VIDEO: How to Cloth Diaper

This is the real world, not Hollywood, but here goes my first video!  Here I am demonstrating how to cloth diaper using prefolds.  This is my very easy way of diapering where I only do one load of laundry per week!  Enjoy and don't forget to check out why I cloth diapered baby #3 and the details of cloth diapering the easy way with prefolds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uk975ujPXQ&feature=player_embedded

Cloth Diapers: The easy way

Baby #3 was born while I still had 3 kids aged 4 and under at home. I had to shave down daily tasks to a "survival" level yet I continued to cloth diaper my baby because I had discovered a great system. It is so easy that I had to share it with you. Here's a video of the diapers in action.

Disposable Diapers

Do you ever think about disposable diapers? They are made in a factory with a ton of chemicals and plastics then transported to your local store. What a carbon footprint! Oh wait, after they are used, they sit in a landfill for 450 years according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Yeah, yeah disposable diapers are not going to cause the human race to cease but it hardly feels like it helps our environment. I have heard arguments that cloth diapering is worse than disposable diapers because water is used to wash them.  Maybe if you wash daily but I wash weekly and there is no way that one load of wash comes anywhere near the environmental impact of making, transporting and sitting in a landfill for 450 years!

From a health point of view, disposable diapers are made of plastic and do not allow for fresh air to flow around the baby's skin which increases the chances of diaper rash. There are also all those perfumes and bleach rubbing against the baby's skin and we all know that everything on the skin is absorbed -- yuck!

Fancy Over-Designed Cloth Diapers

There are some great parents out there who have made beautiful cloth diapers that work just like a disposable diaper ("all-in-ones"). It is one piece and you put it on like a regular diaper. When it is dirty, you take the whole thing off and put it all in the diaper pail. This sounds nice, right? Well these diapers are around $20 each! A newborn goes through about 8-10 diapers a day and an older baby is at around 5 diapers a day. You would have to do laundry daily or have a huge stash of these in various sizes (although some brands have just come out with multi-size models). They are very thick so they take a long time to dry. They are usually made of fleece as the inner layer and this fabric often holds on to stink and causes you to have to do an extra "strip" washing regularly.  More work + more money + synthetic fabric against the baby = not for me.

Super Easy and Cheap Cloth Diapers

When I had a diaper service, I was introduced to the world of prefolds and I was sold. What is the easiest and cheapest way to cloth diaper?  Prefolds!  A prefold is a piece of 100% cotton fabric that has been folded to be most absorbent and is then folded again before put in a perfect fitting cover. Back in the day these diapers were pinned on babies then a horribly fitting plastic cover/bloomer was put on top. It was a horrible combination.  This is not what I am talking about.  This is how I diaper:

STEP 1: WASH COVERS
I wash covers in cold or warm water with regular laundry. This way I only need a 2 day supply (I reuse the same cover over and over until it is dirty or the end of the day). When I lived in an apartment without laundry in the building, I used to hand wash the covers. This took 1 minute in the bathroom since I would wash them while they were fresh.

STEP 2: WASH PREFOLD DIAPERS
I wash prefold diapers weekly. First they get a gentle wash rinse with no detergent, then they get a heavy cycle on hot with Rock-n-green laundry detergent. I have hard water so I use the Hard Rock variety. When they come out of the wash, I fold the prefolds into thirds (or fourths if they are huge) and put them in the top drawer of the changing table so they are ready to go.

Prefold folded in thirds

Prefold folded in forths

STEP 3: DIAPER!

Diaper changes are the same as with disposable except that I have to first put a prefold on top of a cover. When I have a sitter, I put the prefold already in the cover so it is ready to go. I reuse the same cover all day or until it is dirty. Diapers are put in a covered pail until laundry day. I use the Diaper Champ with a homemade reusable PUL liner and it blocks odor perfectly.

That was easy!  Breast-milk only bowels that occur during the first 6 months do not require any special ringing. When the bowels become solid with solid foods then the bowels must first be flushed whether you are using a disposable diaper or a cloth diaper. When using cloth I sometimes put a little piece of fleece on top of the prefold to make the bowel roll off easier into the toilet. I simply cut fleece to the size that I wanted. There is no sewing required with fleece.

You didn't miss the VIDEO of me cloth diapering did you?

Yes I am cloth diapering this baby!

My method: a prefold diaper in a cover.
image: www.omahababystore.com

The main reason why I love cloth diapering is that I love knowing that my baby's diapers are not going to sit in the landfill! The way that I wash diapers once a week is ABSOLUTELY more environmentally sound than disposable diapers. Of course it is also nice to know that my little one's skin does not have the carcinogenic bleaches and chemicals rubbing against her sensitive genitals. Both of my kids were out of daytime diapers at 18 months and I attribute this to them "feeling" wet in their cotton cloth diapers (and some reading that I had done about early potty training).

Act I: The Diaper Service

When my first baby was born in our little NYC apartment (no washer/dryer), we used a diaper service for the first 6 months. It seemed nice because we didn't have to deal with the laundry or the up front investment of diapers. The diaper service only used the prefold style of diapers pictured above. Once a week I would put a plastic bag of dirty diapers outside my apartment door and the service would replace it with a plastic bag of clean diapers. Here is what I learned from the diaper service:

• It is okay for dirty diapers to sit a week in a plastic bag (websites everywhere tell you to wash them every 2-3 days).
• The heavy duty "prefolds" that the diaper service use are easy if you pre-fold them in the shape that you need.
• The covers are very easy to hand wash (since I didn't have a washer) or throw in the cold wash weekly.
• I loved 100% cotton was against my baby's skin. Other types of modern cloth diapers (like the "all in ones" and "inserts" are synthetic fleece).
• The diaper service was using bleach and I did not want that up against my baby.
• $20 per week is way too much money to pay for diapers. This is what I was paying so I entered Act II below.

Act II: G-Diapers

Friends had told me about "G-Diapers" that appeared to be like the prefolds that the diaper service was using except that instead of having to collect and wash the prefolded fabric, you would use and flush a pad that fit in the diaper cover. I had heard from experienced moms and read about how they work best once the child starts solid foods and has solid waste so we waited until the 6 month mark. This system was ingenious for us because our building had industrial toilets that could handle the load and it made diapering really easy. It also cost half the price of the diaper service and I didn't have to remember to put diapers out on a certain day. Then we went away for 2 weeks and used disposables and got a diaper rash that just would not easily go away. I was using un-natural creams with all sorts of chemicals that I did not want to be using. I realized that the best thing for my baby would be to have that nice 100% cotton of cloth diapering against her skin so we moved on to Act III below and ditched the diaper creams.

Act III: Cloth Diapering at the Laundromat

Since I loved the 100% cotton prefolds (instead of the synthetic modern fleece diapers), I stocked up a supply of prefolds and was shocked at how inexpensive they are! I quickly learned that you MUST buy the more expensive heavy duty laundry service quality prefolds. I used basic covers like the Prowraps and Thirsties. I let my diapers build up for a week in a plastic like at the diaper service then I took them to the laundromat (in the stroller with my other laundry while baby-wearing my baby). The machines were so big and hot that I never did any special rinses. Just a hot wash with half the detergent worked perfect and I never had to strip my diapers (like I do now that I have hard water in the suburbs; and I now have to do those rinse cycles!).

Why am I Cloth Diapering with Prefolds and Covers for a 3rd Time?

I love prefold diapers and I think that they are highly underrated in the modern cloth diapering world. The modern "all in one" and "insert" diapers are made of synthetic fabrics, take a long time to air dry, are expensive (about $18 each) and can only be used once per washing thus making it financially impossible to have a week's supply. Since you cannot have a huge supply, you are doing laundry every 2-3 days (which is what is recommended anyways). I have other things to do in life and want to do my diapers just once a week so prefolds are great for me. I reuse the covers until they are dirty then toss them in my regular cold wash laundry (although I hand washed them in the city to make my 3-4 covers last all week). After doing laundry, I fold the prefolds in thirds so they are ready to insert in a cover at diapering time. It is then just like putting panties and a pad on the baby; no diaper pins or clips are used in my house! When we have a babysitter, I put the prefold already in the diaper and they change the diaper just like a disposable. It is very easy! Everyone thinks that my diapers must smell. Breastfed only diapers do not smell. When babies start solids, the urine and bowels do start to smell but you flush the bowel down the drain and a good diaper pail will keep the odors out.

Edited to add:
There are details on how to wash and fold prefold diapers now on my blog! They are still my favorite!