We kind of sort of maybe cloth diaper.  Yes, she’s our EIGHTH baby, but I just got my sea legs under me, so to speak, with this whole mothering thing.  Took me more than a decade, heh.

Anyway, I’m finally in a place mentally where I feel like I can take this on, we have access to our own washer and dryer, and a big financial motivation.  Plus saving the earth or whatever.

A friend sent me some diapering supplies she had made – just simple covers made out of polar fleece from a homemade pattern, and some prefold/doubler/things to stick inside them.  This was awesome, because  while cloth diapering is cheaper in the long run, the upfront costs can be pretty steep.  I also got some Dappi wraps, nylon pants, and diapers off of eBay for under $20, which was a steal.

I looked up cloth diapering on the web, and Oh. My. Gosh.  your head could explode from the info, the choices, and the cute little cloth diapered bottoms.  There are diapers and all in ones and prefolds and pockets and more acronyms than NASA.

So I did what I always do, used what I could get for free and started out entirely half baked.  Because if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s not doing things the right way and then not getting the desired results.

After much research, I decided to use the dry pail method.  Let’s face it, the last thing a house with an active two year old needs is a giant bucket of poopy water.  Plus I’d have to haul that bucket up the stairs to wash it, and I’m lazy.  Who needs biceps when you have a husband?  See, I’m old fashioned, too.

Everything seemed to be going well, and I thought I might actually stick with this.  It does help that I’ve already recouped my investment.  I save 14 cents for every disposable I don’t use.  At the rate Alianna’s going, I’ll cut $40 a month out of our budget on diapers.  I do use disposables for overnight.

Then, today.  For some reason, no diaper would contain her leaks today.  I tried the pre-folds inside a wrap.  A doubler in a fleece.  Two prefolds in a wrap.  A prefold and a doubler inside a standard diaper, folded with a bikini twist. All covered with nylon pants.  (And can I just say that as much as I dislike the Dappi Diapers, their nylon pants are WONDERFUL).

Everything is leaking like a sieve.  All of the layers are making it hard to get a good watertight seal with the nylon pants, but the sheer volume of tinkle tinkle will not be contained (yeah, I don’t want to write pee but am not ashamed to write “tinkle tinkle”.  I have my editorial standards.)

I’m out of clothes, so I’ve resigned myself to just living with a slightly soggy lap.  Alli’s rear end, encased in layer upon layer of absorbent cotton from various manufacturers, is cartoonishly big.

I’ll try to think about how cute a big round white diapered bum is, instead of mentally comparing her to an albino tick.

Maybe I’ll just wind a bedsheet around her lower half, and count on the 400 layers to absorb some of the overflow.  Or, perhaps, I can make a pre-fold out of our van’s upholstery.  Those bench seats absorb every single drop of anything the kids spill, never to release it again no matter what kind of machinery, steamery, or chemical is applied.

How on earth did they do it before plastic pants were invented?

Tagged as: cloth diapers, Dappi covers, Dappi diapers, frugal diapering, homemade cloth diaper