Category — Cloth Diapers

From Linda Byerline, CEO of Happy Heinys:

We have been very saddened to hear that due to the recent earthquakes in Haiti in the Port Au Prince area, a couple of the orphanages we have worked closely with over the last fews years have been completely devastated. Through the years we have not only sent them diapers and clothing for these babies but also toys and help with food. When we work with any orphanage in any third world nation we work closely with missionaries who actually travel to the orphanages and personally bring our donations to the babies in need. We opt to work this way because sadly we have found that when attempting to donate directly the goods do not always arrive to the proper place due to the civil unrest of many of these countries. [Read more →]

Please take a moment to fill out my cloth diaper survey (Link has been removed).  I’m hoping that your answers will help people who are considering cloth diapering, or those who already cloth diaper but would like to learn more about other peoples’ experiences.

Thank you so much!

UPDATE (2009-12-06): Thank you everyone for taking the time to fill out the cloth diaper survey! I will be posting the results later today.

So, you’ve decided you want to try making cloth diapers for your baby yourself, but you have no idea where to start.  Hopefully, I can help you get started by providing you with some useful information in this post. [Read more →]

My 24 month old has officially outgrown her Northern Baby diapers (version 1 with single row of snaps).  Because my daughter is quite tall, the diaper rise was getting really short and the snaps were starting to leave more noticeable marks on her hips.  As most of you probably know by now, I hate when diapers [Read more →]

Today, I would like to tell you about a wonderful, talented and very busy mom to two little cuties.  Her name is Sarah and she’s the owner of Someday Sarah on Etsy.  She was kind enough to take some time out of her busy schedule to write a little about Someday Sarah and to reply to my questions. This is what she wrote: [Read more →]

I just completed some bamboo fleece and minky AIO diapers with snap-in soakers (front and back) and really wanted to share some pictures with you.  I’m really excited about these because I haven’t made diapers for anyone other than my daughter in 4 months or so.  In addition, these took me a while because of fabric supplier issues, hip problems and the lack of time thanks to a very energetic toddler and some web design work I’ve been doing in the evenings.  I hope you’ll enjoy these pictures!

The AMP (Annie Marie Padorie) AI2 diaper has been created here in Canada by one of the friendliest women I’ve ever met (via email).  Today, I own three large AMP diapers.  I bought my first AMP diaper, when my daughter was 4 or 5 months old.  I was impressed with the quality and decided to buy two more a month later.

What I like about the diaper:

• Great quality.  The beautiful serging made me a little obsessed about how well I serged my diapers :-)
• It’s quite trim.
• Elastics in my AMP diapers have never left any really bad marks on my daughter’s skin.
• Still fits my daughter at 32 lbs.
• Comes in two sizes – not too few and not too many.
• Easy to clean insert.

What I do not like about the diaper:

• The leg elastics on the first AMP diaper I bought lost some of its elasticity.  It’s possible my early washing routines had something to do with that though.
• The microfleece is not the best I’ve seen however it seems to be a popular one for diaper making.

Overall rating: 4.5 out of 5

NOTE: I bought my AMP AI2 diapers more than a year ago, so please keep in mind that AMP diapers might have gone through some changes since I bought mine.

A few months ago, I decided to buy a GroBaby cloth diaper probably because I wanted to try something new.  I must admit that now, after a few months, the diaper gets used very rarely.  I thought that at least my husband would like the diaper, but it looks like he has more trouble using it than I do.

What I do like about the GroBaby diaper:
1. The insert can be snapped in and out.
2. Can use other inserts with the shell (they will not snap in though because of the different snaps).
3. The diaper is quite trim.

What I do not like about the GroBaby diaper:
1. Elastic at the back is way too tight and leaves major marks on my daughter’s back.
2. Velcro does not stick to the laundry tabs in the wash.  When I take the diaper out of the washer, the velcro is usually stuck to the lining of the diaper and not the laundry tabs.
3. It’s not as absorbent as other diapers I’ve tried.
4. I find that I have to wash the shell after every poop.
5. Can’t make my own more absorbent snap-in inserts for the diaper because of the different snaps.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5

Did you know you can use gDiaper inserts with cloth diaper covers?  Since my daughter never seems very comfortable in her gPants (the gDiaper cover), I recently decided to try the disposable gDiaper insert (gRefill) with a Bummis PUL cover.  It worked great and my daughter did not try to remove the diaper like she does her gDiapers.  So, whenever I’ll need to use a disposable I’ll probably use a gRefill with a cloth diaper cover such as Bummis or Thirsties.  I haven’t tried it with wool and fleece covers, but I assume it’ll work just as well.  I do wonder though, what the wool and fleece covers might absorb from the gRefill.

I tried the gRefill with a Bummis cover at night as well and it worked great.  I did use a wide Zorb doubler along with the gRefill because I’ve heard one gDiaper insert is not enough for night-time – whoever said it was right because the doubler was quite wet in the morning.  I could have used two gRefills, but that would create extra waste which I’m not comfortable with.

I ended up using the refills with a PUL cover two nights in a row because we’ve had a hard time getting rid of my daughter’s yeast rash.  Usually, I use bamboo fleece fitteds with wool covers, even when my daughter has rashes.  If she does have a rash, it usually heals quickly thanks to the fitteds and wool, but this rash has been really stubborn.  I wonder if potty training had something to do with it since she hasn’t been wearing very absorbent diapers anymore.  Anyway, I decided to try disposable diapers because I wanted my daughter to be as dry as possible between changes since as you probably know, yeast loves moisture.  Well, it turns out disposables do not help heal yeast rashes, the rashes stay the same or get worse.  So, the next thing I decided to try was the gRefill with a PUL cover that has been neglected for at least a couple of months.  I was happy to discover that her rash did look better in the morning.  I suspect the gRefill and cloth diaper combination is more breathable than a disposable diaper which sped up the healing process.

So, if you do like gRefills, but not the gPants, you can get out your PUL covers and start using those with the disposable refills whenever you can’t (or don’t want to) use a cloth diaper.

When my daughter was born we had a package of Pampers Swaddlers ready, and we thought we’d be using disposable diapers until she was potty trained.  We had a couple of packages of cloth diapers, but they were too big for my daughter for the first month or two.  Also, because I didn’t know anything about modern cloth diapers, I wasn’t in a hurry to use them.  I’ve heard some horror stories from my mom about cloth diapering, so I didn’t think I’d ever want to do it.  I later found out that modern diapers are not the same as what my mom used on my sister and me when we were babies.

So, we used disposable diapers for a couple of months until I couldn’t handle the rashes anymore.  My daughter was a lot more sensitive to the chemicals in disposable diapers than my friends’ babies, and there was no cream that would prevent the rashes from coming back every few days.  The constant rashes led me to do some online research.  After reading about the chemicals in disposable diapers, I decided to give cloth diapers a try.  Even though the diapers we had weren’t amazing, I kept using them.  Thanks to more online research, I found out about bumGenius diapers and just had to try one.  Thanks to the bumGenius diaper, I actually enjoyed changing my daughter – a task that I’ve always hated before.  Also, the rashes weren’t as frequent anymore which made me want to stick with cloth diapering.  So, I decided to buy 6 more bumGenius diapers.

Northern Baby Fitted Diapers (v. 2)

Even though my daughter had fewer diaper rashes, she still had some from time to time.  One day while doing more online research on cloth diapers, I discovered that some babies can be sensitive to synthetic fibres.  I knew that the bumGenius pocket diapers had a synthetic lining, so I decided to look for diapers made with natural fibres.  The diapers I decided to purchase next included an AMP hemp fitted diaper, a Sugar Peas hemp fitted diaper and six unbleached Indian cotton prefolds.  I couldn’t believe how fast my daughter’s rashes went away and stayed away after I started using those diapers.

In the first couple of months, I also learned which detergents to use and which not to use with cloth diapers.  However, I still run into detergent issues many months later.  Whenever I use a different washer or want to try a new cloth diaper detergent, I’m running into some issues.  The one thing that’s never given my daughter rashes is soapnuts.  To find out more about the soapnuts I use, please visit the Superior Soapnuts website or the Eco Bebe Boutique.

Today, most of my daughter’s diapers have been made by me.  I’ve tried a lot of other diapers, but there was always something about each diaper that was bothering me.  It took me many months to perfect my diaper pattern, and since I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I’m still not 100% satisfied with it and probably never will.

I’ve never regretted switching to cloth diapers even when the poops got more stinky and detergents almost drove me insane.  To find out exactly why I’ve stuck with cloth diapering, please read one of my previous posts titled, “Things I Love About Cloth Diapers“, if you haven’t already done so.