Cloth Diapering At Night

One big challenge for many cloth diapering mamas is handling night time. Some mommies are lucky and they can continue to use their daytime cloth diaper system that they use during the day for night time maybe with an added hemp doubler. However, for any mama of an extreme heavy wetter and side sleeper (or tummy sleeper), that doesn't work. Saying that J is a heavy wetter is an understatement; my child pees like a racehorse to the point where I have tried many combos that did not work. It took a lot of trial and error to figure out what would work. There are cloth diapering mamas who use disposable at night, but even those don't work for J. I have tried going up a size in a disposable, using 2 disposables, using special night time disposables, and he has always woken up pretty damp on his left side because he sleeps on his side at night. It makes sense, if you think about it. Look inside of a disposable and you'll see that there is usually blue dye/crystals all along the front and back of the diaper because those are the soaking zones; there really aren't noticeable chemicals for absorbing along the sides.

When it came to cloth, I quickly learned that my daytime pocket diapers wouldn't cut it for night (and I did try to make it work). Why not? Pocket diapers are only absorbent where the insert is located, which does nothing for a side sleeper. After emailing a few cloth diaper retailers, I opted to try the Happy Hempy diaper because it is one of the more inexpensive fitted pocket diapers and comes with a stay-dry lining. Figuring out how to stuff it in order to keep J from waking up with a sopping diaper, soaked sleepsack, and sheets drenched in urine definitely took some time and playing around with different options. And my stuffing combo has changed over time because J pees much differently now at the age of 14 months than he did when he was only 8 months old. For all of them, I used a wool soaker over top: I have one made by a wahm on etsy, a largeAristocrats soaker, and an extra large Disana soaker.

First, I tried a loopy do insert made by Knickerknappies which is boasted to be great for heavy wetters. Nope, still had a wet baby and wet sheets in the am. Then I tried a toddler-sized OsoCozy prefold  trifolded inside, but still had the soaked sheets. After that, I tried 3 premium joey bunz insert thinking I needed to go more trim with the stuffing and J was wetter than ever in the morning.

Finally, I found the answer: a premium Joey Bunz insert trifolded into a toddler OsoCozy prefold stuffed into the hempy with the xl Disana soaker over top. Only the Disana soaker works well since J is such a big boy and the bigger soaker just seems to help. I need to get a second one! :)

  Above: XL Happy Hempy, Joey Bunz premium insert, toddler-sized OsoCozy prefold trifolded 

(I generally stick the joey bunz into the prefold before trifolding)

                                             Fully stuffed diaper - yes, it's pretty darn big :)

                                                     My wonderful Disana xl soaker

It was so amazing when J actually slept til 6:30 AM and woke up with completely dry sheets and a dry sleepsack! If you've ever had an extreme heavy wetter, you'll know the feeling when you find a great night time diaper combo for your little one! 

Yes, my son has an extremely fluffy butt to the point where he resembles some sort of Dr Seuss character, but this is the first time he has woken up in the am totally dry. I don't even get that from disposables. Nothing beats having a child with dry sheets and completely dry pajamas, with no odor of foul-toddler urine on his skin.

Happy diapering!!!