Does Your Cloth Diapering System Leak at Night?

One of the most common emails I get is from frustrated parents that are waking up at night with wet sheets and a wet baby.  They are sleep deprived most of the time as it is, and they have tried many things only to end up in frustration and often resort back to disposable diapers at night.  Getting a good diapering routine can be a bit of a challenge..... believe me I know!  One big reason why leaks are so much more prominent at night is that as your little one sleeps soundly, they begin to hold urine for longer periods of time.  Then when they go, they really GO.  If you don't have an adequate diapering solution in place and ready for the flood, you probably will experience leaks around the legs and front.

There are many successful ways to cloth diaper at night and a solution that works for one, may not work for another.  I am not going to talk about all of the options out there.... I am just going to cover using the breathable option of a fitted diaper plus wool.  Whatever option you go with, one thing is the same....It all starts with having a really good foundation with your diaper.  The diaper needs to have several layers of absorbent materials.... the more, the better.  I had posted on our Facebook page asking what diapers our customers were using with their Woollybottoms.  Since my little diapered baby is going to be 9 this year, I wanted to stay in touch with what diapers were being used successfully today.  We had an overwhelming positive response to Sustainable Babyish aka Sloomb diapers (www.sloomb.com) I have a date in a couple of weeks to talk to our local Rotary Club about Woollybottoms and cloth diapers so I needed to get my hands on a "modern" cloth diaper for show and tell and this Sloomb diaper is to be my model. I received this diaper in the mail last week and immediately I said now this is a GREAT diaper!   OK people.... look at all the layers of material in this diaper!  It is amazing!!!  I think there are 9 total layers of organic bamboo/cotton fleece in this thing.  No wonder this diaper is a success at night. There are enough layers to handle the flood your little one throws at it.  The urine is slowly absorbed through the layers without just shooting straight through everything.  In conclusion, you MUST have a good diaper with plenty of absorption power. If you have a diaper that doesn't seem to cut it, you can easily add layers!  We had success by simply tri-folding an infant prefold and laying that inside our not-so-absorbent diapers and that gave us the extra layers we needed.

So, now that you know what to look for in a diaper, you need to find the right cover.  Again, there are many options out there for covers and many of them work wonderfully!  However, nothing is going to allow air flow like wool.  I can feel some wool intimidation from some of you already and we will cover that on the next blog post :) I don't want to hear from any of you that wool is too hard to care for, too scratchy, there is no way it can hold back urine, the thought of lanolizing wool is scary, yadda yadda. Just trust me on this one OK? We will debunk the wool myths soon enough. On a wool cover, you want to make sure it is on the thicker side for overnight use.... just like the diaper.  All wool covers are not the same. An extra heavy weighted wool will help ensure you will make it through the night with dry sheets.  There are tons of wonderful options out there for wool and again, we will cover those in a future blog post.   Pictured here is a Woollybottoms pull on style soaker made from a gentle felted recycled lambswool and there is an added sewn in layer of wool in the wetzone.   This Sloomb/Woollybottoms combination is destined for success!