The Cloth Mama Spotlight: Issue #9

A Monthly Newsletter Celebrating All Cloth Diapering Mamas in Singapore

May 2022

Meet The Mama

Originally from the United Kingdom, Michelle Balakrishnan, 32, has been working here in Singapore as a doctor in Gastroenterology since 2017. She currently works at the National University of Hospital (NUH).

Why Gastroenterology? She says, “I enjoy the subject matter for one, but I especially enjoy the impact that making people’s symptoms improve can have on their mental health and well-being. It’s surprising how many people suffer from gut health.”

Michelle and her husband, Biren, met in university. They have known each other for 15 years and would be celebrating their 8th year wedding anniversary this year! Today, they are proud parents of 2 boys, Aadhi, 3.5 years old and Ara, 22 months old.

Michelle also reveals that she is a classically trained Bharathanatyam dancer and an avid baker, particularly fond of creating birthday cakes for her boys.

Talking about her children, Michelle shares that the elder boy, Aadhi, loves singing and dancing to his favourite sound tracks such as, “I just can’t wait to be king” (from Lion King), “Sparkle” (Japanese song from the movie Your name), anything Justin Bieber, Fall Out Boy. He also has the best laugh as he laughs with his whole heart and soul.

As for Ara, he is an incredibly bright, strong and independent toddler. Michelle smiles, “He knows exactly what he wants and will make sure you know it too. He is constantly bouncing off the walls and nothing can tire this boy out.” Like his brother, he also loves music and will dance anywhere as long as he hears his favourite songs such as “Down by the Bay” and “I like to move to move it”.

The Cloth Diapering Journey

Michelle started cloth diapering part-time for her first boy, Aadhi, when he was just 2 weeks’ old. In the beginning, it was just a couple of cloth diapers during the day before she transitioned to full-day cloth when Aadhi reached 1 month. She only summoned up the courage to do night diapering when he was 7 months’ old. As Michelle gained more confidence in cloth diapering, she ventured into full-time cloth diapering if Ara when he was just 3 or 4 days’ old, right after they have depleted the last of the disposables that the hospital provided.

In fact, it was Michelle’s husband who first brought up cloth diapering to her. His mother used the traditional flats for him when he was young and suggested that it could be something they could consider. She laughs, “He had no idea what rabbit hole I was about to fall into! As for the person who introduced the concept of modern cloth diapers, it was my friend, Hsin. I was new to Singapore and had met Hsin through my church group and she was a great help in advising me on how easy it was and introduced me to the cloth diapering CDSG Facebook group.”

She says, “It’s been 3.5 years of cloth diapering my 2 boys and I am so pleased that I chose these over disposables as my mainstay of diapers.”

Family support towards her decision to adopt cloth has been really positive so far. Michelle feels lucky in this aspect, “All the comments I’ve received from my mother-in-law and my mother have been how great it is that I’m choosing a more natural option for my children. They are more surprised at how far we’ve come in terms of modern cloth diapers as compared to flats.”

Challenges of Cloth Diapering

Thinking back at her journey, Michelle confessed she struggled a little in the beginning because she was a complete “noob”. She says, “The CDSG FB group has evolved so much over the years and provided so many guides recently that I really wish these were around when I first started!”

On Michelle’s list, wash routine and dirty diaper storage are her top concerns. She shares, “I had so many trial and errors in the beginning when it came to wash routines and best ways to store the dirty nappies. With some support from all the amazing mums in the Facebook group, I figured it out but it took a while!”

Night diapering is the next challenge to tackle. Michelle was initially hesitant as her baby’s thighs get chunkier (which means fit may be a problem) and his pee output increases. The same nappies cannot be used for the entire cloth journey due to changing demands in terms of absorbency and sizing. She elaborates, “My older boy was a super chunky baby and so most of the nappies I own are better suited for a chunky thighed baby. So when number 2 came along and had a completely different body shape, I found myself having to change snap settings and fold over inserts to accommodate the smaller rise, something I was not expecting to do!”

Using Cloth in Childcare

It wasn’t easy for the childcare to adopt cloth diapers for the children. However, Michelle managed to convince the school to give it a go since this was an environmental concern for her.

The school initially hesitated citing hygiene reasons as they were not comfortable dealing with poo. After the trial period, the school gave feedback about the smell. Michelle quickly suggested using double-PUL wet bags to contain the smell but the school continued to push back, saying that the smell would permeate the classroom if more than 2 cloth diapers were used.

In the end, both sides came to a concensus on using both cloth diapers and disposables. This means that Ara would go to school in cloth diaper, then subsequent changes would be in disposables before the last change which would be back in cloth before heading home. Upon reflection, Michelle says, “At the end of the day, I don’t want to make the lives of teachers any more difficult, and any disposable saved is great. I’ve managed to cut down the usage of 4 disposables down to 2. So I’m not complaining too much!”

Favourite Diaper Systems & Brands

Michelle prefers pockets and her preferred brands are different for each baby. For chunky babies, she likes Mama Koalas, Thirsties and Blueberries.

“Mama Koala’s fit is great for larger thighs. There are so many designs to choose from and the price is so affordable. However, over the years. I’ve replaced all the microfibre inserts with Geffen Baby Super Absorber Plus.”

“For Thirsties, I like its double gussets and that they are so gentle on chunky thighs which means no elastic marks unlike some of the other brands.”

“Blueberries is one of the best out there! They are versatile and could fit both small and big babies. Besides having a very soft and comfortable lining, they have such cute designs that I love to get matching One-size with Newborn so that both my boys can have matching bums. For smaller babies, my younger one was still wearing his newborn AIOs well until he turned 6–7 months old. In fact, Blueberry is my boys’ favourite! They often reach for these first when I give them the chance to choose which nappy to wear!

As for smaller babies, she recommends Charlie Banana. She explains, “These are great if you have a lean baby. There is something unique about the rise settings which is a bra-strap like adjustment. This is both a good and a bad thing. I found it very finicky and difficult to adjust at times, but once it was on the right setting, it gave a much better fit than when dealing with snap-down rise settings. I was fine to handle it because it’s not often that you have to adjust.”

Michelle also likes Alva cloth diapers for its affordability and quality. She shares, “The elastics are amazing. I have my entire stash for about 3.5 years now. These were amongst the first in my stash. Over the years, Alva’s elastics have held up more than those of my “expensive” nappies which have loosened. They genuinely look as if they were almost brand new despite being some of the most frequently used nappies in my entire stash.”

She currently has more than 40 day diapers which consist of pockets, AIOs and more than 15 night nappies which is a combination of AI2s, fitteds/covers and pockets).

Advice to Newbies

Michelle thinks that most mummy friends are concerned with the extra work of cloth diapering. Being a mother is already so hectic, so why bother with the extra laundry. It doesn’t help that most of them have the impression that cloth diapers leak quickly and believe that disposables last longer. In addition, it can be a hassle to bring out cloth diapers when it’s just much more convenient to just throw out a soiled disposable when you are on the move!

For mummies struggling with the above concerns, Michelle advises that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. In fact, she doesn’t think all these are “extra work” since she has adopted cloth quite quite early on. Once it’s part of the routine, it doesn’t really seem that bad.

All one needs is to dry pail during the day and do the prewash first thing in the morning or end of the day when the baby is asleep. As for leaks, she thinks that once one is over the initial learning curve, one would be better able to figure out the best absorbency combos for yourself. As for cloth diapering outside of home, one can choose to use disposables if that suits their lifestyle better. What does she think of the cloth diapering in Singapore in the future?

She smiles, “It seems to be growing every day and I’m so happy about this. I would hope that as the cloth diapering community increases in size, slowly it will become more mainstream and more and more parents will be using cloth for their babies.”