More Info on B.C.’s and N.P.’s!

My inspiration for the burp cloths came from my friend Naomi, who just welcomed her first child this summer. She posted on her blog about her experiments with different cloth combinations, so I got her advice on what she said worked best for her, and that was terry cloth on one side, and flannel on the other. I had the terry cloth on hand, in the way of some bargain handtowels I got at BedBathandBeyond. I washed and dried them on high to shrink them up good, then cut the edging off, and cut them in half. This created two rectangles about 10×14 in. out of each towel.
Now I just needed some flannel. I had seen some lovely quilting flannels at Joann’s on my last visit there, but decided to spare the budget and check the thrift store first. Sure enough, I found a nice, pastel-print Laura Ashley flannel sheet in good condition that would work fine. It was thick and cozy and nuetral – and just $1.00!
To construct the cloths I sewed a rectangle of flannel and a rectangle of the terry cloth right sides together, with a few inches left open on one side for turning. I clipped the corners, turned it right side out, pressed it, and then did a zig-zag tops stitch all around the edges. At Naomi’s advice, I also did a straight seam down the middle to help the cloth keep its shape through repeated washings.
We have another week or two before we find out how these work for us, but they seem real soft and ‘soakable”. 🙂 Thanks for the inspiration, Naomi! 🙂

On to the nursing pads…Before my first baby, I didn’t even know of the existence of such things, much less how essential they were! My sister-in-law, mother of 4, showed me her washable nursing pads, and I thought that sounded a lot thriftier than buying a box of the disposable ones every week, so I made my own with one of hers as a pattern. Since then I have heard that the washable cloth ones are so much better than the disposable ones, which can contribute to breast infections. I know they work for me!
Mine are made out of old cloth diapers, but I believe several layers of soft flannel would work as well. Maybe a layer of cotton batting, but that may clump after a few washings – I don’t know. This is just what has worked for me…

I cut circles out of the thicker, middle of of the diaper, using a glass for a perfect 4 1/2 in. circle.

Then I cut out circles out of some medium-weight interfacing.

I ironed a circle of interfacing to one side of each of the nursing pads.

Then I serged around the edges, letting my serger trim off about 1/4 in. all the way around, shrinking the pad down to 4 in. across – anything bigger than this, for me at least, is too big and leads to lumps. A hint for the serging – I serge with the interfacing side down, and I stroke the top layer of the cloth tight as I go, which helps the pad to turn out kind of concave, ensuring better fit and less lumps.
I made my little cloth box from a tutorial here. I originally made about 18 pads. A few unraveled after dozens of washings and had to be thrown out. I added 10 more to my collection with these, and that should mean my stash will last 4 days between washing days. 🙂 I may need more burp cloths, though! We’ll see how spitty this baby is. Jesse made a lot of laundry for us his first couple months until I cut back on drinking milk myself. Then he did much better and I didn’t have to do laundry every other day!!
Hope these hints help, if anyone has any questions, just leave a comment!
Have a nice weekend!
Trina