Absorbency Rating

[nangari]

I don't actually have a heavy wetter but thought this might be a good place for this thread.

When I first bought some microfibre terries, the first thing I did was fold them up and pour water on them to see how much they held compared to cotton terries. Now I've got some hemp and bamboo boosters that I want to do the same thing with.

In my mind, it would be really useful to have an absorbency rating on nappies and boosters eg. Rated 2 (up to 200ml), 4 (up to 400ml) and 6 (up to 600ml). Then if you add the ratings, you get your night rating 4+6 = 10 (1L) These numbers might be way off (I haven't done a full on boosted night nappy to see how much it would hold).

What do people think of this? Would it be useful in knowing whether a particular nappy is going to suit your baby or not?

Cas

[Rodent]

Yes and no The problem can be in determining how much some fabrics hold onto under compression (eg. microfibre which squeezes some of it out), and also the increasing absorbancy of hemp as it ages, the tests I've seen so far use new hemp which will be inaccurate over time.

If these issues could be worked out then yes it could be useful...

--Rodent

[Nicole_M]

Definitely useful as an average guideline for any particular nappy.

I bought my son's Toddle-ease partly based on the fact that Mother-ease advertises the average absorbancy of all of their products. (and partly because they were actually big enough for him!)

[johT]

i think ozcloth nappies has some sort of absorbency tested chart somewhere....

[Fi Kiwi]

This is going to sound totally geeky, but if I had enough hours in the day I would love to do a full one comprehensive check of all the nappy fabrics, and how their absorbancies rated. I wanted to measure all sorts of things like compression, quilted, layers, heat etc.
It was very scientific Must be the engineer coming out in me, but it would make an awesome thesis!! I would even look at the relationship between absorbancy and weave, and do some microscopic analysis.

Someone remind me my job is SAHM now

[Beanie]

Fi that would be great, even on a very small scale, any kind of scientificky study on absorbency would be helpful, from someone who actually uses MCNs and knows what they are looking for.

I have considered doing it myself too, because I find the descriptor 'lasts 2 hours' or '4 hours' or whatever completely irrelevant as so much depends on the context, time of day, your particular baby etc. A volume rating is much more meaningful.

Would like to see a link to the ozcloth one too if anyone has it?