Cloth Diapers?

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I've looked everywhere for cloth baby diapers . Anyone know where I can find them? Even instructions on how to make them would be helpful.

-- FOX (ardrinc@aol.com), September 11, 1999

Answers

Fox, I don't know where to get them (my kids are in college) but something to consider- they will take a good bit of water to keep clean. After all these years I can still recall the stench of the diaper pail. Anyway, a few boxes of disposables might be a good idea, at least for waterless days. My wife just came home. I'll ask her about where to get cloth. I'll get back to you.

-- (rcarver@inacom.com), September 11, 1999.

I bought several dozen pre folded ones at Sears. K-Mart and Wal-Mart carries them in my area. Wal-Mart has training pants that are vinyl covered diapers that are nice.

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), September 11, 1999.

I'm planning to order from this supplier:

http://www.home-school.com/catalog/bibs-diapers/

A good friend who always uses cloth says they are the best.

-- Mumsie (Shezdremn@aol.com), September 11, 1999.


A good source for inexpensive cloth diapers is a local diaper service. Sometimes they sell their "slightly used" diapers. We got a bunch cheap because the diaper service donated their used diapers to a church that sold them as a fundraiser.

-- Homeschooling Grandma (mlaymon@glenn-co.k12.ca.us), September 11, 1999.

I was in JoAnn fabrics just the other day, and noticed that they sell diaper material in the back, near the pillow ticking and oddball fabrics.

I don't envy the woman who has to either hand wash a pile of diapers or look and smell a pile of disposable diapers that can't be hauled to the dump.

Because of this I think kids might get potty trained sooner than they are now. Imagine hand washing diapers for 2 and a half to three years? I don't think so.

-- (nobody@nowhere.com), September 12, 1999.



Ha ha, bet you are right! I know I'll be motivated to push the potty training when I can't use Huggies.

-- Mumsie (Shezdremn@aol.com), September 12, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

I used cloth diapers on my son, who was born almost nine years ago, and he did not toilet train early because I put absolutely no pressure on him to do so. For three years or so, I looked for and never found a style of pre-folded ribbed diapers that I remembered my mom using on my youngest brother and sister. The kind I used, which worked just fine, was very gauze-like, and ended up being folded into approximately 10 layers.

I worked out on my own a rather elaborate folding method, that I thought produced the most attractive bum, and funneled stuff just right to keep everything from falling apart. We're in luck, because I just went to look, and I still have one folded, which I can reverse engineer and try to explain.

Get in the habit of folding all of your diapers immediately when they are washed. Making the diaper up in advance gives it a chance to "learn" how to keep the shape that you want, so it won't want to fall apart. Also, you don't want to be fooling with this while dealing with the removing of a dirty one.

My fold is for a small three-year-old boy; putting the bulk of material up front. Newborns would require modifications, which you can figure out on your own, once you see how the diaper works. I will describe how I imagine it should be modified for girls at the end.

The material I used measured 20" x 26". Position diaper on a table in front of you, portrait orientation. Fold the top down to within three inches of the bottom edge. Fold the whole bottom three inches up. You now have a piece approximately 20" x 11.5", mostly double thick, with the bottom three inches tripple thick.

Now, fold in both sides about two inches. At this point your diaper is approximately 16" x 11.5". The two bottom corners are six layers thick. Now, fold the sides in again, about three inches. They will overlap in the middle. This results in 6 + 6 + 3 layers in the wet spot.

Flip diaper over, scrunch the sides in a little at the middle, and fold in half up from the bottom. Load into a diaper cover to await deployment. The inside side, next to baby's skin has no edges to chafe, and bowel movements can usually be confined to a small area and just rolled off.

For girls the procedure is almost the same except for at the very beginning. Starting with a 20" x 26" cloth in portrait orientation, again, fold down from the top about eight or nine inches and up from the bottom about five or six inches. These will overlap a few inches just below the middle. Continue as for boys.

I also tried about 40 different styles of diaper covers. My favorite, by far was nikky brand, made in Japan. I don't know if they're still available or not. It had nice little inset leg elastics which helped keep things under control. These covers, in combination with the rightly folded inner diaper produced a trimline look that stacked up well against the disposable majority. Be careful about the wear and tear on your thumbs from your many repeated tuggings on the velcro hooks. Nikky brand are much harder to separate the velcro, but this is what you want. Otherwise, the kids can take off their diapers, or they can just fall off.

By the way, the longer you can keep your baby to strictly breast feeding only (no solids what-so-ever), the better for their immune system and the better smelling their diapers. My son took his first food at nine months.

Breast is best, particularly in times when water quality is questionable. A breastfed baby is much more portable.

While on the subject of babies, get yourself the complete set of back issues of Mothering Magazine.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), September 12, 1999.


Don't forget nappy pins !!!If you have a boy be extra careful where those folds go & the pin!

-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), September 12, 1999.

and the Desitin! Cloth diapers are wonderfully soft, but they do not wick the wetness away from a baby's skin and diaper rash is easier (and less painful) to prevent than to cure. If handwashing cloth diapers, soap flakes will leave the cloth softer than detergent, and drying in the sun will help kill bacteria. Don't add laundry softener as it reduces absorption of the cloth. As much as possible, avoid using plastic pants or any covering (infants can lie on a waterproof pad and older babies can toddle around with just the diaper) - the plastic prevents air circulation, increase the time before you notice the diaper is wet, and enhances the environment for diaper rash and irritation.

K-Mart and Wal-Mart in our area carry both the gauze and pre-folded cloth diapers.

-- Jill D. (jdance@mindspring.com), September 12, 1999.


Also remember that if a diaper rash won't go away with all the usual treatments, looks red and raw (sometimes even with a cheesy white coating)- my doctor told me to try women's yeast infection creme in a thin layer over the affected area. This worked great on my son the one time he had a "stubborn" rash. Of course you should talk to your doctor but this is for "just in case".

-- Kristi (securxsys@cs.com), September 12, 1999.


Our three eldest sons were born in England. With an immersion heater to heat the water and no washing machine it made me potty train early. Most of the time we ended up drying nappies (and clothes) in the house. My sister moved in with me when we had a 2 year old and a small baby. She had 3 babies. 8 month old twins and an 19 month old. Our babies were all potty trained VERY early. I reckon that Y2K will force lots of Mums to start dumping diapers earlier. I have seen so many children in shopping carts that have to be 3-4 years old. They are still in disposable diapers and have a bottle or pacifier hanging from their mouths.

-- Kath (wingy@sprint.ca), September 12, 1999.

Kath, I went through the same thing, handwashing nappies (lots of the heavy terry-toweling kind) for almost a year until I got a wringer-washer. I well remember taking the things off the line in winter, stacking the frozen buggers like cordwood and defrosting them before they could be dried on clothes horses! My son virtually potty-trained himself around the age one and I wonder now if he figured out it was preferable to the discomfort of a nasty cloth diaper. Oh, right, the good old days! Ugh!!!

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), September 12, 1999.

OG,

I have a friend that had 12 kids. She allways took them camping and let them run around naked if they were over 1 year old, trained after 1 week, FWIW

-- CT (ct@no.yr), September 13, 1999.


There's an ointment product called Taloin that my sisters and I used - it's the best thing we found for diaper rash. And it's also great for any type of skin problems, such as heat rash, poison ivy, winter-chapped skin, etc. I don't remember who made it. I'm going to try to find some for my first-aid box. Thanks for this thread - it reminded me of a product that really works!

-- Mom (Mom@mom.com), September 13, 1999.

Liquid antacid works well on little bottoms after too many diapers or a long bout of diarrhea. Something like Maalox but the generics are probably just as good.

Good luck

-- peg (peg@futureandahope.com), October 14, 1999.



I don't know about cloth diapers, but would like to know if anyone is familiar with the ointment "Taloin"? This was once used for diaper rash and other rashes. I have looked in various stores, but cannot locate a store that carries it. Would appreciate any info anyone can give.

-- (deandove@aol.com), February 23, 2002.

IF ANYONE WANTS TO KNOW HOW TO GO WITHOUT HAVING TO SOAK SOILED NAPPIES, DO AS FOLLOWS:

-- Danielle (deebes@bigpond.com), April 22, 2002.

IF YOU WANT TO GO WITHOUT SOAKING SOILED NAPPIES, DO AS FOLLOWS: 1. Use disposables until there is a soiled one. 2. Then use cloth nappies, putting them in the wash basket to machine wash with laundry liquid. 3. If you happen to get a soiled nappy, note the time and make sure you have used a liner or a disposable nappy. THIS WORKS REALLY GREAT FOR ME: I DONT HAVE TO SOAK AT ALL!

-- Danielle (deebes@bigpond.com), April 22, 2002.

The best place I've found to locate cloth diapers, covers, doublers, etc. is www.borntolove.com They have all sorts of items available on their site as well as links to other sites of WAHM who make covers and diapers. They also have great info on techniques for folding, washing, pinning, etc.

-- S (Garnettconfirm@webtv.net), April 23, 2002.

Are you still looking for cloth diapers? We have been using cloth diapers since birth (baby is now 13 months old). We have had no leaks except right at the beginning when I didn't know what I was doing, never soak diapers, rarely rinse in toilet, they have no stains and the only time she has diaper rash is if it's an allergic reaction or I wait too long between changes. We use diaper-service-quality Chinese prefolds. Whatever you use, do not use the guaze things sold in the stores. They're fine for burp cloths, but nothing more. There are tons of online places to buy them. Start with these: http://www.greenmountaindiapers.com www.jardinediapers.com www.borntolove.com www.weebees.com www.babyworks.com www.clothdiaper.com www.naturalebaby.com http://www.cloth-diaper.com/default.asp http://www.earthbaby.com http://www.chooseydiapers.com http://www.cottonbloomers.com http://www.katieskisses.homestead.com

-- Leigh Ann (leighann1001@cs.com), February 07, 2003.

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