Congratulations on venturing into the lovely yet confusing world of cloth nappies!
With so many options that are now available it has became highly confusing for parents new to cloth to know where to begin or what brands to look at.
The first thing you need to look at is your lifestyle. Are you a stay at home mum? Are you heading back to work? Are your kids in daycare? All these factors can influence which style of modern cloth nappy is better for YOU. For example if you are a stay at home parent then you have more time than a parent who needs to go out to work, so this means for you any cloth nappy style will be ok.
The next thing to look at is how often do you wish to use cloth nappies. Full time during the day? Full time including nights? Part time with a back up of disposables for going out and daycare? All these factors can influence which style and how many you will need. For example if you are going to use cloth nappies full including nights and you wish to wash your nappies every 2nd/3rd day then you will need at least 28 nappies in your stash.
The next thing to consider is your budget. Cloth nappies vary in price and quality. While there are some cheap brands on the market that are relatively ok in performance and in quality. In other cheap brands the quality of the sewing and fabrics used are poor. This means a cheap $15 nappy may not tolerate a lot of washing and wear. A good quality cloth nappy will tolerate being washed weekly without the stitching coming undone, holes appearing in the fabric or the PUL de-laminating (this is the waterproof layer of nappies, if starts to perish then your nappy is no longer waterproof and will leak). A good quality cloth nappy should also be able to be used on other babies. Sometimes it is better in the long run to buy that $30-$40 nappy as opposed to the $15-$20 nappy. Most cloth nappy retailers will offer layby payment plans, making cloth nappies affordable.
One other thing you will need to look at is sized nappies (small, medium, large) or one size nappies. There are pros and cons for both types. With sized nappies you will always need to buy 3 different sizes whereas with one size nappies you only need to buy the 1 size which will fit most babies from birth to toilet training. If your budget is tight, we do recommend one size nappies.
