Mama Monday: Cloth diapers (nappies) by Fiona

So, Elizabeth asked me for a blog on a topic I'm passionate about. It took me a few days and then I was ordering my son more modern cloth diapers and it hit me - this, I am definitely passionate about.

Proof of Passion: Too Many Diapers for One Baby  ;p

Most people I know never even considered cloth diapers- they either didn't think there was an option beyond the old fashioned terry squares our parents and grandparents used, or are worried about the washing and dealing with the poo, or because they tried some cheap ones and they leaked. All of which are legitimate concerns and cloth diapers are definitely not for everyone.

They are definitely for us though. We are full time cloth, including overnight. Now that my son is in daycare, he does have disposables there because they refuse to do cloth- we change him into one there at drop off, and change him back before we leave or as soon as we get home, depending how urgently he wants to get out of there.

For this post, I will first discuss modern cloth diapers generally then discuss our wash / care routine.

Modern cloth diapers can most easily be described as diapers that are still shaped like disposables (no pins, etc) but that are washable and reusable.

In the world of modern cloth diapers there are a lot of options though and it can get confusing pretty fast. Hopefully this post will break things down for anyone just starting out.

First up - sizing. Disposable diapers come in sizes, getting bigger as your baby gets bigger. Cloth diapers do this too- these are called sized diapers. Cloth diapers also have what is called a One Size Fits Most (OSFM) style, however, which is impossible in disposable diapers as far as I know. OSFM diapers are designed to grow with your baby, so that you can buy less of them. With sized diapers you'll need enough of them in each size your baby grows into, but you can in theory buy less if you buy all OSFM.

OSFM are a great money saving option. Because the diaper is designed to get bigger however, they can be bulky especially when your baby is smaller.

Our stash is half OSFM and half sized. We originally bought only OSFM and then had a premature baby that didn't fit them until he was 4 months old, so added some sized nappies and had to get more. The bonus of our sized nappies is that they are really really 'trim' fitting - basically, they are the ones we have that are as small as a disposable. On my son they're actually better than the disposables he gets at daycare, cause the disposables have a bunch of extra between the legs that bunches on him (he is wearing the correct size, I promise you), whereas his sized cloth diapers don't have that, but are just as trim and easy to put his pants over.

The trickiest thing with any diaper is getting the fit right, especially around the legs to prevent leakage. I found with both disposables and cloth this is a little bit of trial and error, and that it changes as your babies shape changes, so I can't really recommend one over the other in that regard.

Next up is fastening. Cloth diapers generally have either snaps (similar to a baby onsie) or velcro (otherwise known as aplix).

Snaps are our preference, but a lot of people prefer Velcro. Velcro often lets you get a more precise fit whereas the spacing on snaps is set. We find with snaps though we always know which snaps we are aiming for on our child (i.e. currently the third centre ones on the diapers that make up most of our stash) which is really helpful when getting the diaper on a thrashing toddler.

With snaps you also have a choice between side snaps and front snaps.

Front snaps mean the wings of nappy cross over the front and snap over the front. Side snaps mean the wings snap under the front. My son had chunky thighs comparative to the rest of him before he started mobile, and I would recommend side snaps for the best fit on chunky thighs when you don't also have a chunky waist. Our toddler can also undo his front snaps himself, whereas his side snaps still defeat him.

Next up is materials. Modern cloth diapers have what is called the shell, which is the waterproof layer to keep everything contained. There is then a variety of absorbent layers inside the shell. Some of the most popular options include bamboo or microfiber material, with a layer or microsuede or microfleece that actually goes against babies skin. Microsuede and microfleece form what is called a stay dry layer- they pull the wetness down into the bottom layers of fabric that are actually absorbent, so baby's skin still feels dry similar to a disposable. You can't put microfiber directly against the skin, and bamboo or cotton will feel wet against baby without a stay dry layer. Bamboo, hemp or cotton inners without stay dry layers are known as natural inners. Some people prefer this and we are one of those - our son is allergic to synthetic fabrics like fleece and polyester so he can't wear diapers with stay dry inners, or even use polar fleece blankets. All this means is that his diapers feel wet against his skin. It has never bothered him, and for him this means none of the horrible rashing he gets with a stay dry layer. He also started toilet training himself at 17 months, and I do personally think part of that is because he knows immediately when he's gone because he feels wet immediately.
Other babies will rash if they don't have a stay dry layer though, so it can be a bit of testing to find what works for your child, similar to finding which brand of disposable works best.

The amount of absorbency in a specific brand of diaper varies - it's all down to how much material is in the diaper and how heavy a wetter your child is. For us, we use two primary brands, one with layers of cotton and one with bamboo, and either will last us 4+ hours, though I try to change him more frequently than that anyway because I always dislike the notion of him sitting in a wet diaper. (His daycare changes every two hours minimum also :) )

The most confusing part of modern cloth diapers is the sheer number of available styles. What we use are called All in Ones (AIO) and Snap in Ones (SIO), so I will start by explaining those. All in Ones mean that the nappy is a single piece - waterproof outer layer and absorbent inner all sewn together, so all you do is throw it into the wash and then put it back on baby once it's dry. Snap in ones mean that the absorbent layers, called inserts, attach to the shell by press snaps - this means faster drying time, but more time putting them back together after washing so baby can wear them.

Using a dryer can damage the waterproof layer in some brands of diaper, and we don't have a dryer anyway, so we do find that our snap in ones dry faster. With snap ins you can also out the inserts into the dryer while the shells dry separately so as to not damage the waterproofing in the dryer, if you do want to primarily use the dryer.

There are also pocket nappies, where you put the absorbent layers into a pocket in between the inner material and the waterproof shell of the nappy. We tried two brands of this and I disliked needing to stuff the pocket before use (cause I'm lazy and snap ins are easier IMO :p). We also can't use them because I've never seen a pocket that doesn't use a stay dry inner material, so my extremely limited experience was as we were discovering our sons allergy to synthetic material. Pockets are hugely popular, and are great for being able to add more absorbency into the pocket section for heavy wetters.

Then things start getting a bit old school. Old school terry towelling squares still exist, but you can use them with what is called a snappi instead of pins. There are also prefolds, which are cotton or bamboo in a square shape like a terry toweling square, but with extra layers sewn in the centre. Again, they fasten via snappi. A shell can then be used over the top  as a cover for waterproofing. I'm told Prefolds or terry toweling squares are good for getting a solid fit around skinny newborn legs, so I'm intending to try prefolds with a cover next time around now that I'm comfortable with cloth diapering.

Then there are fitted nappies. Fitted nappies are still shaped like disposables and have either snaps or velcro, but do not have a built in water proof layer, so still need a shell put on over the top.

So how many do you need? The answer is variable depending on the style you choose, how often you want to wash, if you intend to use cloth overnight, and how you intend to dry them.

For us, I found 30 AIO and SIO sufficient for one child (the rest are just cause I have a cloth diaper addiction and like getting new patterns :p). 30 lets me get through 8-10 diapers a day comfortably without getting too close to running out. This is in a sub-zero overnight but no snow winter without a dryer, where they dry under the heating vents in the house. If you live in a warmer climate, or use a dryer, etc, you could probably reduce that number. If you're using disposables overnight or at daycare, you can use less. I could get by with say 15 and not run out now that my son is at daycare 4 days a week.

We generally go through approximately 5-8 diapers on a home day now, though often less now we are toilet training. With a newborn we were going though 12ish with both cloth diapers and before that when we were using disposables, simply because of all the extra soiling - my toddler only soils his diaper with a poo once, maybe twice a day, which is so much easier than a newborn.

We wash every day on a home day, and once every second or third day when it's daycare days because then he only uses one or two cloth diapers a day. It isn't advised to wait any longer than three days due to urine starting to damage the fabric of the diapers when it's left to sit.

We dry pail, which is what is recommended for modern cloth diapers. This means no soaking in buckets of water. We just chuck them into a waterproof bag (called a wetbag in the cloth diaper world) and then just tip straight into the washing machine. There really isn't much smell, but the bags do zip closed if you get a stinky one. We keep one wetbag in the nursery for wet only diapers, then another in the toilet for soiled diapers.

And now the question I always get asked - what do we do with the poo?!

This always amuses me cause by the time you get to toilet training, almost all the parents I know are fairly immune to the poo factor, and you'll most likely have to deal with poo in undies or leaking out of a diaper at least once, but anyway I digress.

For poo, we put it in the toilet. We use flushable liners in our diapers, which are designed to catch the poo so it can just get dropped into the toilet and flushed.

This works now that now we are up to solid poo, there's no point in liners with breastfeeding poo for a newborn. With newborn poo, we just rinsed and then washed, it just washes straight out. We have a hose attached to our toilet that lets us rinse diapers straight into the toilet - I highly recommend this if you do cloth diapers. It's great for newborn diapers and for all poosplosions that don't stay neatly on the liner.

We always try to dry in the sun because the sun is the best thing for stain removal and bleaches and stain removers aren't recommended for modern cloth diapers. Really though, some staining isn't the end of the world since they're clean because it's just going back on babies bum anyway. I am happy to say though, that the majority of ours come up with no stains after some sun even after 20 months of use.

We use the Grovia modern cloth diaper specific detergent Tiny Bubbles, and add in some anti bacterial rinse periodically (just had our first round of gastro, so used the antibacterial rinse during that, for example). As long as you wash well enough you shouldn't get any smell issues- I do a full cycle with detergent then a second rinse with no detergent for ours cause our machine isn't the best. If you do get smell issues, a strip wash will usually fix it (just google it ;) )

I also always get asked about brands since we do use cloth diapers full time at home so I will include that information here at the bottom of this out. I will note however that our brands are driven by our preferences (snaps, natural fibre inners, AIO/SIO) and others will have different preferences. When we started we got a couple in a half dozen bunch of brands in different styles to see what we liked, and if we would stick with cloth at all. I do highly recommend that approach because it does let you refine your preferences and fit, and also discover things like fabric allergies in our case. If you can find a diaper library, that could work really well for trialling cloth diapers.

So anyway, Grovia AIOs are the primary diapers we use. Cute patterns, smooth outer material, all cotton inner, but they do take a while to dry. We also have a large number of Australian brand itti bitti- these are our sized diaper brand so we have these in small, medium and large. My 11kg son is still in medium. Itti have fluffy minky patterned outers. Itti uses a microsuede layer but only on one insert, so we just don't use that one, since they use a two insert snap in set up and the other one is just bamboo.

We then also have several Australian WAHM brands - Tiny Cheeks Modern Cloth Nappies, for fancy embroidered outers, Couture Cloth, and Chubby Cheeks, all with custom made bamboo inners.

We used itti fitted nappies with Grovia Hybrid shells and some extra boosting for overnight when our son was wetting heavily overnight, but now we are generally using his Couture Cloth for this.

We are shortly to have two in cloth, so I'll provide an update once we get there in approx six months. My oldest is toilet training, so I might end up with only one in cloth after all, but I still expect to have two since I still don't expect my son will be able to hold for extended periods of time when we are out and about and need to try and find a toilet.

Feel free to to ask any questions, I'm happy to answer if I know the answers :)

- Fiona