Due to Covid-19 Nappy Leaks was unable to have our usual live audience, so we have a special guest, Keryn. She is Bubblebubs' Cloth Nappy Support Specialist and comes across all sorts of questions from families starting out with cloth nappies through to those who have used it across multiple children. She calls in to join Vicki and Vashti, discussing with the ladies the top 3 questions she gets enquiries for. My 5 month old (etc) is on the secondhand snap - will these nappies continue to fit until toilet training? The nappies are leaking but only the front of the insert is just wet, help! Why is my nappy leaking out the stitching - is it faulty?

 

Transcription:  Live Oct 2020

Andrew: Welcome to Nappy Leaks with Vicki Simpson and Vashti Wadwell.

Vicki: How are you doing, Andrew? Got you.

Andrew: How are you doing, Vicki?

Vicki: I’m good, how are you?

Andrew: Excellent. Vashti, how are you?

Vashti: I am absolutely amazing today.

Andrew: Excellent, excellent.

Vashti: It’s been an awesome month.

Andrew: Are you better than last month?

Vashti: I am much better than last month.

Andrew: Hi Keren, how are you?

Keren: I’m well thank you, how are you?

Andrew: Good. So Keren’s here to ask the tough questions of the girls, because we can’t have live audiences, because you know, even though we’re in Queensland, we wouldn’t have a problem…

Vashti: People decided to lie.

Andrew: That’s right. So Keren is an employee. She works for Bubblebubs. Do you like working for Bubblebubs, Keren?

Keren: I love it.

Andrew: Is it a good job? What’s your boss like?

Keren: It is, it’s a really great job. Sorry?

Andrew: What’s your boss like?

Keren: Um…

Vicki: The one that you report to?

Vashti: The one who pays your wages.

Vicki: Oh he does too.

Andrew: Is it tough, having too bosses?

Keren: Uh…

Andrew: Or is it just you listen to one and don’t listen to the other?

Keren: I just choose which one I go to.

Vicki: I like it. See, running a business is like running an adult day care centre. I swear to God, it really is, it really is.

Andrew: So Keren, as our cloth nappy specialist, what are the top three questions you’ve been asked this week?

Keren: This one is actually very, very common, and I had one of these last night. My five month old, or in case of last night, it was a one year old. For a five month old, it was on the second last snap, particularly this is around Candies and does nappy for other nappies as well…

Vicki: Basically side snappers.

Keren: Yeah, the side snapping nappies. Will these nappies continue to fit until toilet training? And the one I had last night was that their child was 13, this will suit more front snapping nappies as well, their one year old was 13 kilos and…

Andrew: You’re getting a lot of people saying my kid is on the second snap, are these really going to fit until toilet training, when they’re only one year old, is that what you’re saying?

Vicki: Yeah, how do they last.

Keren: Or sometimes with the weight as well, the weight throws people. So just before a child starts moving around, they get quite heavy and then they trim down. How do they fit? How is it possible that this nappy can fit all the way to toilet training?

Vicki: Babies change shape and size, and as soon as they move, you don’t see very many, as an example, 18 month old babies with those super chubby thighs that you see on four month babies. You know those ones that you just want to, you just want to eat them up because their thighs are so big.

Vashti: Dimples on their thighs.

Vicki: Yeah, exactly, exactly. The nappy fitting on their legs is going to be similar to that 18 month old. Once, what happens is once you tend to go out to the snaps, out to the second, you rarely get to the last snap. You have to have a really big chunker to get to the last snap. You get to the second snap and you’ll stay there, or go back to the third snap, through until toilet training. I think that’s fairly common that most babies seem to just sit, because of the way their body changes.

Andrew: So when babies can get exercise, they trim down a little bit. Who would have thought?

Vashti: Definitely.

Vicki: Because kids don’t walk, they run. They literally get up and run.

Vashti: They’re on the go non-stop.

Andrew: Yeah, they don’t walk anywhere.

Vashti: So to put it in perspective, Kylan hit eight kilos at four months. He was a Buddha baby. He was so round and roly poly. By 20 months, he was only eleven and a half kilos. So he put on over four kilos in the first four months, and then in the next sixteen months, he only put on three and a half kilos. So as they start moving…

Vicki: And considering a lot of that would have been bone and…

Vashti: Height.

Vicki: Yeah, and height and organs and all of that sort of stuff.

Vashti: So you’ll find that they hit that point where they really walk off.

Keren: It’s really hard to imagine when you’ve got a little roly baby that’s ten kilos that they’re going to trim down. It’s hard to imagine.

Andrew: It’s hard to imagine this thing is going to be running around, running into walls very, very soon.

Vicki: And everybody says it. Everybody says no, they’ll trim down, they’ll trim down, and still you look at this kid and go oh, I don’t know, I think I’m going to be the exception.

Keren: That actually breaks my heart a little bit when I get these questions, because I know what baby is in front of them. I know they’ve got this gorgeous little roly poly baby. Make the most of those rolls, they are just going to melt away within the next couple of months.

Vicki: I have mine still. Mine haven’t. I’ve still got my Covid kilos.

Andrew: You don’t run around enough.

Vicki: I probably drink too much.

Andrew: What’s your second question, Keren?

Keren: The nappies are leaking, but only out the front and the insert is only just wet. Help me!

Andrew: Do they always end with help?

Keren: Yes, they do. That’s why they…

Vashti: That’s why they’re talking to the cloth nappy support specialist.

Andrew: I know, you think a question mark at the end would do it. Do you get many help, help, help?

Keren: Oh yeah.

Andrew: So you gauge how important it is?

Keren: It’s, a new mum it’s a stressful time. You’ve invested a lot of money into cloth nappies, and if you’re getting something that you think, well it isn’t working and you’re getting leaks, you’ve got a lot riding on it. You want to do the best for your baby. You want your baby to be in an ecofriendly option, and you’ve put a lot of time into researching, and when it’s not working, it’s really frustrating.

Vashti: It’s also the extra washing that you’ve got to do. If your nappies are leaking, you’re washing bedding and clothing and pram seats and car seats…

Andrew: And your husband’s clothes.

Vashti: Well, it might not be a husband. It might be the husband is doing the washing, or it might be a same sex couple and stuff like that.

Andrew: Yeah, it was very generic. There’s another PC friendly…

Keren: You have to really approach them with compassion, because the people that are reaching out are basically at their last straw. They don’t know what to do, they need help.

Andrew: Especially too, some people get a lot of pressure from their friends, you’re using what?

Vashti: Told you cloth nappies wouldn’t work. Told you…

Andrew: Told you cloth nappies leak, even though they leak less than disposables leak.

Keren: But things happen and it’s usually just a very easy thing to change, like this question here, and you’ll be the next cloth nappy support specialist.

Andrew: So girls, what’s your answer. The nappies are leaking only from the front, and the insert is just wet.

Vashti: So could be a number of things, but the most…

Andrew: Oh wait, I wasn’t finished. Help.

Vashti: So could be a number. Most likely scenario there is that your baby is flooding, and that can happen at a number of times over your nappying journey. As your baby goes through growth spurts and developmental stages, they will start holding on for periods and then letting go in a flood. Sometimes that means that the absorbency doesn’t have enough time to soak up all that liquid before it starts looking for an escape route. So if it’s hitting, if you have a stay dry layer against bubby’s skin, sometimes that can be a little bit slower to absorb, and the moisture will hit that and roll off the sides. If you don’t have that absorbency up nice and snug against the skin. It could also be that they are wetting so quickly that they’re just, they’re soaking that section and it doesn’t have enough time to get down to the back section of the absorbency. Popping in a little booster in that wet zone, once again microfibre is really good for quick absorption. So having a little fleece covered microfibre booster up there gives you that quick absorption that then allows that moisture to soak into the more natural fibres before it starts being, the nappy starts being full. Another issue could be your outers, or your PUL or TPU shells, and covers. It could have some breaks in them. If they are older, second hand or hand me downs or anything like that. Sometimes the PUL does degrade, so having a look at the inside of your nappy cover to see whether or not there is any breaks in that laminate will let you know whether or not you need to look at upgrading that. That’s not always possible to tell on some of your covers. Sometimes your covers have a suede cloth lining or a sandwich PUL where you can’t actually see the laminate. Sometimes then you can almost feel that the laminate has deteriorated, and that can give you an indication on whether or not you need to replace those covers. They’re probably the two most common things is the flooding, and your covers just need to be upgraded, because they’re a bit old.

Andrew: Cool. Alrighty, what’s your next question, Keren?

Keren: More leaks.

Andrew: Leaky questions.

Keren: Leaky week.

Andrew: Does it say help at the end?

Keren: What’s that, sorry?

Andrew: Does it have help at the end?

Keren: No.

Andrew: OK.

Keren: It might have, I don’t know. Why is my nappy leaking out the stitching? Is it faulty?

Vicki: Did we cover that earlier in this podcast, or a different…

Andrew: No.

Vashti: I think that’s been in another podcast.

Keren: It has been in another one, but we were talking about poo, and sometimes it does happen with wee as well.

Vicki: Generally it will be flooding, and also making sure that the insert, if I use a Candy as an example, because it’s just easier. So you pull the trifold up and you make sure that it is really firm against their genitals. And that way, when they do wee, it’s going to push into the trifold. Whereas if you’ve got a little bit of a gap there, it gives it the opportunity to roll off the edge onto the side of the nappy and it’s going to look for the fastest way out, which as the shell has no absorbency in it, it will be the stitch marks…

Keren: Or through the elastic.

Vicki: Through the elastics. Yeah.

Keren: And sometimes I think those sort of leaks can be hard to trace where they’re coming from, particularly if you’ve got a minkie shell, the dampness can walk across the outside of the shell. Or some brands, I’m not too sure there’s many anymore, Vashti might know, have cotton outers. And just it looks like the actual PUL or whatever the laminate is, has got a break in it. But it’s really just coming out through the sides and moving its way through the nappy.

Vicki: I don’t think there’s much, using a natural fibre on the outside of a nappy is never a good idea, because you will get compression leaks and all sorts of things.

Keren: I have seen a couple recently, they’re overseas work at home mums that use a jersey fabric I think, a cotton jersey fabric on the outside. But unless you’ve…

Vicki: You can find some old Bubblebubs ones too. I’ve done it before.

Keren: What’s that, sorry? You’ve done it… unless you’ve got an impeccable fit, it’s hard not to get leaks. I’ve tried that.

Vicki: Definitely trial and error. I do have some old ones, but yes, they did leak.

Andrew: Beautiful. Thanks, Keren.

Keren: My pleasure, thank you.

Andrew: Thanks, Vashti.

Vashti: Thanks, Andrew.

Andrew: I saw you leaning into the mic, you were ready to talk, weren’t you? Thanks, Vicki.

Vicki: Thanks, Andrew.

Andrew: Vicki is always ready to talk. Thanks everybody, bye.