Flats are easy, fast drying cloth nappies. In a fast paced world where instant gratification is priority, the look of a square that needs to be folded and put on, is often misjudged. True satisfaction comes from creating something with your hands and then wrapping your little human in it. There is that sense of pride that bursts from your heart after each folded nappy is fastened. You look down at this little baby all wrapped up. It never gets old.
Flats are wonderful for many reasons. For me the best part is the ability to tweak the flat to make it fit baby at almost every point of their growth. There are not many things you get a lot of use out of with growing children. They grow very fast and many things feel like they fit for such a short period of time- except the flat! When shopping for the newborn phase you have two options to consider- small or medium flats, or a combo of both- I always suggest this if baby is going to be around 3/3.5kg. Having a mix gives baby a set of mediums to grow into. Mediums can fit up ten months. So how can we make a small or medium or large flat fit a smaller baby?
Hack 2
As babies grow they get taller. Flats start to feel too short in the front. Small flats at 5kg. Mediums at 9/10kg. Large at 20kg. The Origami hack extends the length to accommodate for the taller body. Flats can really be stretched doing this. Especially the large size!! You can get a large flat to fit at 25kg if you really want it to. You can increase the length by simply creating a gap between the two seams when you start the origami fold. The further apart the gap is, the longer the flat will be. Watch our video.
Hack 3
When you watch our origami fold video, you will see how this pinch is created before bringing the flap up over baby.It is this pinch that creates the neat, narrow part that is needed to get a good fit between the legs. Watch here.
Hack 4
The Snappi can sometimes take a little getting used to. The success of it really is determined by how far it is being pulled across. There is common tendency to not pull it enough. It requires tension in order to work. You also need to be placing the Snappi down on the wing of the flat that has been tucked under the other flap first. And this is determined by if you are left or right handed. Watch our trouble shooting video that shows you what we mean here.
Hack 4
The vest extendor
With washing comes this - rolling edges. So given the flat is a single piece of fabric, this is something we need to cope with (my OCD sometimes gets the better of me but... some things we just have to accept). The solution is as follows: when flats are dry, fold them in four and shake them out a good few times. This works really well. Another option is to iron (but who has time to iron right???). Ironing not only unrolls the edges but also leaves flats feeling very soft because heat softens the fibres. The more you use your flats the less it will bother you.
I cannot urge you enough to add flats to your stash.They are really such fun nappies. I used flats through two boys, 90% of the time, day and night. They double as a changing mat, burp cloth, window shield, towel, cloth wipe... the list goes on and on. The satisfaction and enjoyment derived from the folding and wrapping for me, created such fond memories of my cloth days. I loved it all and feel proud I never contributed to our ongoing issue of landfill and waste. I never bought a single thing nappy wise for my second baby. He used all baby number one`s stash. Almost all of our used flats have been repurposed into house cloths and are still in use, going strong. Nothing beats cleaning up a big spill like an old cloth nappy!!
Shop our new Oatmeal Lanky flat.