Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Cloth Diapering: The Night Diaper

The dreaded Night Diaper. As Starbeans is still nursing throughout the night, he wets very heavily. This may also be the case even for babies who sleep a solid 8 hours without suckling - I don't know. No matter. I've found that the Bummis Super Whisper Wrap just can't handle that much saturation, especially as he gets older. Do not get me wrong: they are great during the day. I love 'em! But night-time is a different story.

So, first I tried double-diapering. It worked for awhile. Then I moved to triple-diapering: this seemed to suit our needs much better, but it was hard to stuff that much diaper into the medium sized Whisper Wrap (15-30 lbs). I had read a lot about leak-proof wool diaper covers, so I decided to give it a shot. I bought a Babyology Wool Diaper Soaker off of ebay - the XL size, to accommodate the bulk of the triple-diaper.

I am pleased to report a happy success. No leaks - no wetness - nice and roomy - no smell. I hang it out to dry each morning and it is ready to go by each evening. I thought I'd pass along the word. There are other options for the Night Diaper than disposables (it just took me a little while to get it right).

10/10 update:
I went back to double-diapering (the triple is just too much diaper if it isn't neccessary). I twist the outer diaper and keep the inner diaper flat, so there isn't so much bulk between his legs and his junk is protected. Everything is fine and dandy - I really love the wool soakers. I'm also going to research microfiber - it sounds like an excellent choice to keep little bottoms dry. Thanks for the advice, P.K.

7 comments:

Christian said...

Hmmm, I am looking for a good night time diaper for my son (3 1/2) He's potty trained during the day but we can't seem to get him to hold it through the night. This one only goes up to about 30 lbs and he's almost 40 but a petite 40, I wonder if the large would fit him? Thanks for the link! We do fuzzi bunz at our house and I love them for during the day except the fact that when the kids urinate they smell aweful! Have you had that problem with yours? Thanks, Jenni

a. borealis said...

Check out wearbest8 on ebay - they seem to have running sales on wool diaper soakers, usually costing about 15 dollars (and you can order multiples at the price you won the auction). XL = 29-35 lbs. Starbeans is at approx 25 lbs and even with the triple diaper, there is still plenty of room in our XL, so maybe a petite 40 lbs could fit? It would probably depend how heavily he was wetting & whether you were double (or triple) diapering him. One would think there are many 3-4 year olds out there that need some kind of night-time protection - there has to be something out there.

I'm somewhat familiar with Fuzzi Bunz - don't you need to wash the whole thing after each diaper change? I have a post on my cloth diapers, if you want to see exactly what I'm using - but it is basically the old-fashioned cotton pre-fold diaper with a friendlier diaper cover than the plastic pants of days gone by. The diaper covers need to be washed a couple times a week, depending; but the diaper goes straight to the pail. So - no, there really isn't any smell to speak of.

And yes - I figured it was Jenni, not Christian, commenting. Hi!! Thanks for visiting my corner of the web!

Jenni said...

Well, I like my fuzzi bunz diapers but I think the only thing that I don't like about them is that I have a hard time getting the smell out even after I prewash, wash, and 2nd rinse. They smell okay until the child pees and then they smell aweful. We are not supposed to use bleach but in order to even stand the diapers I have resorted to bleach and now they are bearable.

So you only have to wash your covers a couple times a week? That's pretty cool. Fuzzi bunz are pocket diapers so the cover gets soiled with every use. I would be interested in trying what you have but you know, I've already made the investment so I will stick out the fuzzi bunz at least until they wear out. Thanks for the info though, I will definately look into them :)

purple_kangaroo said...

Jenni, if your FB are smelling, that probably means they have soap buildup in them, or they aren't getting rinsed enough. Are you using a soap with no dyes, scents or softeners?

Try some baking soda in the wash and vinegar in the rinse, and then running an extra cycle with no soap to make sure they're rinsed really well. Some people have had good results stripping them.

For nighttime diapering, I've had pretty good luck with folding a microfiber soaker into the prefold and laying a piece of fleece on top to keep baby's skin dry, then putting a prorap over it all. Microfiber is so much more absorbent than cotton, with less bulk. I haven't had any problems with the proraps leaking . . . I got mine as seconds for $4 each.

I bought some wool garments at a thrift store to cut up . . . I want to try making some wool diaper covers in a similar style to Bummis.

Christian said...

Thanks for the suggestions but I've done all those things, I've tried everything the FB website says to do and none of it seems to cut the smell. Oh well. I've resorted to bleach and I know they say you aren't supposed to use it but I was ready to throw mine out the window, then what a waste!

purple_kangaroo said...

Hmmm, have you already tried soaking them in oxyclean? That's too bad about the smell. Did the bleach help?

purple_kangaroo said...

A. Borealis, the one thing about microfiber is not to put it next to the baby's skin. You need a layer to keep it away from the skin because it's so very absorbent that it will suck moisture out of any skin it directly touches.

If you aren't crazy about synthetic fabrics (microfiber), I hear that hemp is also much more absorbent than cotton, and very "green" and renewable and all that.

I get my fabrics and microfiber soakers from a coop. They're running a soaker coop right now . . . e-mail me a the link in my profile if you want the information.