Off topic Thurday - bedwetting & cloth diapers by Daniel Creations

As some of you know, I cloth diaper. My son has been potty trained & in underwear since before he turned 2, but at 5 he is still wet on occasion at night, because he is a deep sleeper like I was. I wet the bed when I was a girl too... until I was 12. Even though folks don't talk much about it, bed wetting is more common than you think, and is nothing to be ashamed of. I was made to feel ashamed as a child, but all that did was make me feel terrible for something that was beyond my control. Did you know that...

• 15% of children still wet the bed at age 5 (that's one out of every 7 kindergartners!)
  
• 7 to 10% of children still wet the bed at age 7 (that's one out of every 10 2nd graders!)
  

• 3% of boys and 2% of girls still wet the bed at age 10

Even with these statistics, it has become increasingly harder to find any "pull-up" style cloth diapers that will fit my son at night. Even people that have said they can make them to my needs, can't seem to make them big enough. It also seems that all the options out there have pul (plastic laminated cloth). My son can't wear anything with plastic. Because of his sensitive skin, he will get a heat rash from plastic, and can only use cloth with wool.

That is why I want to sing the praises of Daniel Creations! Karen custom made some cloth pull ups for me, and they are above and beyond what I wanted! The fabrics & quality are fantastic, and the measurements are exactly what I asked for (thanks, Karen!), and they are so soft. She even made them like a pocket diaper, with thick & absorbent inserts. My son would only need the smaller of the 2, but they snap together & would be enough absorbency for the even the heaviest of night wetters.

She makes all kinds of cloth diapers, baby accessories, and even reusable sandwich wraps, so I highly recommend checking out her Artfire shop!

New soakers, and instructions for a man to cloth diaper a baby (lol)

More than half of my wool soakers (cloth diaper covers) sold at the fiber fair (yay!). The girly designs & bright colors were the first to go, and many asked after that if I had anything girly. I have been trying to get my inventory back up, so at least I knew where to start. Do you think pink bunnies is girly enough ;) ? I was actually quite proud that my bunny template came out as good as it did! Even my husband said "Oh, that's cute!" (shhh... don't tell him I told you that he said the "c" word!) when I showed him the first finished bunny soaker.

The monster face ones were the most popular of all, but I haven't started on a new batch of those yet.

The polka dots were popular too, so I made another today...


I like how my owl turned out, but dang, that took a lot of work... I think i'll stick to some less time consuming designs!


In my experience, most babies grow taller, more than wider, so I love to make them with an adjustable fold over rise. They last longer, and also the rise can be raised up at night for more protection, so there are no "up the back" leaks.


I will be selling my soakers in a local shop, and will post the information as soon as they are all set up there.


My booth neighbor at the fiber fair, Esther's Girls, sold gorgeous handmade stitched greeting cards and journals, with whimsical quotes & old stamps. I bought a card from them, and was amazed at all the work that went into it for only Hallmark prices! Anyhoo, I have many cloth diapering readers, and hope you find this quote as funny as I did. I think with these instructions, any man can cloth diaper (click on pic to enlarge if you can't read it):

Tutorial Tuesday - The 30 second improvised cloth diaper pull-up!

I know this is not recycled wool, but I have a lot of cloth diapering readers, and figured it might help someone out in the same situation as me. My 4 year old has been potty trained for over 2 years now, but sleeps deeply and wets at night. He has outgrown his cloth trainers, and nobody seems to make anything in his size, and when they do they are expensive. I'd hate to invest in a bunch of expensive trainers, when we are hoping he will not need them anymore, at any moment. I am a novice sewer, so there's no way i'd be able to figure out the elastic, etc. to make proper trainers for him myself, so I came up with this:

It ain't pretty, but it works, and it takes all of 30 second to make! I took a pair of Gerber training underwear (any underwear would work, but I liked the added protection of the thick middle),

and sewed a Thirsties doubler/insert (any doubler/insert would do) and sewed it to the outside of the underwear at both ends. I added a few stitches on the sides as well to help hold in addition doublers/inserts that I will slip between the doubler & the underwear.The stitching is hard to see in the pic, so I added the arrows to show where I sewed.

Now I have a customizable protection cloth pull-up that fits my son. I, of course, use a recycled wool cover over that ;)

They have already been, um... tested... and work great! When he no longer wets at night, I can remove the insert with a seam ripper, and will have a pair of underwear & insert again to pass on.