Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Goodbye Cloth Night-time Diapers


            *sigh* It's been no secret around here that we have struggled with finding a night-time cloth diaper solution. The two main things that have caused our issues with this is the fact that 1) Myka has always been a good sleeper and sleeps about 12 hours each night and 2) She pees SO much in that time. We have found a few things that have worked along the way, only to encounter new issues or for her to "outgrow them". (Read: The older she gets, the more she pees, obviously.)
            I know we're not the first parents to have issues with our child's night-time diapers and I'm sure we won't be the last. However, I'm throwing in the towel...again. I threw it in the first time back in late fall last year when I was still getting up before the crack of dawn to babysit. Me being the night owl that I am and waiting until I absolutely HAVE to get up in the morning, the last thing I wanted or had time to deal with in the morning was a pee soaked child and crib sheet. (Plus I'm sure that's not exactly Myka's ideal way of waking up either.) So, we started using disposables for a few months.
            I gave the night-time diapers a try again recently when I received the Buttons cloth diaper to try out for the blog. (Which I'm still totally in love with, btw.) Their microfiber inserts (and BestBottoms) work great at night, but the ammonia smell is too much to handle in the morning. Sorry, I'll admit I'm selfish and I'm not the type of person who is going to both set an alarm AND wake my child up to change her in the middle of the night.
            On top of that, she was starting to get diaper rash, as I'm sure you can imagine. For us, that kind of defeats the purpose of wearing cloth diapers. We even tried using some of the inserts I made awhile ago (pictured above in the middle and right) on top of the other ones so that the microfiber wasn't touching her skin. Even with the flannel and hemp, she was still getting a diaper rash.
            So, as much as I don't want to, I give up. I am totally open to suggestions from those of you with more cloth diapering experience than I have. Have any of you experienced similar problems? What did you do about it?

5 comments:

  1. I'm having the same issues. I currently use a flip cover with two inserts. Half the time it works great and the other half there is pee everywhere when my 2yo wakes in the morning. We luckily haven't had to battle with any diaper rash...yet.

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    1. That's good you haven't had to deal with any diaper rash. Our daughter has had a sensitive butt from the beginning. We can't even use store bought wipes, although that doesn't hurt my feelings much.
      The things we were using seemed to work just fine, if that helps at all. I think it's just the nature of the beast, though, with them being older and peeing more, unfortunately.

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  2. I've worked to find a good nighttime solution for my kids - right now we are having great success with AppleCheeks. I'm using a 3-ply bamboo insert tri-folded, with two bamboo boosters for my 3yo and a Thirsties hemp/microfiber insert for my 16mo old. Took me awhile to get to this solution, and occasionally we have one or the other completely leak everywhere, but overall it's working pretty well. I totally understand the decision to just switch to disposable for overnight, it's exhausting to wake up to a soaked kid/crib every night.

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  3. We used zorb II for thr longest time with our pocket dipes and had to nix Microfiber all together because of the ammonia smell. We would get 12+ hours with the zorb. Now we use hemp and a prefold. We still get 12+ hours, no leaks, less stink, and less bulky. If you have stink and dipes can't hold enough, I highly recommend nixing microfiber and trying help or zorb. Good luck if you choose to tey again, sometimes it just doesn't work for some families though and all kids are different.

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