Cloth Diapering

You may be wondering what an insert is and what all the fuss is about. Quite simply put, and insert is the absorbent layer used inside of a pocket diaper (check out Fuzzi Bunz, Wonderoos, Happy Heinys and SwaddleBees for some great pocket diapers). The fuss is over what works well for your child. One mama swears by one insert and another one loves something else! It can be very confusing for someone new to cloth diapering so we put together a very basic insert primer to help get you started.

The basics:
Inserts most commonly are made in cotton, hemp or microfiber. They vary in absorbency based on the number of layers, the fabric blend and the fabric weight.

Hemp Inserts
A Joey Bunz made with hemp jersey isn’t going to be as absorbent as a Hemp Babies insert made with hemp fleece. The primary difference is materials. Hemp is 8x’s more absorbent than cotton. Most products are advertised based of the number of layers in the without also disclosing the type of fabric used. 6 layers of hemp jersey just isn’t going to hold a candle to 6 layers of hemp fleece. Hemp terry is just about as absorbent as hemp fleece. It can be slightly trimmer but it is also a rougher fabric.

Cotton Inserts
Prefolds and Kissaluvs Super Soakers are the most commonly sold cotton inserts. Prefolds are made of diaper twill and the Super Soakers are made of burley knit terry and cotton fleece. Both products will work as inserts. The Super Soakers will require frequent diaper changes and prefolds, while very economical and multi-use, tend to be bulky in a pocket diaper. When a diaper is just a little bit too big, the extra bulk that a prefold provides can sometimes the best solution to a leaky diaper until your baby grows into the diaper. Some families prefer the prefolds because they can also be used alone in a diaper cover.

Microfiber Inserts
You will hear alot about microfiber towels on diapering forums and may even see them for sale. Be careful what you buy!! The towels vary widely in absorbency based on where you buy them. A lighter towel will absorb significantly less moisture than a heavier, thicker towel. Colored towels also tend to bleed badly.

Microfiber also varies in its absorbency. At 15 oz per insert, Cotton Babies inserts are the most absorbent microfiber insert available anywhere. They are also the only white microfiber insert you can find that is truly one-size. Beware of inserts that advertise additional layers of material. Additional layers may just mean increased bulk and not increased absorbency.

What to choose?
Most of our customers find that our Cotton Babies Microfiber Inserts are a fantastic value and that they work very, very well. Overnight and naptime leaks are generally solved by adding a Hemp Babies Little Weeds or Bigger Weeds insert wrapped around the microfiber. If you are still undecided, you may find that an Insert Sampler Package is the best choice. Get a little of this and a little of that — wash it up and see what you like best before committing to one particular product.

If you still have questions, feel free to call us at 888-33-BABIES. We’re here to help!!

“The Insert Labrinth” is © 2005 Cotton Babies, Inc.

One of our customers recently asked a great question on the Cotton Babies forum. It got a wonderful answer from another cloth diapering mom and with her permission, we are sharing the exchange here in hopes that it helps some parents who are still in that ‘what do we pick’ phase.

Original Question:

Is it really just a pure trial and error with types of CD and absorbencies until you figure something out? Does that mean I should just buy a few of each kind to begin with and hope something jumps out at me as a “this works, I should buy more?” I’m really struggling with this; I’m one of those types who reads everything I can get my hands on and expects there to be an obvious answer at the end, but I’m getting the feeling CDing is a subject where there is no such thing!

Answer:
Choosing a diaper system is not 100% trial and error. If you read the reviews at places like Diaper Pin, you can get a pretty good idea of what is generally a winner, not generally a winner, etc.

After that, you need to know yourself. Where do you fall on the cost/convenience spectrum, what are your reasons for cd’ing and your priorities, etc. For example, prefolds with one of the many well-reviewed covers are a sure bet, especially if $-savings is your major priority. But for some people, ease-of-use is more important, so another system would be a better investment. Local factors, matter too — for example I find that in our hot humid summers, I don’t want a diaper that takes a long time to dry in the dryer. But a lot of people don’t really care about that, and in the winter, I don’t either.

Finally, there will be a certain amount of baby-specific issues. A super-chunker and a string bean are going to fill out a diaper cover differently. Some babies are super heavy wetters. Some babies poop a little bit every 20 minutes, some babies poop a whole septic tank, once a week. So you may end up having to tweak things for extreme babies. And that’s something you need to be ready to accept, so you can decide how you will handle that.

A major issue here, also, is contentment. On the one hand, diapering products do vary in their performance. On the other hand, many of us CD’ers have a bizzarre compulsion to either get it “perfect”, or to just want to have the latest greatest thing.

If you can get over those issues, you are way ahead of the game. In that case, you can just read the reviews and narrow it down to the top three or so proven winners for a child of your baby’s age. Analyze your needs and priorities, pick the system that looks like the best bet, and invest about 75% of your diaper budget for the current size (newborn, right?) in that. Then after your baby gets here, tweak according to your baby’s needs with your remaining diaper allowance.

And then as your baby grows, you will have the actual child in hand, and can be even better informed as you need to move up in sizes, though in general it is still prudent to leave a little bit of diaper allowance aside for adjustments.

Customers always ask ‘how many diapers will I need?’, and the honest answers is ‘we have no idea’. Of course we have a general idea, but every baby is different and produces different amounts of poop and pee through the day.

A heavy wetter will need more diaper changes through the day to keep him dry. A baby with liberal intestines will also need more diapers than the baby who saves it all for one spectacular explosion (the almighty super-poo). The number of diapers also depends on how old your baby is and what they eat. A new breastfed baby will go through a lot more diapers than a one year old eating pizza.

When our little guy was born, my parents paid for a diaper service for 3 months and we went through 80 diapers a week. Of course we didn’t change his bottom that often, but sometimes it took 4 or 5 diapers to complete one successful diaper change. It would go something like this: phew! stinky pooper! time to change the diapy. whoa! what a mess… polish the bum, get new diapy and whoa! a fountain spraying everywhere! yuk… another diaper to clean the off baby, the wall, table, etc. get new diaper in position, grunt… awwww… phew! another mess. another diaper, re-polish bum, eeeeewwww.. another poopie! gag, yuk… sigh… clean it all up again, do a diapering ninja move to get new diapy on, quickly hand baby off to mom and disappear before the next mess. We also used the diapers for burp cloths and cleaning up other messes just because someone had the honor of washing them.

So a new baby will most likely use more diapers than an older baby. If you buy infant prefolds and baby grows out of them, you can still use them as doublers or inserts for pocket diapers to wring more use out of them, saving even more money over time.

- Jimmy

copyright 2005 Cotton Babies, Inc. - How many diapers

When new moms call and ask about what kind of cloth diapers they should buy, they are typically focused on a single product. They want to know how many Fuzzi Bunz they should get, or how many Kissaluvs, etc. When I tell them cloth diapering is more of a system than a “how many” question, they are intrigued because they haven’t thought of it that way. They’ve read the reviews and are trying to settle on a type of diaper to use. But what comes out of the baby changes over time and even through the day, so only having one type of diaper to use is like only washing dishes with a thin hand towel. Sure it works for washing most things, but when the gnarly container of leftover spaghetti with crusties on the sides and liquefied mushrooms presents itself to the sink, a spatula and scrubber sure would be nice.

Diapers are the same way. Fuzzi Bunz work great for overnight and will even stop the super-poo, but most people don’t have or can’t afford a full stash of Fuzzi Bunz. My favorite defense for the super-poo - a Chinese prefold, snappi and dappi cover (or bummis cover for toddlers) is affordable, but just won’t cut it for overnight because baby, their jammies, their blankets and mattress will be soaking wet in the middle of the night.

A more rounded collection of cloth diapers is best for mom’s sanity and baby. For new babies, I recommend a sizeable stack of prefolds (Chinese or Indian), snappis, and prorap covers for daytime. For overnight, a Fuzzi Bunz is nice and soft and will keep baby’s bum dry. As baby gets older, eats more solids and their poo stiffens, you will probably find yourself shifting to more Fuzzi Bunz since they are much easier to use and typically last longer between changes while still keeping their bums dry.

Prefolds are a great investment and a necessary part of any cloth diaper stash because they are so versatile. They not only work great as a diaper, but are also useful as burp cloths, puke deflectors/containment systems, changing pads, and of course wiping the pee off the wall (if you have a boy).

- Jimmy

copyright 2005 Cotton Babies, Inc. - Cloth diapering is a system

One of the most frustrating things for a new mom doing her cloth diaper research online has to be deciphering the alphabet soup of abbreviations floating around the discussion forums. If a line like ‘my DH uses CPFs but I prefer FBs and roos’ makes you go hmmm, this little piece of blogery is for you.

Here are some of the more common terms you’ll see floating around about cloth diapers online:

AIO – All In One diapers (diaper with waterproof outer and absorbent inner all in one piece.
Aplix – hook and loop fastener a-la Velcro
CD – Cloth Diaper
CPF – Chinese Prefold
Flats - Birdseye Flats - single layer diaper you fold like oragami for max absorbancy
DD, ‘sposies - Disposable Diapers
ISO - In Search Of
FB - Fuzzi Bunz pocket diaper
FSOT - For sale or trade…
Nappy - Nappy is the European word for diaper.
OSD - One size diaper
Pocket Diaper - A pocket diaper is usually made of two layers of fabric sewn together to form a pocket for an absorbent insert.
UBCPF - Unbleached Chinese Prefold Diaper
WAHM - Work At Home Mom
DH (or DW, DS, DD) – Dear husband/wife/song/daughter
Roos – Wonderoos
NB – Newborn
Stash – pile of cloth diapers someone owns
MFI – Microfiber inserts
Fluff – Cloth diaper stuff
Fluffy Mail – Mail containing cloth diapers
OT – Off Topic
Fitted – Cloth diaper with sides cut in so they don’t have to be folded and elastic in the legs
Contour – Cloth diaper with sides cut in with out the elastic
Inserts – the absorbent pad that goes inside a pocket diaper

There are others, but this will help you get started. There is a more compehensive list of diapering definitions over at Cotton Babies if you’d like to read more about the different types of diapers.

Happy Decoding!

Jimmy

Copyright 2005 Cotton Babies, Inc. – Cloth Diaper Alphabet Soup

When people think about cloth diapers, they think of sticky vinyl pants and big scarey pins better suited for shish-ka-bobs. If you tell someone you use cloth diapers, they get a quirky look on their face and think you’re a little strange. Using cloth diapers really isn’t that bad and regular people still use them.

Back in the day, cloth diapering didn’t have many options. If you wanted to cloth diaper, you bought some cotton prefolds, pins, and covers. Today, technology and creative moms are moving cloth diapers forward. We have things like Fuzzi Bunz, inserts, All-In-Ones and contours to choose from.

For a mom new to cloth diapering, all of these options and the alphabet soup of terms can be overwhelming. Blogs are moving the web forward, and we thought it would be fun to share our knowledge, thoughts and experiences from changing countless poopy diapers and running our little business with the cloth diapering moms out there.

If you have questions about the myriad of options out there, you can post them in our forum, send us an email, or call us at 1-888-33-BABIES. We will be answering a lot of them here, so check back often to see what’s new!

- Jimmy

“Keep smiling, it makes everyone wonder what you’re up to.”

copyright 2005 Cotton Babies, Inc - People still use cloth diapers