Wool Cloth Diaper Cover, Courtesy of Alloknits Etsy Shop
I know this website is dedicated to helping parents help their children *out* of diapers, but sometimes the right diaper can help you reach that goal. If you’re looking for a “bulletproof” night cloth diaper, or just interested in more cloth diaper options, read on. For background, I am a cloth diaper mama. I LOVE that there are cloth diaper options out there that are super easy, even for working, busy moms like me. No having to fold cloth perfectly, no trying to put safety pins on with a squirmy baby, and since we used a disposable liner (rewashable for pee, throw out for poop), virtually no scrubbing messy poop out before washing. Just snap & go, and later, pop in the washing machine. Our go-to, super easy, cloth diaper was the BumGenius, with a Grovia bioliner.
We cloth diapered at home, at daycare, and out and about. My husband used them, sitters and grandparents: everyone raved about how *easy* they were! In general, it never even occurred to me to use disposable diapers. But at some point, something changed. My daughter, quite suddenly, became a heavy wetter at night-time. Like REALLY heavy – waking up, up to her waist, in pee. It quickly became clear that our all-in-one diapers just weren’t cut out to deal with this. Much as I didn’t want to switch to disposables, I just didn’t know what the other options were, so we found ourselves with night-time ‘sposies. She continued to be a heavy wetter until: we discovered our “bulletproof night diaper”. A hemp fitted inside with a woolie cover outside.
When I first heard about wool, I had my reservations.
- I live in California and don’t have good temperature control: wool sounds hot! (Actually not the case at all – it is really breathable!).
- Isn’t wool scratchy? (We got a Merino wool cover – it’s *amazing* how soft it is!)
- How *on earth* does wool keep the pee in? (Turns out, you lanolize it, similar to the natural coating that keeps ducks dry in the water. Also, turns out this process isn’t *nearly* as intimidating as it sounds - I used this Wool Diaper Lanolizing Tutorial to help me, and some even come pre-lanolized).
- Isn’t washing wool a hassle? Totally not: it’s naturally antimicrobial and only needs to be washed every 2-3 weeks in a no-fuss soak.
All this said, I took the dive and invested in 1 wool cover + a few excellent fitteds. I found out that hemp is about the most absorbent diaper you can get, so might as well give it a try (let me tell you: it does NOT disappoint). I also found out that hemp is scratchy and resulted in a rash right away. The instant fix for this was to use a fleece liner.
In the end, our bulletproof night cloth diaper looked like this:
- 1 sheet of fleece (cut to size from the fabric store)
- On top of: 1 Pooter’s hemp fitted diaper
- Inside of 1 Disana Wool Cover (a note here: it IS recommended to get a double-knit or felted wool cover if using it for night)
What’s the advantage of using cloth in the context of potty training? As with day-time, with a cloth diaper your child can actually feel that they are wet. This cues them into the pee/poop process *much* more quickly than if they can’t feel it, and is motivation to get out of diapers. Within a couple of days, the super-soaking was gone. Within a couple of weeks, my daughter started asking to get up to pee instead of peeing in her diaper at night. In a little over a month, dryness at naps started to really kick in, laying the foundation for nap/night potty training. And not a leak, ever. This, after months and months of disposable night diapers seemed to only exacerbate the wetting issue (but at least they kept the leaks mostly away!)
It is a little bit of an investment to go this route on night diapers. This is why I want people to know about it sooner than I did! I could have saved money not using ‘sposies all those months. And, as with all cloth diapers, these have a great life-span. They *will* be re-used, either for more kids in my family, given to friends, or sold (good cloth diapers have a great resale value). In our case it was totally worth the investment, and such an amazing discovery!
Any other woolie diaper lovers out there? Feel free to comment sharing your experience!
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