Newbie help - redness

My LO is 2 and a half weeks old and we're getting on pretty well with his cloth nappies but I've noticed he's a little red round his waist and the top of his legs (where the nappy elastic is, basically), which worries me. He's mainly wearing OneLife/ME one size btp with an ME wrap, or BumGenius, both of which work really well apart from this. He's on the smallest settings as he's small! What am I doing wrong or is this normal? He doesn't seem sore or distressed at all. I've put a little barrier cream on him now but I've heard this can ruin cloth nappies, and I am not sure he actually needs it anyway. Any help very gratefully received!

Hi, congrats on your little one!!

My son is 9 weeks old and we get the red marks aswell, im not sure about you but with Ds becuase his waist is so scrawny and little I have to do the nappies up pretty tight and then he gets red marks, especially with the BG's which even when i do them up tight the legs still gape a little and he also gets red marks...

Yup that's exactly the same with my LO.

You might be better off with sized nappies, rather than one sized. OS are designed to fit such a wide weight range, that they're not always so good at the extremes.

It is possible that he's having a reaction to the elastic itself but from what you're saying, that doesn't sound likely.

It's not an allergy, he's just a little red. I really like the nappies and they do work well - and just now when I changed him, he was fine - so hopefully it's just a blip. I've got a couple of shaped nappies - diddy diapers and bamboozles - and I don't like them so much. Really want these to work out!

I found this happened with my wee ones when they first went into cloth as well. I also used MEOS from about 3 weeks with my DS although I bought some tiny sized nappies for my DD for when she was tiny as I found the MEOS quite bulky on a newborn. Their skin is so thin and sensitive at that age it could just be his skin getting used to having a nappy on. I often found I didn't actually need to do the nappy up as tightly as I thought I did. I always tend to check that I can still run a finger around the elastic when putting the nappy on so it's not too tight.
Hope you find a solution and can go back to enjoying your wee fluffy bum.
Cathleen xx