Sportin’ the Wool
Written by Diaper Diva
Here’s little diaper girl in the crotchet longies I recently made (my first attempt). This was the best view of the pants, of course it was the one where she decided to play “peek-a-boo”:
- Wool Cloth Diaper Covers
- How to afford Wool Cloth Diaper Covers
- Cloth Diaper Covers
- Fleece & Cloth Diapers
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How to afford Wool Cloth Diaper Covers
Written by Diaper Diva
The expense can be overwhelming. A hand-knit pair of longies can run you around $50 +/- & even ‘recycled sweater’ longies can be $20-40 depending on where you’re getting them. I don’t care how cute & well made they are, i just can not spend that kinda dough to cover my baby’s butt. However, I do really like wool! My solution? My mother in law gave me her old sewing machine this past summer & I spent a month stalking Goodwill for wool sweaters. So far I have made 4 pair of longies, Two shorties and one soaker. I spent about $20 for all of them (including miscellaneous items like thread & elastic). Read more
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Wool Cloth Diaper Covers
Written by Diaper Diva
Wool falls into the same category as fleece as far as cloth diaper covers go. As in it is water-resistant, but not water-proof. It is also highly breathable.
I’m just going to be honest here & let you in on the cons first:
- Expense. Wool covers, whether snap/aplix covers, soakers or longies/shorties, wool is expensive. There are however a few ways around it (we’ll talk tomorrow).
- Care. You have to hand wash wool & it needs to be (occasionally) lanolized. However, the washing & lanolizing are not at all difficult, & you don’t do it NEARLY as often as any other type of cover. The trick is to not have all your wool dirty at once. Having to wash a huge bunch IS annoying & then you’re left without any covers until they’re dry (I have a few longies that take 2 full days to dry in the winter!).
- If you get a little forgetful on diaper changes & baby gets sopping wet, there will be compression leaking (as in, if baby sits down on an absorbant fiber, like a couch or your jeans, it will wick through the wool onto the absorbent fiber). Though it won’t be dripping wet like going coverless would be.
So why would anyone use wool?
- Well, it’s SO breathable for one, but not as “dangerous” as going coverless (dangerous for your furniture or carpet anyway).
- It’s a very natural fiber that will easily bio-degrade.
- In the case of longies/shorties (even soakers in the summer in my opinion) the pants ARE the cover & can get super cute at that.
- Last, you don’t have to wash them very often at ALL (unless of course poo gets on them). The lanolin in the wool creates natural antibacterial properties. Just let the covers air-out when they get wet or have a ‘pee smell’ & after 15-30min, i promise, they smell fresh & clean. It’s crazy. I have only been using wool for a few months, and I’ve gone a month before needing to wash/re-lanolize, whereas my fleece covers have to be washed after one night-time or naptime use (I wash PUL every other day). So you don’t need that many, particularly if you are only using them for night-time/naptime (a lot of people go this route since PUL is admittedly just easier to deal with for busy day-time).
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Fleece & Cloth Diapers
Written by Diaper Diva
Fleece is an amazing invention. You can use fleece liners INSIDE cloth diapers to provide a moisture barrier between baby’s skin & the wet diaper & oddly enough, you can also use it OUTSIDE the diaper to protect the world from the wet diaper as well! There are plenty of companies that make fleece diaper covers. Some popular brands are: Stacinator (the Cadillacs of fleece covers, but like the car seriously ENORMOUS), Calico Baby & Bear Bottoms. I have tried the Stacinator Delux Fleece (basically heavy weight for night-time use). It worked wonderfully, but it was definitely a NIGHT-TIME diaper cover. We always laughed watching diaper boy try to walk around in it. Read more
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PUL Cloth Diaper Covers
Written by Diaper Diva
A couple days ago I gave a brief overview on cloth diaper covers. I’m big into details, so I figured I’d dedicate a few posts to specifics.
As far as PUL covers go, I can really only give information on the ones I’ve tried. I have used Bummis (both the snap & “whisper wrap” versions), Mother-ease Air-Flow, and Green Earth Diaper Wraps.
Bummis Diaper Covers: I used the bummis for the newborn & small sizes. I was able to register for them on amazon.com so I received them as baby shower gifts (amazon has since started carrying more brands). They worked great and are really durable. They’re even supposed to be safe for putting in the dryer, but I have to admit I was chicken (i REALLY want my cloth to last through more kids!), so I never put them in. However, they air-dried pretty fast (a couple hours or less?). The leg elastic is encased really well, so they never caused any red-marks on the legs & did not dig in at all. They also held in any explosions that managed to sneak outside the actual cloth diaper, so with the cloth/bummis combo I never had to change diaper’s girl’s clothes due to blowouts/leaks. Read more
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Cloth Diaper Covers
Written by Diaper Diva
We should talk about covers. If you’re using fitted diapers or prefolds, you’ll need a cover over them. The cover is there to protect clothing (& people!) from getting wet. Deciding on which type of cover to use depends mostly on what is most important: Water-proof..ness or Breath-ability. With some options you can somewhat have both, but the fact is…you can’t REALLY have both..just an fyi…
Waterproof: Vinyl & PUL (Polyurethane Laminate). These options are actually water-proof, so baby can be hanging out in a sopping wet diaper & unless you actually get in there & check, you’d never know (if you have a good cover). These are great for out of the house cloth diapering and any time you don’t think you’ll get a chance (or will be too distracted to remember) to change as often as you ‘normally’ would (for me that would be longer than 1hr).
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Cloth Diapering to Save Money Pt. 1
Written by Diaper Diva
So…you’re frugal. Perhaps you’re like my dad & it’s just sort of this genetically inherited hobby, or perhaps you’re really in dire straights in the $ department. Regardless you’re in it to save money. Do all cloth diapers save you money over disposables? Well, that depends. It depends on what type of cloth diapers you’re going to use, what kind of covers, and even how many children you plan to diaper (the more kids you use your cloth on, the more you’re saving).
A little “googling” will bring you to a number of cost comparison charts (that one’s my favorite). It’s a good idea to take a look at these to get a feel for what you’re into.
Ok, so the skinny on the frugality: If you’re buying diapers The cheapest, yet effective way to go:
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