Does my bum look big in this?

We're now at the end of our second week of using Mother-ease cloth nappies, and it's been a resounding success. It's bin day today, and rather than putting out a binbag chock-full of nappies from the upstairs and downstairs nappy bins, there were no more than a dozen or so disposable nappies, from overnight (J-cub is a very heavy wetter and we didn't fancy his chances in a cloth overnight) and from one day last week where he had a dodgy bum.

We've got 15 cloth nappies, which is enough to wash every 3 days (at a push) or every 2 days with time to get them dry. And with some experimentation, we've discovered that a pop-in booster (to absorb extra wetness) and a fleece liner (to wick away moisture) keeps him nice and dry for between 3 to 4 hours.

My main problem is that most of his clothes no longer fit him. At birth, J-cub weighed 8lb12oz, but he lost around 12% of his birthweight and was very slow to regain it, due to our problems with feeding. I knew I was having a big baby, so we had lots of 0-3 month sized clothes, and just a couple of Newborn sized vests. We had to quickly rectify that (everyone told me not to buy many clothes as we'd be inundated with gifts of packs of vests and the like. All of our friends evidently knew that, and elected not to inundate us, which resulted in us having NO gifts of clothes, so we had to make emergency trips to Tesco at 2am to buy Newborn sized vests, and sleepsuits, and socks when we realised that everything else was swamping him). He was in Newborn clothes for 5 weeks, and then quickly zoomed up through the sizes. At 7 months old, he was in 12-18 month clothing. Luckily, his growth has slowed since then (I say luckily, as we couldn't afford to keep going through a year's worth of clothing in 6 months), and at 13 months old he's only just growing out of the 12-18 month size.

Of course, I've been stocking up on the next size in the sales, buying bits and bobs of 18-24 month clothes here and there. But with his new, massive, cloth bum, none of that fits him. And the 2-3 size is ridiculously long in the leg.

When he went into the 12-18 month size, I managed to buy 4 pairs of cord dungarees off ebay for the bargain price of £8. 3 of the pairs are Osh Kosh B'Gosh, which I think must be cut for cloth bums as they have always been massive on his bum, and now look perfect. They are about the only thing other than jogging bottoms which still fit him, but heavy cord is not really what you're looking for in a light summer wardrobe.

I've had a look around websites like Frugi, which sell clothes cut for cloth bums, but they are well out of my price range (bearing in mind that I consider £7 Tesco trousers to be out of my price range). And I'm not really in an ebaying mood at the moment (which, trust me, is a Good Thing). My only option is to crack out the sewing machine, and make some myself. My main problem with that is that I'm much more comfortable working with heavy fabrics like cord or denim, as they seem to be more forgiving of mistakes. I've never worked with any sort of stretchy fabric, which would seem ideal for accommodating a big bum. I'm going to have to bite the bullet though, and give it a go. If only he were a girl, then he could just wear dresses and be done with it.

My lovely Mum (and Dad) came to visit earlier this week, and whilst discussing this problem, and demonstrating how nicely his Osh Kosh dungies fit him, she offered to knock up a few pairs in a lightweight summer fabric (my Mum is a genius sewer). She traced the OK's on a piece of newspaper, and cantered off home, stopping to buy some lightweight checked summer cotton at her favourite fabric store on the way. She's back in a couple of weeks time to help me knock the garden into shape, so hopefully he'll have some lovely new outfits to wear by then. In the meantime, my parents kindly went to Tesco and bought him 2 pairs of stretchy jogging bottoms so we have an alternative to making him wear his PJ's all day.

Thanks, Mum and Dad.

Yesterday was our first properly hot and sunny day. And, for the first time, I got the nappies drying on the line. It was lovely, and I felt nice and smug.