Our Diapering System

I know, my life is so exciting these days that I blog about cloth diapering. But really, diapering consumes so much of my life right now, and I enjoy doing it, so here's a post about our prefered diapering system.

I feel like I've become quite the cloth-diapering expert over the last year. With some trial and error, some messes and leaks, some rashes and diaper-free time, our family has come up with a diapering system that works well for us.

If you're lucky enough to have a child anything like my sweet boy, don't bother using prefolds once they become mobile. Prefolds worked great until he started crawling. Expecting an active little boy to sit still for the folding, wrapping and securing of a diaper is totally unrealistic and just asking for frustration. But if you'd like to give it a go, I have a whole supply of brand new toddler size organic prefolds anyone is welcome to.

Fitteds were the way to go for us. Our favorite and most used fitteds are these. The absorbency and fit are far better than any others I've tried. And they're really inexpensive. The only draw back with these is how rough they can be when they're wet, which causes diaper rash on Burl's skin. Hemp velour diapers are much softer against his skin, but not quite as absorbent. I've bought some from here, here, here, and some other shops on Etsy and Hyena Cart.

It only took me a year, but I finally switched over to solely using cloth wipes. And really, I'm ashamed to admit it took that long. There really is no need for disposable wipes. I've purchased most of our wipes on Etsy or here. To moisten the wipes, I use a spray bottle of diaper spray that I make, or diaper spray from California Baby. Plain water works just fine too.

I sew or knit all of his diaper covers from wool. I use recycled thrift store sweaters and my own pattern to sew pants or shorts. My favorite knitted pattern is the Picky Pants pattern from Little Turtle Knits. Using wool works well for us, as it serves two purposes; a diaper cover and an outer layer for pants.

I machine wash the diapers and wipes using Trader Joes unscented, chlorine-free powdered detergent. Now that the weather is warmer, I'm happy to be sun-drying our laundry again. I run the diapers through the dryer for a few minutes to soften them up before hanging them in the sun.

There ya have it. It's really pretty simple. I had some sceptics when I was pregnant and planning on cloth diapering, so I feel good about sticking with it. I didn't really know anyone who was cloth diapering at the time, so I learned most of this by my own research and experimentation. I highly recommend and encourage anyone else considering cloth diapering to give it a try. I think you'll be glad you did.