The Cloth Mama Spotlight: Issue #11

A Monthly Newsletter Celebrating All Cloth Diapering Mamas in Singapore

July 2022

Meet The Mama

Su-E is no stranger in the cloth community, having previously been a moderator of the CDSG Facebook group. She compiled the detergent index, which is a great tool for anyone who needs to troubleshoot their wash routine and detergent amounts.

She is also extremely passionate about sustainability and environmental issues. In fact, as a full-time working mother, she manages a venture building team for a venture capital firm and works with entrepreneurs to build businesses that address climate change. She says, “I’ve become extremely concerned with climate change especially after becoming a parent. Even my career is in that now. Cloth diapering was one area in which it seemed we could significantly reduce our household waste so we really wanted to make that happen.”

She continued, “We bought our first set of cloth diapers from Moo Moo Kow in one of the baby fairs. I wish I’d done my research on CDSG before jumping into it though!”

Married to an American, the 33-year-old cloth mama has 3 girls. Sophie and Sierra are twins at 3.5 years old and Suki is 1.5 years old. Besides English, Su-E can also converse in Mandarin and German, the latter a third language option she picked up while at university in the United Kingdom.

So how are the girls like?

She said, “Sophie is intense, and she loves books, which is great since i named her after a particularly meaningful book for me — Sophie’s world. Sierra is our joker, she tells pretty amazing jokes. Her earliest joke was in response to “Hey girls are you ready to meet meimei?” “I wanna EAT MEIMEI NOM NOM NOM”. Suki is by far our bossiest, she knows exactly what she wants and she will make sure you know as well.”

As a frequent flyer for work as a management consultant previously, Su-E has developed a highly organised system around air travel. She explained, “In 2016, I spent 200 nights in a hotel room. My record was 40 minutes from passing through the airplane door and stepping through my front door. I lived about 20–25 mins away from the airport. I once also woke up an hour ten mins before a 7 am flight and I did not miss it.”

Su-E met her husband, Cody, at Maxwell hawker centre. He was at the dinner with some common acquaintances and he chose to sit next to her. She recalled fondly, “He was mostly drunk and argumentative so apparently love is blind.”

The Cloth Diapering Journey

Su-E started the twins with cloth diapers when they were 6 weeks old in 2019. For the youngest, Suki was in cloth diapers the moment she returned home from the hospital. The older girls are day-trained and in cloth for naps and nights only. The youngest is in full-time in cloth except in childcare. The family even use cloth while travelling, but this is because they mainly do long trips and rent holiday homes. If in hotels, they would switch to disposables for a couple of days.

The family is very supportive of cloth diapering. Besides Su-E, her husband and her mother are very used to cloth diaper changes. How did she manage to get the caregivers onboard? She shared her little secret, “I think there’s probably no better way than just doing it and showing them that its easy and good for their butts. Also having your diaper change station set up for cloth — like hide your disposables or just make it really inconvenient to get to.”

Of course, there are times when her husband questions the environmental aspect of cloth diapering.

She recounted a funny anecdote, “On the first day we used cloth diapers, one of the babies had a huge blowout in a diaper, and I think it took me like five minutes to properly spray it off. My husband was like “No, come on, how can this be more sustainable, we’d be using so much water, and water is very precious in Singapore, you know”. I stared at him and asked him if he seriously thought we’d use more water than is used in manufacturing a disposable.”

This goes to show how much she cares for the environment and in doing her part in contributing towards sustainable practices.

Challenges of Cloth Diapering

Su-E’s challenges are rather different. When she first started newborn cloth diapers, she was a little apprehensive. There were only a few cloth diapers and she found it hard to bulk up the machine. She laughed, “We quickly developed a system and the upside of having twins is it’s really easy to bulk a main wash and i’d say its been pretty smooth sailing since.” The second challenge is finally finding a night system- Twinkie Tush Hard Face Wind Pro (TT WP HF) at a time when it was hard to get one. She remarked, “It was at a time when it was impossible to buy TT WP so it was super stressful trying to get enough for a rotation of two kids. How the market has changed since!!”

However, she was not very successful in convincing the childcare provider in using cloth diapers. Suki is only in cloth for the last change before heading home.

Favourite Diaper Systems & Brands

Everyone prefers fitted but Su-E is fine with fitteds and All-in-Ones (AIOs). She adores Smartbottoms because they produce amazing products and has a great community. She’s a huge fan of their clothing. She also likes Twinkie Tush mainly because of the superior quality of Hard Face Wind Pro. Lilly n Frank is also a great brand because the exceptional quality and workmanship.

Currently, she owns an amazing stash of 120 cloth diapers. She confesses, “When it was three full time in diapers it was easily more than 150, but I’ve been destashing slowly since the older girls have successfully potty-trained.”

Advice to Newbies

To Su-E, the most commonly asked questions are about fit and wash routines. She advises, “When in doubt, wash on warm! On fit and sizing, really depends on system but if you’re in doubt, post a picture on CDSG for a fit check.”

Su-E thinks that most people hesitate on starting because they tend to overthink. She shares her personal experience, “We never did night diapering till the twins were about 15 months or so? I have no idea why it took so long, night diapering has been super straightforward, just some slight tweaks we had to do. Otherwise we’ve been night diapering for more than 2 years now, and that’s more than $1,000 in night diapers saved. So just do it! Love that Nappy Nook exists for you to try out systems too!”

To get husbands onboard, her tip is to make it “AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE” for them.

She laughs, “Based on my understanding of male psychology, they will choose the least effort route.” She recommends to set up a simple diaper station. She continued, “Use an easily accessible trolley, put cloth wipes in an open box so you don’t have to dig around for it, and dry pail right next to the change pad. If you need their help with laundry, make sure the instructions are short and clear.” The idea is to have as few variations or exceptions as possible for all caregivers to minimize confusion, including the helpers.

She also encourages mummies to switch to mama pads, “Just take the leap! They’re not just fun, but so much more comfy. No more plastic pads sticking to your skin.”

Su-E hopes to see more support for adoption of cloth, for example, subsidies for cloth diapers, or rules for childcare to accept cloth. She would love more discussion on how bad disposables can be for the environment, as well as on babies’ skin. She said, “We’ve never used nappy cream even for our eczema baby…. until she went to infant care and had to be in disposables.”