New to this! Advice needed please :-)

[Hopi]

Morning all,

I am seriously considering cloth for baby no2 but I'm getting really confused by all the choices and different types of nappy out there!

My budget is quite tight, therefore I cannot really afford to make a mistake or have several trial packs etc. What I get is what we will be stuck with!!!! I also probably going to have to go down the second hand route.

We have a small stash of disposables already so baby wouldn't be in cloth until 1-2 months old. What is a good, failsafe , quick drying (we don't have a tumble drier) and preferably long lasting (as in grows a bit with the baby) nappy to use? Obviously cost and availability on the second hand market is also something that I need to factor in - am I asking too much, lol!????

Any advice appreciated as I am totally, totally new to this!

Bumping for you.

Does your local council do free trial packs? I was able to try a number of different nappies at no cost to me other than laundry, in fact they saved me money whilst I was using them as I was using fewer disposables.

I don't have a tumble dryer, and am finding that a mixture of quick and slower drying nappies work well. Fleece nappies definitely dry fastest.

No, no trial packs from our stingy council I'm afraid :-( They are useless

Terry squares might be just the thing for you, they are really versatile, you can change the fit and shape of the nappy radically just by folding it differently. Because they're flat they dry a lot more quickly than most shaped nappies.

Terries are also much cheaper than shaped nappies/pockets. The new price is almost always less than the secondhand price of any other nappy that's still in reasonable condition. They cost about £2 - £4 each (new) depending on what you go for, there are usually savings to be made on multipacks too.

Motherease wraps are fantastic and very popular so I'm sure you'll be able to pick some up secondhand no probs.

Oh, but if you do go for terries, don't by them from the highstreet. You can get much better quality for the same/less £££££ on line.

Oh, I was looking at Bamboo terries, cotton cost even less.

Bamboo is great though, it's naturally antibacterial and because it absorbs more weight for weight than cotton it's slimmer too. Although, it's also slower to dry than cotton, for the same reason.

Bumping for you...

If you're new to cloth I'd suggest Motherease Sandy's and a Motherease Airflow wrap, both in size small, can't go wrong with them so you'll not have to make any expensive mistakes etc. They adjust at tum and legs independently so will fit any shape.

Terries are great. We used them with DD1. They are cheap and dry quickly but are bulky and awkward to fold when you're changing a wriggly toddler's nappy. Which is why we moved to totsbots (shaped cotton terry nappies which you do up with velcro or a nappy nippa - need wraps for them liek you do for a terry square), which are also fab, but not one-size and take longer to dry. Now we have DD3 and DD4 in nappies we've just switched to bumgenious (pocket nappies - wrap sewn to fleece liner which you stuff in between with whatever you want - they come with microfleee boosters) and I wish we'd done it sooner! They're fab nappies - truly one-size (fitted DD4 when she was newborn and DD3 at age 2). They dry super-fast (we no longer need to use our tumble drier - just hang them on the radiators :-)). They are expensive, but not when you consider you don't need to buy wraps, or buy any more sizes afterwards.