Diapering Revolution
My life has been changed.
I have no idea why I have never come across this before, in all of my cloth diapering existence. It's amazing. I shall share with you, and you shall all bow at my feet.
Prefolds.
I had a hate/hate relationship with them. Used 'em to stuff my pockets at night and that was it. Would wash again as soon as I was down to just the prefolds. Didn't hardly count them as diapers. More like emergency rags for a naked baby to sit on while the "real" diapers were drying. Occasionally I'd use 'em to soak up a mess on the carpet. :-)
Why? The cover? Nah, love fitteds. That's fine. The folding? Nah, that takes about as much time as stuffing a pocket. So what then? Ah, the dreaded snappi. I figured this out because the countours started getting less and less use as well. Couldn't find the snappi. Couldn't get it to grab the diaper well. Couldn't get the baby to hold still long enough for the diaper to be positioned well and then snappi'ed on correctly. Would often have her escape in the middle of a change just to have the snappi spring loose and the whole diaper fall off. Piece of crap snappis. Yes, I am eternally grateful that I don't have to worry about sticking a baby with diaper pins (I would totally be the mom who would do this) but snappis leave a lot to be desired.
My revolution came when I was changing Alli alongside another mom at Ben's preschool, who was changing her 2-year-old. I didn't even know she was a cloth mama until I saw the cover. I squeed and starting talking diapers because it's unusual that you just run into other cloth moms IRL. (Though, it figures if you were going to, it would be at our awesome preschool. Turns out there's a third cloth mom there too!)
Anyway, she talked about how her partner was against it because she was afraid of diapers being too much work and how they started with AIOs to get her warmed up the the idea and once she was over the cloth hump, she saw the price difference and was like, dude, prefolds look good to me! I said, "Yeah, but I seriously would rather pay the extra money than deal with all those stupid snappis."
She said, "We don't use snappis anymore."
I said, "Huh? You use pins?!?!?!"
And she said, "We don't use anything."
I looked.
Her prefold was folded into thirds, the way I do it when I use them to stuff a pocket. It was inserted into the little pocket top of the Thirsties PUL cover (I always wondered why that was there!) and then the cover was pulled on and fastened with velcro. It was so simple my brain exploded three hundred times over.
"Don't they leak?" I asked, kind of in a whisper.
"Nah. Poop leaks into the cover sometimes, but that happens even when you use a snappi."
And I knew it was true.
OMG. My diaper stash has practically doubled since this day. I use the prefolds FIRST now, because it's easier than snapping on a fitted. They also absorb more than fitteds. And it is really true, they have never leaked out of the cover, not once. It just kind of forms a diaper shape all by itself. No fastening necessary. Wow.
Let's all just take a moment.
I have no idea why I have never come across this before, in all of my cloth diapering existence. It's amazing. I shall share with you, and you shall all bow at my feet.
Prefolds.
I had a hate/hate relationship with them. Used 'em to stuff my pockets at night and that was it. Would wash again as soon as I was down to just the prefolds. Didn't hardly count them as diapers. More like emergency rags for a naked baby to sit on while the "real" diapers were drying. Occasionally I'd use 'em to soak up a mess on the carpet. :-)
Why? The cover? Nah, love fitteds. That's fine. The folding? Nah, that takes about as much time as stuffing a pocket. So what then? Ah, the dreaded snappi. I figured this out because the countours started getting less and less use as well. Couldn't find the snappi. Couldn't get it to grab the diaper well. Couldn't get the baby to hold still long enough for the diaper to be positioned well and then snappi'ed on correctly. Would often have her escape in the middle of a change just to have the snappi spring loose and the whole diaper fall off. Piece of crap snappis. Yes, I am eternally grateful that I don't have to worry about sticking a baby with diaper pins (I would totally be the mom who would do this) but snappis leave a lot to be desired.
My revolution came when I was changing Alli alongside another mom at Ben's preschool, who was changing her 2-year-old. I didn't even know she was a cloth mama until I saw the cover. I squeed and starting talking diapers because it's unusual that you just run into other cloth moms IRL. (Though, it figures if you were going to, it would be at our awesome preschool. Turns out there's a third cloth mom there too!)
Anyway, she talked about how her partner was against it because she was afraid of diapers being too much work and how they started with AIOs to get her warmed up the the idea and once she was over the cloth hump, she saw the price difference and was like, dude, prefolds look good to me! I said, "Yeah, but I seriously would rather pay the extra money than deal with all those stupid snappis."
She said, "We don't use snappis anymore."
I said, "Huh? You use pins?!?!?!"
And she said, "We don't use anything."
I looked.
Her prefold was folded into thirds, the way I do it when I use them to stuff a pocket. It was inserted into the little pocket top of the Thirsties PUL cover (I always wondered why that was there!) and then the cover was pulled on and fastened with velcro. It was so simple my brain exploded three hundred times over.
"Don't they leak?" I asked, kind of in a whisper.
"Nah. Poop leaks into the cover sometimes, but that happens even when you use a snappi."
And I knew it was true.
OMG. My diaper stash has practically doubled since this day. I use the prefolds FIRST now, because it's easier than snapping on a fitted. They also absorb more than fitteds. And it is really true, they have never leaked out of the cover, not once. It just kind of forms a diaper shape all by itself. No fastening necessary. Wow.
Let's all just take a moment.