Cloth Nappy Absorbency Tests

Never have I been more concerned about bodily I/O since a child came into my life. You need to monitor how much milk the baby is drinking, and later, how much and what solids they’re eating and when. You have to count wet nappies, and track frequency (not to mention consistency and colour) of poop. There are quite literally dozens of apps that help you do this. And when it comes to output, using cloth nappies makes you want to collect data on all sorts of details relating to this endeavour.

I’ve mentioned previously about some heavy wetting issues we’re having overnight, and while logically, baby can only put out what has gone in, it hasn’t prevented us from needing a more than acceptable number of outfit and linen changes. A PUL cover has helped reduce this somewhat, although that only solves the outfit and linen changing issue but still leaves baby unpleasantly warm and damp.

Right now, when she wakes in the night and doesn’t resettle, we feed and change her to eliminate those issues. But often her nappy is quite saturated, so we know that we need more absorbency if we want to ensure that isn’t the cause of the waking. So, how do we determine how much (more) absorbency is needed? Well, first we need to know what the capacity of the nappies and boosters are.

Sweet, glorious data.

The line items with the source of "Self" are items from our stash of nappies. All the others are data points I have collected from other sources, some for interest, and some because I have these items, but haven’t had a chance to test them myself using the CCNDU method.

CCNDU's method involves weighing the item dry, saturating the item and wringing it out by hand to a level which you feel won’t result in leakage, and weighing again. This isn’t the most accurate method of determining absorbency, but what we’re after here is relative data for comparison, not precision. Using this info, if there is a saturated nappy, I can tell the minimum amount that bub is wetting, and how much more absorbency I can add to counter it. Or whether we need to use a different nappy entirely.

Want some extra data points using other methods? Take a look at these sources:

[1] I know, right?