Cloth Diapering Lesson 1- Using Prefolds

Ok folks, I never thought I'd be the type of mom to use cloth. I'm just not that crunchy. Yea, I breastfeed, use alternative vaccine schedules, and make my own baby food, but I don't limit myself to organic products, don't worry about GMOs and don't cloth diaper...until now.

When we got pregnant with Benjamin, it became a matter of necessity, not a feel good thing for the environment or my baby's bum- though I still don't like finding those gell beads on them from disposables. If we were going to afford this 2nd baby, I would need to exclusively breastfeed, and use cloth to reduce our diaper bills. So, I use cloth during the day, and 2 or 3 disposables at night. This saves us about 6 daytime disposables every day. That adds up. Oh, and I use disposables when we're out of the house, cuz carrying around poopy cloth diapers is just yucky. I might get over that someday, too, though.

So, what do I use? The world of cloth diapering has gotten quite large. It's not your grandma's flats with safety pins and rubber pants any more. Let's see, there are flats or prefolds with covers, all in ones, all in twos, pocket diapers, and a lot more. You can get soakers to use with prefolds; you can use flushable liners to catch poopy. You can even skip washing almost all together by using biodegradable/flushable inserts with covers. This is going to pretty much eliminate the cost efficiency of it, though. For our family, the cheapest and easiest solution was prefolds (we like Osocozy Unbleached Indian Prefolds) with covers (Thirsties Duo Wraps are our faves).

I bought all of our products on Amazon.com, and spent about $100 to hold us through the first 6 months (hopefully). This included 1 dozen infant sized prefolds, and 2 dozen regulars, as well as 5 covers (4 Thirsties, and 1 Blueberry). I like the Blueberry cover as well, but it did cost more, and was not suitable for him until he got to about 12 lbs. The leg gussets are still a bit loose at 14 lbs.

So let's get started. First, lay the prefold flat underneath baby's bum. I like to fold the edge down about an inch for extra protection for those wild breastfed poops. Line the edge up about to baby's belly button level.

Ok, I'll be demonstrating an angel wing fold. Other suitable folds for catching breastmilk poop include the jellyroll and bikini twist. For the angel wing fold, you'll fold each side of the prefold to the center, creating "wings" up to the waist. Here, I'll show you...

Great! Once you get to this point, just pull the folded material up through baby's legs snuggly. My diapers are still a bit big, plus I like added absorbancy in the front for my boy, so I fold the front down as well.

Once you do this part, it's just a matter of hooking it all together with a Snappi. I didn't mention Snappies earlier, but I got mine off Amazon, as well.

The angel wing fold is great because the wings form gussets that hold nice and tight to baby's thighs.

Now just snap or velcro your cover on over the prefold. Be sure to tuck in the prefold, so that none of it is showing out of the cover. Otherwise, you'll leak.

Now, you're done! That's one type of fold for one style of cloth diapering. I''ll get more in depth and discuss various other folds and options another time. Thanks for reading; be sure to tell me your favorite fold  or favorite cloth diaper! And a big thanks to Benny for his cooperation :)