Hi Cricket,

The fit of the OSFA depends on your bub and the brand you choose. We have been using OSFA since Ari was 5wks old and have had no fit problems but my bubs chub up pretty quickly so we would have grown out of sized nappies way too quickly. If you are looking at sized nappies you can get the most use out of mediums 5-11kg.

Sewing your own - there are a number of ladies who sew there own and you can join a coop to get fabric like bamboo and hemp fleece (nappy body) and microfleece (stay dry liner or fabric against bubs skin) You can of course use flannellette which is available from most fabric stores but bamboo, hemp and microfibre have more absorbtion for the amount of material you need makiing them trimmer.

PUL (the waterproof outer) cuts can be bought from a couple of online stores or you can send in your own fabric to be laminated in some places or you can use fleece (needs to be a specific type) which naturally repeals water.

You can also knit the covers and lanolise them which create a waterproof barrier.

There are a couple of online stores which sell patterns to shorties and longies (knitted covers) and also for the actual nappies if you google cloth nappy patterns you should find a few.

As for how many you will need we stared off with 5 OSFA and 12 flats and every time I didn't buy a packet of disposables I used the money to get another nappy.

Generally a newborn will go through more nappies than any other age and a lot of people prefer prefolds (square with extra layers sewn together in the wet zone which you fold in three) or a trifold (fabric folded in three) /and covers for this time - prefolds/trifolds are really easy to make yourself.

After the initial pooping every change stage you use about 6-8 nappies a day and now we are down to about 4-6 a day. Depends on how often you want to wash but 12-14 MCN is a good place to start off and if you are going to buy them try a mixed pack so you can try out a few different brands before buying up lots of one type.

snaps vrs velcro - most of the commercial nappies use 'hook and loop' which is a stronger version of velcro and it does give a good fit bt bubs can also undo them and if you do get the cheaper variety it can 'wear out' and loose it's grippiness. Snaps are good and there are tricks to getting a good fit. If you are going to make your own you can purchase a snap press and snap your own nappies but they aren't cheap. My hubby isn't fond of snaps as he has big fingers/hands but he doesn't change that many nappies and mostly DD is in just a shirt and a nappy so snaps are a must for us or all our nappies would be off :-)

have fun shopping and beware MCN is very addictive :-)