I am slightly obsessed with cloth diapering. But, before I get into that, let me update you. It's been a long process, often discouraging, but I am well on my way now. My homestudy was approved a couple of weeks ago and I should be matched very soon. I am doing an embryo adoption, and believe me, that has nothing to do with a desire to be pregnant! I actually was quite content with the idea of adopting an infant and never experiencing pregnancy. But God put it on my heart that all the frozen embryos leftover from IVF are babies who need a home and deserve life. Anyway, the genetic families will look over my profile and make a decision on whether they think I will be a good match for their embryos, and all of this is supposed to occur within the next two weeks, then we move into all the legalities and paperwork. Fortunately, all of that is managed by the agency and all I really need to do is sign on the dotted line.
So, anyway, moving on to cloth diapers. I wrote a post a while back about the fitted diapers I made. I used the Rita's Rump Pocket pattern (which is "one size fits most"), but instead of pocket diapers, I made fitteds. This was based on a suggestion she had made on her blog, and also on another one-size fitted pattern that claimed to be able to fit newborns through potty-training. Prefold diapers are traditionally 4 layers thick on the sides and 8 layers thick in the middle (4x8x4), and it was the same with the one-size fitted pattern. I modified the RRP by taking off the front wings (from reading the blog, the front wings were a big problem, and they are not at all necessary) and adding sewn-in inserts, making it a 2x8x2 fitted diaper. I also made the Rita's Rump Cover true to the pattern (or so I thought, but I used 2 layers of regular fleece and later realized I had misinterpreted the pattern and she used a thinner fleece for the inner layer). Then, I made one-size prefolds from T-shirts per fernandfaerie.com. I made a few flatfold diapers from flannel.
I started collecting old T-shirts several years ago for eventual diaper-making, and I finished making my initial diaper stash over a year ago. Now, as motherhood looms over my horizon, I have been doing a lot of experimenting with my diapers, testing absorbancy, and practicing different folds. There are several things I wish I had done differently with my diapers:
Covers: I wish I just had never bothered to make these covers. I began to regret it shortly after I finished them. I think they may be too thick to actually really be useful to me. And, they will not fit a baby probably until after 3 months old. Now, when I made them, the creator of the pattern states that they will not fit a newborn, so I knew that in advance. I thought I would either make them work, or use a different cover in the newborn stage. But they seem really big and I suspect they will not fit until at least 6 months. At any rate, 2 layers of fleece over a thick diaper just does not seem like a winning combination. But I have them, and they are cute, and I am going to try them out.
Fitteds: I thought fitteds would be easy and convenient. No pockets to stuff, just put the diaper on and then stick a cover over it. Pretty simple for a babysitter to use, right? Well, first off, they really do take forever to dry. Now, all my internet research prepared me for them to take a long time to dry. Except that I thought "a long time" was a longer drying cycle or maybe even two cycles. I fully plan to get a new (well, new to me) washer and dryer when baby gets here, but I thought my current dryer was stellar and efficient until I started pre-washing my diapers. After 3 rounds in the dryer, they have to be hung to finish drying. Hopefully a bigger dryer will alleviate some of that. But, secondly, the diapers have a lot of bulk. I didn't think it would really be a problem since I had visited the other website (which no longer exists) where the woman had made the one-size fitteds and folded them to fit a newborn. Realistically, I can use flats in the newborn stage and my fitteds should be fine by 3 months, although they will be a little on the bulky side. But, in cloth-diapering, bulk comes with the territory. Also, I used a lot of donated flannel, flannel I already had or was leftover from other projects, and clearance flannel, but I also bought a good amount of flannel (on sale, of course) and probably could have done it cheaper. And, the diapers are still super cute, and hopefully easy for sitters to use.
Prefolds: Yeah, I love my T-shirt prefolds. It takes 2 shirts per diaper, and I decided I wanted 24, so I did have to go buy some shirts at thrift stores. The key here is to make sure to buy large and XL so that you can cut an 18" square out of the front and back, and buy the cheapest 100% cotton shirts you can get. Men's undershirts make absolutely fabulous diapers. So very soft, and thin but still absorbent. I used them for the middles. Say I had 2 blue shirts. That makes one blue diaper, because you get four 18" squares, and you put 2 together and fold them in half, then overlap that on the other 2 (just look at fernandfaerie.com to figure out what I am talking about). But if I only had one blue shirt, I would do one layer blue, and one layer undershirt, and fold it to where the blue was on the outside, then put the pieces together so that the whole diaper is blue. So, I only ended up with two diapers that were made completely out of those fabulous undershirts. T-shirt prefolds can be bulky as well, but it is less of a problem than the fitteds, and they don't take as long to dry, although they still take a while. The ones made only from undershirts have very little bulk and are more similar to the prefolds you would order online. I got a little excited when shopping for shirts to make diapers, and I spent $2 each on some of the shirts, which would come out to $4 for one diaper. Yeah, that is a much bigger per-diaper price than I wanted to pay. On the other hand, many of the shirts I used were free, so for my entire stash, the price averages out to much less. I still wish I would have been more conservative in my shopping!
Flatfolds: Flannel. I made my flats out of flannel. Super cute flannel. In these past few days, I have been looking at flatfold diapers online and they run roughly $2 each. I did get my flannel on sale, but I may have spent more than $2 on some of the ones I made. They will be good diapers, but I could have done it much cheaper, and they are thicker than they necessarily need to be, which I think will be good for some applications and more inconvenient for other applications. I did not really think about making them out of anything else. Once I did think about this, I made one out of a cotton pillowcase that had been donated to me back when I was collecting diaper materials. A lot of people use flannel for flats, but all the manufacturers of flats and gurus of the cloth diapering world put a lot of emphasis on thin materials for flats. So, it probably won't hurt to have a combination. Flats are very versatile and can be folded to fit any size, as well as be used as doublers and for many other purposes (they also are very easy to wash and dry). With that in mind, I am getting very big into flatfold diapers right now. I have 14. I want more. I have some old flannel sheets that I have long planned to eventually make diapers out of. But, I decided to go hunting in thrift shops today for old cotton sheets anyway. Now, I see lots of benefits for using old cotton sheets to make diapers: they have been well-used and washed many, many times. How soft they are now is how soft they will be. No guesswork about whether or not the fabric will soften. Also, it gives a great insight into how well the fabric will hold up to abuse. So, I went to a local thrift shop and took a look around. The pillowcases were 50 cents each, and I know I can get one diaper out of each pillow case and have fabric left over. I found some pretty luxuriously soft cotton pillowcases. I bought about 13 pillowcases and a king-size flat sheet made of combed cotton. I only picked things that felt nice and soft and that were made of strong fabric that shows no sign of weakening after countless washes. Do I need that many diapers? Nope. Did I essentially spend 50 cents each on 13 diapers that would cost me about $24 per dozen online? You bet. And, I expect to get many diapers out of my $2 king-size sheet. Not to mention, I still have the old flannel sheets to turn into diapers. I've heard it said that cloth diapering is addicting. I am justifying my addiction. Point A: I may have multiples. In fact, many people are predicting that I will have multiples. Point B: logic dictates that the more diapers I have in my circulation, the less wear and tear each diaper will have, which means I can pass them on to someone else when I am done. Point C: everyone else is doing it.
