Recently I asked you all to submit your questions to me, the self proclaimed Queen of the Cloth!  I have answered them all here publicly so that perhaps someone else can benefit.  If anyone else has ideas to help these lovely ladies feel free to jump in.  I can only speak from personal experience.

Stephanie Haynes: “My 15 month old daughter sleeps 12 hours at night (which I am SO thankful for, especially with a newborn too). We’ve been battling diaper rash with her and I’m concerned that it gets worse when she sits in a wet or dirty diaper at night. I don’t want to wake her to change her diaper, so I’ve been trying to figure out a better night time cloth diaper solution. I’ve been using fleece liners, but would love more suggestions. What are some stay-dry cloth diapers that are great for night time?”

I have recently come into possesion of a Lollidoo Cloth Diaper.  This diaper has a really great layer of fleece that feels very dry to the touch after use.  Since it is fleece it will also be perfect for nights.  You can use the Lollidoo inserts or add whatever you use at home.  Another suggestion would be to use some sort of disposable insert like the Flip, against her skin.  It will add absorbancy and because it has SAP it should keep her skin very dry.  This would be a last ditch effort but your baby’s skin is the most important thing!  I’m sure she is super stuffed if she sleeps that long!  I am way jealous btw 😉  I’m sure you have considered all of the causes of her diaper rash.  I personally use California Baby and never use liners.  Although it is rare we have to use it when we do we haven’t experienced any repelling or discoloration.  Maybe one way to help her rash would be having 20-30 minutes of diaper free time right before bed and after she wakes up.  Good luck Stephanie!

Mama Campbell: How do you use essential oils (like lavendar) in the diaper pail? Don’t they create buildup when you wash them all together? I’m tired of my hubby complaining of the smell in the pail when I open the lid to throw another in and heard this may help. Thank you!

If you have a diaper pail liner like a Wahmies there is a patch of cotton that you can add 2-3 drops of scented oils to.  This is personally what I use, and I have found that even though at first when you apply the oil it is very strong, it still can’t mask the dirty diaper smell when you open the lid.  I have not, however, experienced any buildup or repelling.  The amount of the oils is minute.  Another suggestion would be pail sprinkles of dust that you can add in at any time.  Crunchy Clean and Rockin’ Green both have great scents!  If your pail gets stinky sprinkle some in.  The sad fact is that men are almost always going to complain about the smell.  They are such babies about stuff like that!  Mine gags!

If you didn’t see, another commenter, Krystal, gave her solution!

“Oh! and for the person who asked about using essential oil for a stinky pail, I put a couple drops on a dry cloth wipe and throw that in the top of the pail and it works pretty well.”

Meg: Kim, I am finding that my diapers with bigger leg holes such as Rocky Mountain’s leak. Am I doing something wrong or have you run into this problem before? Thanks!

Meg, the Rocky Mountain OS uses leg elastic to adjust the size.  I am surprised you are having issues with the leg openings being too large.  How does the rise fit?  With mine I know my son is in between two sizes, and we had some leaks at the very beginning.  I used an extra insert to add some bulk to fill in the gap between sizes and that solved our problem.  I also used to have many, many leaks in our Happy Heineys.  Those really do have larger leg openings and didn’t fit my son’s legs on the newborn rise setting until 5-6 months.  It is probably nothing you are doing.  The Rocky Mountain doesn’t have the tight leg elastic but it is ruffled.  That could be part of the problem.  You might want to use some that have the leg elastic encased, which makes a nice tight fit around the legs.  Bum Genius 3.0, Softbums, Smartipants, Gro Baby all would work well.  Gro Baby have the smallest leg openings I have seen.  I hope that helps!  Don’t give up, you will get it working or it will fit your baby better soon.

Krystal: I have a silly question about pocket diapers. Most of the time, I don’t even stuff them. I will just use the diaper as a shell and put the soaker inside (or a prefold or whatever) so that the actual diaper might not get wet and I can use it again.

At night, or when I’m using an extra soaker or doubler, I will stuff one inside the pocket and have one just laying in the diaper.

What, if any, are the benefits of actually stuffing the soaker/prefold into the pocket as opposed to just laying it inside the diaper?

Thanks,
Krystal

As long as you are fine airing your pockets out if the liners get wet, like the microfleece or suedecloth, there isn’t anything wrong with using them this way.  I only caution you to not put the microfiber soakers directly against the baby’s skin.  Microfiber is so absorbent that it will soak the urine up as well as the natural oils and moisture in your baby’s skin.  This will give your baby a terrible rash!  Once my husband put a Softbums on my son but folded it with the microfiber side up rather than the microfleece side.  When I changed him next his skin was bright red.  Prefolds are great and I’m sure they work well that way.  I’m always been curious if you could cut the suedecloth out of a pocket diaper to the elastic and use it as a cover.  I’ve just never been brave enough to try!  Other than the stay dry aspect and the fact that having a pocket prestuffed is convenient for changing, there are no other benefits.  Neat idea!

Lyla: I have been using disposables at night but want to switch to cloth – can you recommend a system that will keep my baby dry?

Lyla, any diaper with a suedecloth or microfleece liner will wick moisture away from baby’s skin.  This is great for keeping them dry, but if they have even the slightest amount of soap buildup they might repel and leak.  The reason I like fitteds so much for mights is that they are the most absorbent and I have yet to really have a bad leak with them.  Suedecloth and Microfleece have given me many headaches and forced me to wash my sheets birght and early.  Sometimes a diaper that works great for daytime might leak at night.  If the urine comes out very quickly it could roll off the liner before being absorbed by the insert.  You also have the option to use fleece liners with fitteds if you want the best of both worlds.  Happy Hempy’s fitteds are already fleece lined.  Dream-Eze are All in Ones that are fleece lined, but you might need more absorbency than that for nights.  Night time cloth diapering is the most challenging, but I wish you much success!