When to start using fleece/wool covers?

[~*Jodie*~]

At what age should I start using fleece/wool covers on a newborn overnight? Should I start out with them straight away or should I wait until they are sleeping through and just use PUL covers at night until then?

[Ying]

I used fleece covers pretty much from the beginning I'm not a fan of PUL covers at night as I prefer something more breathable at night when they sleep longer. I didn't use wool covers until bub was around 5-6 months when she started to wee a lot and I need something mega leaking protection.

But there shouldn't be any reasons why you can't use wool or fleece on a nb overnight. To be honest, I wouldnt bother with wool covers for the first few weeks (or even months) when they feed every 2-3 hrs and you have to change them that often anyway. See how you go, but you can always start out with whatever you like and work it out from there

[~*Jodie*~]

I was leaning more towards the fleece I think. Is the fleece softer to the touch than the wool? I was thinking about maybe useing the Stacinator Deluxe Fleece covers in NB or small. I was kind of thinking that the PUL might not be very comftable overnight if they do tend to sleep a little longer than normal.

[monkeysmum04]

Bub is feeding and changing so often that I still mainly use PUL at night or an AIO. I have a couple of fleece covers in rotation too, but I don't use them for a particular time just yet, just whenever they get to the top of the pile

x Mel

[bilbylove]

i reckon it might be personal choice.

Wool was a new concept to me, i didn't really understand how to lanolise etc (when buying for my upcoming newborn back then), so i decided to "ease" myself into MCN, and put the idea of woollies on the backburner - for later on.

i used PUL and fleece covers for the newborn stage, both worked great. Feeding and changing were two hourly, but i liked to have esp the Malden Mills fleece covers/pockets on my bub, when i thought there was a change of a longer sleep.

Fleece covers dry superfast, so that was really handy - for quick turnaround of the covers stash.

Other people use wool items (soakers, sleeping bags, longies etc) from day one and are really happy with that.

Some things to consider - how often your bub poos. THe newborn explosive runny poos - which my bub sure did have - i think that would have meant alot of handwashing for us in the nb days (had we used wool then) - as she had heaps of blowouts, we needed a new cover often. But other bubs poo less frequently, or less explosively perhaps. THe sort of thing you only really know, when bub arrives.

After a horrible c-section with complications, i was in no state to do any handwashing anyway (and no family support), so i was not well enough to even THINK about using wool MCN until my bub was four months old. We;ve used them ever since and now i love wool.

so i reckon, consider how you feel about handwashing, how important organic fibres are to your lifestyle, and there really are no rules about when to start using wool or fleece, it's up to you.

fleece is certainly easycare, but they get washed alot. wool, needs far less washing, but when you do, it's handwashing for most wool items. You only wash more often if there are blowouts.

If i had a winter newborn, i would (with what i now know) certainly be buying nb size flongies too - so easy, pants and nappy cover in one.

How the items do up is also worth thinking about. Considering how many you will do up in the middle of the night, sleep deprived, pullups are easy to do in the dark. E.g the disana woollen pullup soakers, or the dancing bears fleece pullup soakers. I found that aplix fastening ones were too noisy to achieve dream changes with, the noise would wake my bub up.

Many woollen soakers/shorites/longies do up with drawstrings - which gives you a highly adjustable fit - so no matter how tiny a waist your nb has, the drawstring means you can make it fit. Longies have no elastic around the thighs, so no elastic marks on your bub.

On the organic front, you can get woollies made from organic wool. Malden mills or polar fleece covers are a synthetic.

THose woollen sleeping bag things look great too, no worries with getting good fit around the legs with those things!

As with anything, pros and cons for anything you buy and use, but i can see good points about both wool and fleece for a newborn.

[tikki]

Definitely a personal choice

I'm planning on using wool only from birth and only use synthetics like pul when absolutely necessary. Wool from birth shouldn't be any harder to use than fleece, fleece needs washing more often than wool too

[missymoo84]

I also am going to be using mostly wool. I have a couple of pairs of longies in nb size and will get a couple of wool covers.
However I am looking into sewing some flongies for him too so might get the sewing bug and end up using those more