Real Cloth Diaper Week Day 5: Night time diapering

This post is part of the Real Diaper Week Blog Hop.

Today I'm going to give some tips on night time diapering.  This seems to cause big issues for newbies to cloth.  I feel very confident in our night solution after trying just about everything at night.

Everyone has their different answer at night.  Some really like pocket diapers for the wicking ability to help baby sleep longer by not feeling wet.  Some really like prefolds or flats day and night.  Many others seem to go the fitted and wool route.  Some others wake baby during the night to change them-but honestly I've always thought that was a bit silly because I REALLY like my sleep :).  I've tried everything at night and different things have worked for each kid.

We started cloth diapering Monkey when he was 2.5 months and I pretty much jumped right in.  He was ALWAYS a super soaker and would even soak through a disposable at night.  I started out by just using pockets with both the one size insert and a doubler.  Eventually that didn't work anymore so I started using 2 full inserts.  Eventually I tried a hemp insert with a microfiber one.  Occasionally I'd use a fitted but I didn't really like them on him all that much-honestly I don't know why!  I started using wool on him when he was about 6 months old (upcycled from old sweaters that I'd find).  I would sometimes put him in a prefold or fitted with wool over but the pattern I originally used didn't really fit over fitteds well.  When his urine issues started we switched exclusively to prefolds and wool and didn't look back.  At night I'd lay a hemp insert in his prefold before putting it on.  I eventually had to switch to toddler prefolds not really for size as much as for the extra absorbency.  I would always lay a microfleece liner on top to help wick the moisture away.  We eventually switched to Gerber style undies (thick panel in the center) with a Monkey Bunns overnight wool soaker over top and sometimes we'd even double the undies up so that he'd feel like he was in underwear but not cause a huge puddle in the bed (have I mentioned Monkey is a SUPER deep sleeper?).

Kangaroo was in mostly fitteds when we started cloth diapering him as a newborn.  I made his stash of fitteds except for the few Kissaluvs I had.  I made them to have a microfleece layer against him so they'd work as night diapers too.  I would change him every time he woke up.  I normally would put a PUL cover over top because I ran out of time before he was born to make him some overnight covers which REALLY make a big difference if you have a heavy wetter due to oversupply and overactive letdown.  When he grew out of his newborn diapers I decided to switch to fitteds at night.  We only had a few one size fitteds and a Kissaluvs 1 from when Monkey was a newborn.  We stretched the 0s as far as we possibly could.  Eventually I heard about Pooters contours.  As of writing this they are out of stock again but they are well worth the wait especially for the price!  They are only 2 layers of fabric so you will want to add something else inside (a flat, a hemp insert, a hemp preflat, whatever floats your boat) and may want to lay a microfleece liner over top.  They are SO soft though and very easy to Snappi, pin, or Boigo. I also was a tester for Fancy Cloth Baby (awesome WAHM!) and her one size fitted diapers.  I did a trade with her a couple months ago to get another one size fitted I love them so much!  When Kangaroo was a few months old he started to fit in the medium wool covers I made for Monkey so we started to use those while I started making a couple overnights.  Now he has several he can wear overnight now that he's in a size Large (I made him 3 upcycled for overnight, bought a Baby Beehinds used, and made him a linen stitch soaker and an overnight one-all are AWESOME for night, nap, and under jeans in a carseat).  We do wool day and night most of the time now.

Some tips for Night-time diapering

• Whatever you use during the day you will need more absorbency at night.  You'll want to add an extra insert regardless of what you try.  If you do prefolds or flats consider trying hemp instead or a hemp insert on top of or try laying a flat inside of the prefold or flat.
• Don't be afraid to try wool!  Night wool is fairly inexpensive-especially for only a few covers.  It's really easy to wash-it pretty much involves soaking it for a bit and gently wringing out and laying out to dry.  You could even try wool over a pocket diaper if you want to be super sure it won't leak.
• Night diapers are usually bulky.  It is what it is.  To get the best absorbency you're likely going to end up bulky.  I've found using stretchy PJs or going up a size in some footie PJs is best.  OR you could always just get a couple pairs of wool longies and pair with a t-shirt at night.  One other option is a wool sleep sack or wool gown (Monkey Bunns offers wool night gowns for babies with a bottom that closes).
• Every baby is different and every phase is different.  What works now might not work later or what doesn't work now doesn't mean it won't work later.
• Consider adding a microfleece or suedecloth liner to the diaper.  These can be really easy to make at home if you don't want to buy any.  You can even cut up a thin dollar store fleece blanket to make rectangular liners.  When your baby feels dry it helps them sleep longer.  Not all babies have issues with this though-it totally depends on your baby.  I have noticed that poop is easier to remove on these types of liners though so that's a plus.
• You don't HAVE to wake your baby up to change them.  Experiment with different options.  It is a good idea if baby is already awake to change them so always plan on 1-2 spares if you don't want to use disposables.  When you have a sick baby you aren't going to want to run to the store at 2 AM to hurry and get another diaper they can wear at night and you probably won't want to start a load of laundry either.
• You may want to be sure to have an extra couple for naps too.  Night diapers work very well during nap time if your little one takes a regular nap.

Sweet dreams little one!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a custom Monkey Bunns wool soaker!

*The Amazon links link through my referral program.  I receive a small portion of the sales.  The money helps us to buy homeschooling books for Monkey and Kangaroo.  Thanks in advance for your support!  I will also note that I am the owner of Monkey Bunns so I do talk about my products sometimes.  I also talk about other products I like because in developing my product I have tried many other things too.*

Day 4 Real Diaper Week-Health Benefits for REAL babies

This post is part of the Real Diaper Week Blog Hop.

I've mentioned before that Monkey has a weird medical condition that his urine literally burns his skin.  Well that's not the only issue he's had when it comes to diapering.  As a newborn disposable diapers and wipes hurt his bum.  He eventually developed an allergy to disposables.  Kangaroo was allergic to all baby wipes from birth-the plan was to get through meconium in disposables.  Fortunately he got through meconium quick and we were able to use cloth intermittently until the disposables were gone from the hospital (using cloth wipes all the time).

Back to Monkey-I noticed by the time he was a year he was totally sensitive and allergic to disposables-whenever he wore one he'd get big bumps all over his bum.  By the time he was about 15 months he developed his weird medical condition.  I knew all along it was something in his urine (my husband who is a chemist agreed and knew when he smelled his urine something was up).  The ER doctor (had to take him to get his bladder emptied with a catheter) said he just had yeast and a staph infection.  3 different doctors at the Pediatrician's office recommended various elimination diets and to see an allergist.  They also recommended switching to disposables because "cloth holds urine next to their skin" though one said that disposables do too and recommended just keeping with potty training.  The allergist was boggled by the condition.  Eventually he ended up going to a urologist because (TMI ALERT!) he would scab over and couldn't urinate.  Right before we went we had to try yet another catheter-granted this time was about a year later.  The urologist gave him a steroid cream to try and take down the swelling on the outside to see if that would help.  It didn't.  Monkey ended up having a scope to see what was going on after a kidney ultrasound (THAT was fun pregnant, super sick, and trying to wrangle a not-quite-2 1/2-year-old while they did that).  He also had a meatomy (TMI again-basically they made the opening larger) and was re-circumcised because in the urologist's words the job they did when he was a newborn looked like they didn't really do anything at all and that extra skin they didn't remove was swelling up and pinching his urethra off.  This helped a lot but didn't take care of the root of the problem.  He then saw a genetic specialist and she was also stumped but said she knew it was genetic and likely his baby brother would have issues and highly recommended making sure he was circumcised and even said we should keep him in cloth because it seemed to be a lot more breathable and kept the problems down a lot more than in disposables.

So after MUCH experimentation during all of this we found that prefolds (didn't know about flats back then) and wool were our best and most breathable options when he wasn't wearing underwear.  I started making wool because of this-learned to knit even.  After trying MANY diaper rash creams and detergents (which it wasn't a detergent issue but he is allergic to many of them) we found that Northern Essence Diaper Rash Salve and Better "Butt"er cream are the very best creams plus they don't cause any cloth diaper issues (no build up on pockets, no stains).

Cloth diapers are the REAL solution to help my REAL babies when they have mega sensitivity issues.  If you have a sensitive baby I recommend trying at least a few diapers and giving them a few weeks.  The very best would be to jump in full time to give baby a break from the disposables (see my last post on how to do this on a tight budget).  I know that many families see a big difference-I know it was a huge difference with both of my boys!

***In your comments I WILL NOT accept any debate on our decision or other's decisions to circumcise.  This is NOT a post that is open to this kind of debate.  We made our decision together and for our second son it was especially based off of Monkey's issues.***


Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a custom Monkey Bunns wool soaker!

Real Diaper Week Day 3: Cloth Diapering on a Budget

This post is part of the Real Diaper Week Blog Hop.

Do you remember the Flat's Challenge?  If not I will remind you about it a little.  It was a challenge (last year) that Kim from Dirty Diaper Laundry challenged people to because of this article.  Basically families that were feeling the pinch would dump out disposable diapers or even rinse them out and reuse them over and over.  This is NOT healthy for any baby.  It's not healthy to NOT change baby's diapers and disposable diapers are meant to be thrown away.




I felt inspired so I joined.  I wanted to join to show to myself and others that it is possible to cloth diaper inexpensive and easily even if you don't have access to a washer.  As long as you have clean water and even detergent from the store in a pinch you're good to go.  Here's my first post about joining.  This is about why we cloth diaper and our newborn stash.  We still have basically the same set up but pretty much use flats and prefolds exclusively (with wool and sometimes PUL).  If you're looking for organization ideas I think you'll find that post to be very helpful.  It's very easy to keep diapering simple if you have a great way to organize them on the changing table.

This post is wonderfully written by Cotton Babies.  It links to several different ways to cloth diaper when you have nothing or very little.  Here's how I addressed the issue last year.  This is a collection of my pre-flats challenge posts.  This is from another blogger-everything she used for the challenge came from Walmart.   

Here's the nitty-gritty though.  This is a link back to the original post written last year. 

We've been in a situation in our VERY recent past (during my pregnancy with Baby K) that we wouldn't have been able to buy diapers period.  No cloth, no nothing.  We could barely buy groceries.  Ok, let's be honest-we had to have help to even buy groceries.  We made "too much" to qualify for any assistance but had too much going out in medical bills and everything else to be able to afford anything really.  I sat home other than my appointments with my midwife.  Monkey and I went to the library every so often but we couldn't go on any playdates or see other people.  It got to the point we could only drive to church and to see family once in a while.  It was rough and super embarrassing.  I cried a lot.  I didn't feel like doing much including blogging.  I still made sure Monkey was reading books often but that's about all we did!  We had already canceled everything we possibly could that we weren't under contract for (stupid satellite-we couldn't afford to break the contract though!).  Our A/C broke and we couldn't afford to have anyone look at it.  We sat here burning up in the heat and trying to save money by keeping stuff off.  It sucked.  I was SUPER grateful we used cloth diapers because Monkey needed something to keep him dry at bed and nap (he's been day trained since 18 months).  I'm not saying this to get sympathy or anything-it is what it is.  We learned a lot and I learned how to help us eat super cheap and we learned to be grateful for VERY small blessings.  I didn't think at all to wash laundry by hand though or anything like that.

The flats challenge opened up my mind to washing something by hand besides wool diaper covers or some of those things you have to hand wash.  Hubby lived in Brazil for 2 years (while serving his LDS mission) and had to wash his laundry by hand.  He was fortunate to have a clothesline-I don't have that "luxury" nor am I allowed to with my HOA.  I did find out about this: $5 indoor clothes line and we plan to make one once we move.  I do have a small drying rack but it's just enough to hang dry the kids clothes (we have a high heat only drier so I hang dry most of my clothes and the boys' clothes-I have one little shelf in my laundry room plus this drying rack and use our towel rack in our bathroom and our banisters for diapers, clothes, etc).  I also found out about this: Breathable Washer (I also learned about this but didn't think it will suit our needs of washing laundry for our whole family while hubby is in graduate school).  Learning about these from links from Dirty Diaper Laundry and other ladies doing the challenge I decided that I *CAN* do our laundry by hand if I need to.  We won't be able to afford laundry facilities and we possibly won't be able to get an apartment or rent a home with washer and drier hookups.  I wasn't even open to this a few weeks ago.  I guess I can sit here and say I'm open to doing it with the luxury of a working washer and drier but I do feel like I can do it if that's what I need to do.

I'm super grateful that Kim started this.  Yet another small blessing.  Also, we were able to get some stuff paid off and got some SUPER good news when it came to insurance so I decided with the little extra we have to help a couple other mamas out by buying their flats for the challenge.  I offered to pay the mama back that bought ours (I'm still VERY grateful for her help-I didn't think we were going to be able to do it but we got really good news and were able to pay for things that we didn't think we could!) but she said to buy them for another mom instead.  I put out the offer and had two respond fairly quickly.  I wish I could have helped a third but I can't.  I hope the two mamas I'm helping will be able to use the diapers for a long time to come.  I know we'll be able to use them on Baby K's tushie and any other babies that we will welcome while hubby is in grad school or after.

 It sucks to not have and not be able to get diapers.  It is possible to use towels and even cut and do minimal sewing to make your own diapers if you're in a pinch.  Hopefully someone has found this post informative.  It's very possible to cloth diaper when you don't have much money.  There's also cloth diapering banks that serve poor families and help them to keep babies in cloth or help them to free up money to purchase their own diapers.  Kim from Dirty Diaper Laundry did an excellent post recently on diaper banks and included info on several.  Diaperswappers is a great place to find inexpensive or sometimes even free for shipping diapers.  Many mamas would love to help a family in need too!


Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a custom Monkey Bunns wool soaker!

EDIT:

This morning the Second Flat's challenge was revealed.  While I do not plan on participating due to my baby's medical issues (my diapers didn't get clean enough) and my out of control asthma (I know there's no way I could handle the washing right now) I highly recommend participating.  Here's more info.

Real Diaper Week Day 2: Elimination Communication-ish?

This post is part of the Real Diaper Week Blog Hop.

Using cloth diapers eliminates A TON of waste that goes into the landfill.  If you also use cloth wipes you reduce your impact even more.  Another way to really reduce your impact is to do Elimination Communication-or diaper-free baby.  This CERTAINLY isn't for everyone and it isn't for us for the first little while however we introduced the potty really early to Monkey.  We followed the Diaper Free Before 3 method (see link below). 

  

This is Monkey ripping in to his first birthday cake in underwear.   He was mostly trained by his first birthday because we introduced the potty at about 10.5 months when he started following me to the bathroom.  He quickly picked it up and started holding it until the regular times I would put him on the potty.  He was mostly trained by a year and then had a little bit of a regression at 15 months when he started having his urine issues.  He was fully trained by 18 months-during the day.  He still bedwets at night sometimes but we figure that's likely genetic and he is a SUPER DEEP sleeper.

Kangaroo is a different story. 

This is his first time on the potty.  He has never actually GONE on the potty.  Ok I take that back-I caught half of a poop on the potty.  We've just been so sick all winter I haven't gone with it but probably will this summer.

What do I recommend when early potty training?

• Patience!
• Undies or nakey bum-putting kiddos in waterproof trainers doesn't help you know when they go and doesn't help them feel the trickle down their leg.  Not much different than a diaper.  If you aren't comfortable with them running around naked then a regular pair of undies or if they're a super heavy wetter the Gerber or Carter's style undies that have a thick panel in the center are great.
• STAY HOME for at least a few days.
• Watch the clock-the first day or two take them every 10-15 minutes and help them sit there for a few minutes.  If they go great.  If not say "Let me know if you need to go and I'll help you."  Remind them to say "Potty" or sign potty.

 If they don't get it at first just keep sitting them on the potty before and after meals, before and after a bath, etc.  All kids get it on their own time but I really believe in the benefits of introducing the potty early! 







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Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a custom Monkey Bunns wool soaker!