Better late than never

When my children were babies, I did the research and I knew that cloth diapers were healthier and better for the environment. But when there is a newborn baby in the house, disposable diapers are just so much more convenient. I wanted to spend all my extra time catching up on sleep, not doing laundry. I did have a set of cloth diapers, but they were only used as burp rags.

Fast forward four years from when my youngest was born, and I have found a use for those old cloth diapers! My son has been potty trained for a year now, but he still has occasional night time accidents. As such, we have kept him in the pull-up style diapers at night, every night. They can be reused a couple of times if there was no accident, but they get a bit fuzzy after that. Pull-ups cost much more than diapers, even if you buy the generic brands, so I was anxious to find an alternative.

So I came up with a homemade pull-up. I take a cloth diaper and fold it over to make a thick strip. Then I have him hold it on himself, covering from under the belly button on down between the legs, while I help pull up his regular underwear on top. Then he wears a pair of plastic over-pants, topped of with the pajama pants. So far, this has worked quite well, and the clean up isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

If he wakes with wetness, we soak the items in a bucket filled with water and a splash of bleach. I swirl it around for a minute, then dump the water. Then I rinse everything with plain water, wring out, and hang it to dry. When they are dry, I put them in the hamper to be washed at the end of the week with the rest of the laundry.