size larger sleepsuit.

Vests and sleepsuits with poppers good for stopping nappy coming off or any access to it. You might need size larger to cope with extra length, although you can get vest extenders.

Get a 'washable nappy bag' for dirty nappies that you can just chuck in the wash with nappies.

Plain terry squares good for extra padding - can shape to whatever suits best...

(We loved Nature Babies Wraps - went over shaped and prefolds really well)

Good luck

Thanks a lot mistlethrush, that was really helpful! I was worried I'd made the wrong choice, because my dad paid for them as a present. I've already bought the size larger in vests. Unfortunately dd won't sleep in sleepsuits for some bizarre reason, but I'm sure we'll be able to work round that! Thanks again, hopefully they'll be here soon so I can check them out!