Overnight Cloth Diaper Solutions

[desdemona]

I'm interested to hear everyone's overnight approach. My son is 7 months and weighs almost 20 pounds and we've been cloth diapering since 10 weeks. I have always used disposables at night. During the day, we mainly use pockets, since that's what my husband likes. I stuff with mostly prefolds and that usually works well enough for about 2-3 hours.

My son doesn't really sleep through the night but also doesn't wake up enough for a diaper change. I try to do a dream feed and get him back to sleep. Basically, we need a 12 hour diaper solution (7 pm- 7 am). In the last few weeks, during the night, his disposable diapers have failed around 3 am and I've woken up to a wet, unhappy baby. We sized up to a size 4 overnight diaper, and started adding disposable diaper booster inserts. He's still leaking through the front of the diaper, while the insert and the back of the diaper are not even full. The only thing that seems to work so far is if we put a disposable booster insert inside a size 4 disposable overnight diaper, with a second size 4 disposable overnight diaper on top of that one. Part of the problem seems to be that he is a side sleeper, making it a distribution rather than capacity issue. And, yes, I make sure his penis is pointed down!



I am so frustrated, I am now willing to try a nighttime cloth diaper solution. I am interested to hear what others think would be a good approach. Since I've already spent a lot on cloth diapers it would be great to use stuff I already have. Here's some of what I have:

-GMD Workhorses (2 Medium, 3 Large)

-Nicki's Diapers Cotton Fitted (8 Large)

-Disana Wool Pull-On Cover (2)

-Cotton prefolds (GMD & Diaper Rite)

-GMD Cotton flats (birdseye & muslin)

-Southern Fluff Love 5 Layer Bamboo-Cotton/ Hemp-Cotton Extended Insert (12)

-Southern Fluff Love 5 Layer Bamboo-Cotton/ Hemp-Cotton One Size Insert (12)

-Thirsties All in Ones (5 Natural, 4 stay dry Natural)

-Various pocket diapers (Thirsties, Alva Baby, Nora's Nursery, etc.)

-Various covers (Thirsties, Diaper Rite, Rumparooz etc.)

I would really like this to be simple. Has anyone used Thirsties Natural All in Ones for overnight? I am seeing mixed opinions if this would be absorbent enough. Would it be crazy to put a cloth diaper over a disposable one? I am open to suggestions. Tell me your overnight success story.

 

[jesuslovesme527]

@desdemona Side sleepers are tough! I think you need something that seals well around the legs and make sure it’s sitting at the underwear line. I’d also add a quick absorbing cotton booster at the spot where he leaks around the bottom leg when he’s on his side. You could try a birdseye flat in a pickman fold, nice and snug, with the booster inside that, again making sure everything is sitting at the underwear line and the booster is in the trouble spot. Then put the large workhorse over that, with a hemp under the flap. Then the Disana. Or, set the hemp insert inside your largest cover and put that over the workhorse instead of the Disana.

Getting a good leg seal at the underwear line is really important for the side sleepers. If using the birdseye under the workhorse means the workhorse leg gussets aren’t snug, then you can reverse it and put the flat on the outside. You could also use a prefold instead of a flat, but I find it’s easier to get a good leg seal with a flat.

It’s bulky, but it works for us!

 

[meki]

@desdemona Gmd workhorse with a cotton bamboo overnight extended doubler and a cotton hemp insert under a wool cover. Our lo just turned a year. He’s a very heavy wetter but this set up seems to get us through 8-10 hours.

I love my eeze koala hemp cotton fitteds for overnights with the same inserts, I can usually get 12 hours out of those and baby doesn’t wake up wet. Sometimes in the workhorses his skin is pretty wet in the morning.

 

[desertfox]

@desdemona The thing we finally landed on was (not in your stash) the stay dry hemp boosters from GMD inside a workhorse under an oversized thirsties cover. You can add another insert under the cover if that's not enough, but I could never get one to stay right while I tried to get my wiggle worm ready for bed. Good luck!

 

[_ajayy_2014]

@desertfox GMD fleece/hemp overnight inserts are fantastic. Made all the difference for us

 

[desdemona]

@desertfox I do have some fleece liners and hemp boosters. I guess I forgot about those. I could put the hemp booster in the workhorse flappy part.

 

[desertfox]

@desdemona Can't hurt to try

 

[lettyvdax]

@desdemona I have a large LO and struggled with this same thing at about the same time. I may have even posted here about it. Here is the solution that finally worked for us. A lot of my stash is hand me downs so I'm not sure of the material of all my liners.

The basic is I use a stout house pocket diaper (they are bigger and my now 16m is 35lbs) a pooters xl super soaker insert, then a hemp, then something else from the hand me down pile. It's bulky and looks like it doesn't fit correctly, but it works.

I bought the whole pooters overnight system, but I couldn't fit all the stuff in the cover with such a big toddler so that's why I just use their big insert. That was a waste of money but at least I found something that worked with the big liners from the system.

I think the overnight issue may be the brand of diaper. I had to try a bunch of disposables before I found one that actually worked for my LO.

Hopefully this all makes sense? Sorry for the formatting, on mobile.

 

[lifeword]

@desdemona Of what you have, I would try using a large or medium workhorse - whichever fits more trimly - and then trifold large prefold and put it in a slightly larger cover than you usually use and make sure the gussets are relatively well sealed around the thighs.

I find thirsties a bit better for this than rumparooz because thirsties give a lot more room for padding than rumparooz,even though the thighs are also a bit looser.