Friday, June 29, 2007

Why white clothes for the newborn?

In India, it is customary to use white clothes under the rubber mat and to wrap, for the baby. I don't know if there is any rationale behind it. One, it appears neat and clean and second, sometimes it helped me to spot quickly if any insects had crept onto the bed like a small red ant once (yea, the pesticide treatment /turmeric didn't work much with red ants). In the first 8 weeks, you would use on an average about 30-40 clothes in a day - assuming you are not using diapers or nappy pads and only cloth nappies. It is not a good idea to place the baby directly under the rubber mat because rubber generates a lot of heat which is not good for the kid. Here are some ideas to get your white clothes ready before the baby is born:


  1. Generally in the south, old folks such as grandfather or father wear dhotis at home. If the dhotis are clean and white and not used too many times, then you can cut them into roughly 2.5*2.5 ft size pieces. The idea behind using used ones is it is soft on the baby's skin as compared to the new ones.

  2. you can buy mull or cotton cloth and get the corners stitched by a tailor. Roughly a meter of cloth would give about 4 pieces. So you do the math of how many meters you would need.

1 comments:

sri ram said...

Apart from getting an easy catch of the flies and insects on white clothes for the new born, one has to understand that,when you get the new borns clothes washed, the stains can be easily removed by using bleach and they are to ready to be used with a fresh feel. And that's just not it do remember to dip them from dettol liquid or any other antiseptic liquid available. It will not only allow in diluting the contents of bleach one more time but also keeps the nappies safe and clean from bacteria to a large extent.