I stumbled across these little beauties during one of my visits to a clothy friend that I met via buying bits off her on a local eBay search. I was getting a little deflated by the idea of just using prefolds as they didn’t seem to make sense to me. Don’t get me wrong – I love prefolds now, but as someone who’d just seen disposables (apart from my old terries that my mum uses nowadays to clean around the house), I’d had no real exposure to them.
Fitted nappies are fab! They really, really are! They are lovely, squishable, fluffy nappies that fit really nicely over a little bottom! They are made of various materials, such as microfleece (dries very quickly indeed so great if you don’t have a drier), cotton or bamboo (which is incredibly absorbant, but does take much longer to dry). these nappies need a seperate wrap (see the terries post) as they’re not waterproof. Fitteds usually come in different sizes, although there are a few BTP (birth-to-potty) ones around, but to me these seem very bulky. They fasten in one of two ways. Aplix, which is a velcro fastening, or via a Nappy Nippa. these are modern versions of a nappy pin which are much safer and give a better hold!
I got a wide variety of these nappies to try out on my little cloth bum. Little Lambs littlelambs.com were my favourite as they have been, so far, bomb-proof! Whatever my little monster throws at them, they have coped amazingly well.
I found, however, that i had a super widdler – I mean, this child can outwee a nappy two seconds after you put the damn thing on! Boosters were the answer. these are great little absorbent pads that you put inside the nappies. They come in many many different absorbent fabrics and I have found bamboo and hemp to be amongst the best, although I have heard great things about a fabric called zorb.
There are many other fitted nappies that you can buy and I tried lots. Tots Bots totsbots.com do some great ones called Bamboozles and I also liked Diddy Diapers naturebabies.co.uk and Bambinex ones bambinex.com. I have joined several online cloth nappy groups and I know there are many other brands out there, such as the coveted Weenotions day and night notions, Monkeysnuggles, Goodmamas and so on – the list, quite frankly, is endless.
However, I had a problem with these fitteds. apart from the plain ones like the Little Lambs, lots of them were really pretty and cute. But the wraps were going to cover them up. I didn’t see the point of having a gorgeous nappy hidden under a wrap (ok, I know they’re going to be hidden under clothes anyway – but that’s just how my brain works!).
I use fitteds a lot – under pretty wraps or as fantastic little night nappies. The great thing about them is that you can soak the fluffy nappy bit if you need to as the wraps are separate. But, the bulk of them does mean that they make getting some clothes on over the tops of them a little on the tricky side. I carried on the search for slimmer, funky nappies!
