As some of you already know, I cloth diaper my son at night. Unfortunately, he comes from a long line of deep sleepers, so he is not always dry at night yet. Once they get past 2 or 3 years old, it becomes harder & harder to find anything in cloth that will fit them, even though 20% of all 5 year olds still wet the bed. When he outgrew his last set, I ordered some from Daniel Creations, and they were absolutely perfect. I highly recommend them. I needed a couple more, but we've been on such a tight budget lately that I felt like I really needed to make some myself. Since Jack's skin is super sensitive, anything tight will irritate his skin, and I wanted to make something without elastic. I was thinking about how I could make something similar to his soakers, when it occurred to me that I should use Katrina's wool soaker pattern to make cloth pullups! For materials I needed something absorbent, stretchy, and soft, and found the perfect things... one of Jack's outgrown organic crib sheets, one of his organic receiving blankets, and a regular cotton receiving blanket from the thrift store (the stripey one). Since they were already used and washed several times over, the materials were already super soft & super absorbent. Since nobody will be seeing his diapers but us, I played around with different ways of sewing the soaker part (a few layers of waffle texture cotton from a receiving blanket) in, not caring how they look, and they all work just fine! The first one I made was the one on the top right. I made the mistake of using the pattern size he's in for wool soakers (diaper covers), not thinking that the wool soaker allows room for a diaper underneath, and the diaper itself needs to be smaller (duh!). It's quite big, but it still works. I learned my lesson, and made the next 2 smaller.
I love that I was able to reuse things I already had to make these :) !
5 comments:
I have to make some of these!!! I cloth diapered my little girl who is now potty training. Is the waffle fabric very absorbent? Also do you still put a wool cover over it or does he just wear the pull up?
The waffle blanket is just cotton, so just as absorbent as any cotton, but I like to think that the texture helps it absorb quicker. Honestly you can use anything absorbent to make the soaker part. Yes, you need wool over these. I don't use pul (plastic laminate layer). He wears longies (wool pants) instead of pj pants at night. He loves his "woolly pants". I'll probably still make them for him, even when he's dry at night, because they are nice.
I sold all my stash of cloth diapers after several month of dry nights but my little one still wets her bed from time to time. I made wool PJ pants but without an absorbing layer underneath they are comfortable but useless. I need to make a few of these.
How often do you lanolize the longies?
I'm also thinking of making a wool mattress pad with an absorbent layer of cotton attaching on top. Have you tried anything like that?
Steph,
I only have to lanolize my son's wool covers twice a year, once for summer (shorties & soakers) and once for winter (longies). I can get away with this because I have several of each, and he is not wet every night. Even when he is wet, he often wakes up mid-pee, so the diaper doesn't get soaked every time, leaving the wool dry. It all depends on how often they are used, how much lanolin you use each time, how many covers you have, etc.
I also use lanolized wool blanket pieces to protect the mattress, just in case. My husband accidentally put him to bed without his diaper one night & he soaked everything but the mattress! I posted about the wool mattress protectors a while back, when I first started using it on the bed.
http://resweater.blogspot.com/2009/07/recycled-wool-mattress-protectors.html
I recommend using an absorbent towel or receiving blanket between the sheet & the wool. I don't recommend sewing your absorbent layer to your wool, so you can wash the absorbent layer as needed, when the wool doesn't need to be washed.
These make me wish my little boy wasn't potty learned. Dang you, Charlie!
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