Now, I’m an experienced cloth diaperer. I’ve been cloth diapering straight for over five years, with only a two month break when Ellery up and potty trained herself before Asher was born. Asher is my third kid in cloth diapers, and let me tell you, I thought I’d conquered every challenge related to diapering. Climbed every mountain, forded every stream, followed every rainbow, etc etc etc.
Turns out, I was wrong.
Meet Asher. (That’s him at three months, taken last week. Cute, huh?) He’s a boy. Our first boy. And boys pee differently than girls, right? Like, if you use disposable diapers with a boy, you find yourself tempted to turn the diaper around and use it again–because the back half to two-thirds of the diaper is BONE DRY. I kid you not. (I haven’t actually re-used a diaper, so don’t go freak out on me.)
If you cloth diaper, like we do, you’ll find that you need to double up on the absorbency up front while needing nearly nothing out back (except for poo days, which are an entirely different post altogether). No problem. We’re dealing just fine with this change.
But we have a massive diaper problem with this kiddo. Maybe it’s because he’s a boy, or maybe it’s just because he’s Asher–but whatever the cause, this kid cannot wake up dry in the morning. Will not. Can’t. We have changed our sheets more in the past three months than I think we ever did in our seven years of marriage prior to that.
It’s not that he sleeps through the night (ha! ha ha ha!), but more that we just don’t change diapers in the middle of the night unless they’ve pooped. It wakes ‘em up too much, plus, we’re lazy and sleepy.
I’m pretty sure I’ve tried everything. It’s gotten to the point that adding any more diapers to his bottom would likely cause him back problems, because he can’t lie flat with all the bulk on his tush. With my girls, I could triple up the prefolds (yes, triple) and cover with a sturdy wool cover (Aristocrats have always worked perfectly for us) and we would always wake up dry. But that was when they were toddlers. Asher’s kind of small to have all those diapers on without being uncomfortable.
So for the first time ever, we resorted to disposables at night. I know, I know. But we were desperate. Only, get this: disposables didn’t work, either. We tried many different brands, even sizing up to get more diaper on him. Still wet. Some nights, we would get wet twice, requiring multiple clothes, diaper, and sheet changes. It drove me mad. It about killed me to plunk down money for disposables when we have a full stash of cloth diapers at home, but it was even harder after the first few brands just plain didn’t work.
But there is hope. And hope is called Luvs. We have had several dry nights in Luvs size fours! Amazing!
This buys me some time to design some sort of cloth diaper that will work for him at night without giving him spinal problems. I have some hemp fleece and cotton flannel that I’m thinking of sewing together in some combination. Both are very thirsty fabrics. Now I just have to find time to sew!
I just recently have been able to stop changing Jesse during the night. He would always wake up wet too. He has always been a good sleeper so I would just gently get him out of his crib and change him as quick as possible before I went to bed. Every night I would do this till just about 3 or 4 weeks ago. Not sure if the bigger diapers are helping or what but we have very few wet mornings now. So I guess what I am saying is that maybe boys pee more? Ha anyway you might just have to change his diaper at night once. It worked for us!
I am shocked! I thought that Sydney peed a lot when I would take off a HEAVY diaper that was puffed-up enough to be a floatation device. I have to say though that we have never gone through a diaper because it couldn’t absorb enough. Wow!
Well, being the mother of two heavy-wetting boys, I didn’t realize there existed children who didn’t need to be changed in the middle of the night.
I’ve tried lots of different things and found disposables to be the worst (though I never tried Luvs.) For a while I was using pocket diapers stuffed with two extra doublers. But Noah is very sensitive to being wet, so right now my strategy is change him when he’s wet and then he sleeps until he’s wet again. When I didn’t change him he’d stir and want to nurse every hour. What, child? You are not a newborn anymore! So now we’re at 1am, 4am, and 7am. I consider that good for now (though sometimes he wakes at other times and I just tell him to go back to sleep and pat him.)
It was only the night weaning that reduced Jonathan’s nighttime output such that there is no more changing during the night.
I guess this will not be such an encouraging comment for you, but I recommend you change him when he nurses – it’s not really so bad if you’re awake (even half) anyway for nursing.
I agree. Cut down on night feeding if you’re ready for that, but nurse on one side and then change (yes, he’ll wake up a bit) but then when you nurse on the other side he should be back to sleep in no time! I also had to move my 3 month old to size 4!
We had the same problems with our son, although not as bad because we were using disposables. I really think boys pee all around the diaper. Nolan would wet out the leg constantly, no matter how we put the diaper on. We moved him up a size at night, which helped some. Sorry no real suggestions!
Oh, just want to make sure you are tucking “it” down before you put the diaper on. That makes a huge difference too!
Hey, I had this problem also with a boy! We tried a double cloth diaper when we stopped changing him in the night and that did not work. The we tried pampers and huggies and they both leaked by morning. As a last resort I did cover up the pampers with the outside wrap from my cloth diapers and that worked well. Now he seems not to drink so much at night so he is really wet in the morning but does not leak even w/o the cover. My biggest problem has been cleaning the poo off of his diapers and there covers! He poos up to 4 times a day and a lot! Oh well, at least I don’t have to worry about him not pooing.
Glad you found a solution for now.
It’s actually encouraging to know that we’re not the only parents with that sort of problem with our boy!
We’ve had to deal with this until just here recently when rewards started working to keep him from soaking out (he’s now 3-1/2). He still fills his diaper to the brim, but now that he’s got a good handle on potty training (as far as #1 goes), he can stop himself from peeing out in the mornings. RD would sometimes change him right before we went to bed- but he’s a pro at changing kids and having them not wake up completely. I’ve never had that finesse.
Luvs, eh?…
[...] is a very, very heavy wetter. I have to change his diaper very often throughout the day, and he’s been challenging to keep [...]
I babysat for two LLL— Le leche League mothers, and both used cloth diapers in their homes. One had diapers simular to the ones you use requiring only one safety pin, but hers fastened with the aid of Velcro strips, while the other mother was more traditional and used prefolds with two pins. Both used old-fashioned pull-on elastic style rubber pants over the diapers.
I found the Velcro to be quick and easy, but if I were raising children I would use pins. The pins kept the diapers snug and secure. I would also use rubber pants instead of wraps or covers. Very nice blog.
Candra.
Hi there. I have the same problem and was going to switch to wool…. I have been putting 2 inserts in my pockets and another on the outside and no matter what my lo still wakes up in a puddle! I dont nurse either! So I dont know what the deal is. My oldest never wet like that at night he pretty much held it until morning. In any case if you find a system that works pleeeeeease let me know. I have tried any brand of disposable that you can think of but JE just gets a diaper rash with all of them. Plus the disposables smell sooooo bad to me. Its like getting hit in the face every morning! EEEEwe!