Give me the strength to persevere with cloth...

[bitofadramaqueen]

Have put 5 week old DS in cloth nappies for the first time today. He screams blue murder at the first hint of wetness which means that between 8am and 3pm we've gone through about 10 nappies already. 3 of those were in the space of 45 minutes!

I've put him back in a disposable for some respite

Any words of encouragement/advice? I really want to use cloth nappies (apart from anything else there's all the money that has been spent buying them!) but today has been exhausting. We're having to cope with a phase of evening screaming at the moment, I haven't got the energy to deal with it all day too.

Have you used a fleece liner? These mean babies bum stays dry maybe this will help? I certainly wouldn't beat yourself up about it, 5 weeks is early days!

Very early days indeed.

I was adamant that i would use cloth nappies before I had my first ds.. When he arrived I found the whole baby thing so that cloth nappies were pushed to the back of my priorities...

However....After 8 weeks or so of getting into a routine of looking after ds, I thought I would give it a go.. I eased into it fairly gently, just experimenting with different nappies and folds when I was at home and then just increased the frequency of using them - I still used disposables at night for a while. Once I got into the rhythym of it all I found that cloth was no more inconvenient than disposables.

I agree about the fleece liner - it makes a big difference. Also make sure that the nappy is padded enough so that liquid can be drawn well into the nappy and not sitting too close to the surface iyswim.

Just take it at your own pace and experiment with different types, but most importantly get used to your baby

Thanks for that. I've got some fleece liners I think so will give that a try - I'd been using the flushable liners today. Will maybe put it all back a couple of weeks. I dont mind more frequent changes and the washing but dont need any additional screaming sessions at the moment!

i recommend the stay dry version of motherease. it's made a difference for us (DS is now 8 weeks and we've been in cloth for the last 2)

i recommend the stay dry version of motherease. it's made a difference for us (DS is now 8 weeks and we've been in cloth for the last 2)

My 10wo DS is the same. Heaven forbid we forget the fleece liner - he soon lets me know! He has colic too - I wish I could take my ears off atm.

The white noise of the washing machine helps calm him so in the evenings we jump in the bath and put his nappies on to wash (machine is in the bathroom) - it helps a lot (I really recommend a warm bath to stop the screaming - if your DC likes baths - it worked for all 3 of mine).

The colic stage doesn't last too long in the grand scheme of things so if you go back to disposables until he is over it you'll still be 'quids-in' in the long term.

You don't need to change nappy-type, just add the fleece liner - you can make them huge to cover their whole bottom if you like - as long as it stays inside the wrap you won't get leaks.

Thanks everyone. Am loathe to incur the expense of new nappies as already have a load so will definitely go with the fleece liner. Had a chat with DH just now and we're going to put the cloth nappies on the back burner for another couple of weeks to see if he gets over this colicky phase. It'll give me time to get some more fleece liners.

Hope your DS gets over his colic soon bigbadmousey. My DS still not loving baths unfortunately but might try the washing machine trick - I've got plenty of nappies to wash from today

Congratulations dramaqueen! Don't worry, you'll get into the flow of things with the nappies in due course. With ours we swapped from disposables around 3 months and 2 dcs and a few years later feel like have been washing nappies for most of my life! So wouldn't worry too much when baby so tiny... did find with dc2 that when tried cotton nappies when she was 2 months that we were using ones that were too small, hence the frequent changes. I just didn't realise that she already wasn't 'newborn' and was obviously doing a bigger quantity of wee than I thought!

We couldn't manage cloth with DS until he was about 8 weeks I think - everything was just overwhelming before then. It's not a decision you have to make now or forever hold your peace, so use disposables if you have to and then when your DS is less sensitive and you have more sanity, go back to cloth. I hope the fleece liners work out - paper never did any good for us either.

It might be worth trying a different brand of nappy - we started out on two-part nappies, Baby Beehinds and Bamboozles, my daughter is a heavy wetter and particularly hated Bamboozles, which were sopping wet within 30 mins - I've had to sell them all and switch to Wonderoos and Bumgenius which fit much better and are still dry after 3 hours. Annoying to switch but definitely worth it in the long run.

Thanks all. I'll leave it a bit and see how I get on with the fleece liners. It's bamboozles that I have frans so interesting to hear about your experience.