Beginning cloth diapering is a lot like beginning most things in parenthood: you learn as you go. That means making mistakes, learning from them, and hopefully getting it right.
My family began our cloth journey on our second child before she was born. Starting over again 3.5 years later, I found myself saying “Hey that wasn’t around when my firstborn was a baby” a lot. I didn’t have TikTok when my first was born, which is where I discovered that people were still cloth diapering. After going through the stages of thinking “cool but ew”, “oh it’s actually not gross”, and getting my husband on board, my next task was to decide which diapers to buy.
Fast, free shipping had me sold on one brand from Amazon, which made up my whole stash of 28 diapers. They did come quickly and were washed, prepped, and ready before my girl arrived. Once we ran out of gifted disposables at a month old, we jumped right into cloth diapering. I was so excited to get those cute diapers on my baby and quickly found that cloth diapering really was as easy as everyone said it was. Until it wasn’t.
By two months old, my daughter couldn’t go one hour in her cloth diapers without leaking, so we doubled her inserts during the day. We still changed her throughout the night, but those diapers got an insert and a flour sack towel. These solutions worked for a couple of weeks before we were back to the drawing board.
The drawing board was Facebook cloth diapering groups which, in my experience, have been quite helpful because most of the time I find that someone else has already had the same problems that I was having. The information I found particularly useful was that of natural fibers and absorbency. I discovered that the cloth diaper inserts I had been using that I thought were completely bamboo had two layers of microfiber inside which are not very absorbent.
I found that the combinations I had been failing with worked for some babies that were considerably older than mine. This is when I learned that I had what the cloth diapering community calls a “heavy wetter”. This meant that my daughter would need more absorbency to avoid leaking through her diapers.
With my newfound knowledge of absorbency and my daughter’s urine output, I scoured TikTok to make another seemingly impossible choice: which inserts to buy. I quickly found Kinder and a video showcasing their cloth diaper inserts, and I was sold. They arrived just a few days later than Amazon normally would, but the quality was so worth it. No more leaks. That is until my daughter started sleeping through the night.
My second and latest challenge was keeping her dry through the night. Facebook groups came through for me again when I found pre-flats. Cloth diaper pre-flats provide all around absorbency, can be customized with added absorbency (a yellow Kinder insert, a snake booster, and a flour sack towel is my current combo), and with a cover over the whole thing, keep me from washing crib sheets every morning.
A pre-flat is a contoured fabric diaper absorbency style that can be folded to add absorbency in the areas that your baby needs them most. Pre-flats are also great because they provide 360 degrees of absorbency. We love pre-flats for heavy wetters, especially overnight. Shop Mimi and Co. pre-flats at Kinder.
Two big snags in my short 5-month cloth diapering journey and I still felt confident enough to share my story because I’ve learned and had success. I overcame mistakes that might’ve caused me to give up had I not realized that I was not alone. If you’re struggling with cloth diapering but really want it to work, take advantage of the growing cloth diapering community and seek answers, because chances are someone else has been in your shoes.
