Thursday, January 26, 2012

Better Sleep, Better Bum

Gabriel is 16 months old and still does not sleep through the night. He almost always wakes up 2 - 3 times a night, sometimes I'm lucky and he only wakes up once. One night it will be because he pooped or peed through his diaper, another for some unknown reason (night terror?). I had been using a Rumparooz double -stuffed pocket diaper but by 2am when he woke up it would be soaked through (some nights he made it til 6am). I finally thought- maybe if he isn't wetting through he will sleep through the night! After looking into different techniques that other moms had tried, I realized there were a lot of positive things about wool. I decided to go for it and bought 2 Disana wool covers and 7 prefold diapers just for night time use.

What you will Need:

  • Either a prefold (can be cotton, hemp, etc.) or a fitted. Fitteds are nice if you are nervous about using "old-fashioned" prefolds or overnight stays at Grandma's.
  • Something to secure the diaper, usually a snappi or diaper pins. 
  • A wool cover. The one shown in the picture is a "pull up" style cover but there are also ones that snap or velcro on for a trimmer fit. However, the pull up style does offer more coverage. 


Large Disana 100% Merino wool cover and an inexpensive chinese prefold 100% cotton.


It has been a full week of using them and I am in love! The first night he leaked real bad but that was because I didn't have the prefold on correctly. The second night he slept from 7:15pm until about 7:25am! AMAZING! The diaper and cover lasted the whole night...and the best part??? NO RED BUM!!! I mean it looked like I let him go naked all night. Even when his pocket diaper would last all night it left his butt red (probably because the PUL outer layer kept all the moister locked inside in an attempt to prevent leaks).  Over the weekend Gabriel was sick so he woke up more often, but now that he's feeling better the past few nights he has only woken up once around 3:30am and goes back to sleep until 7 or 7:30am. It is so nice to get the extra sleep since I'm taking a heavier semester this spring.


Nice comfy leg closure so no red marks :)

And in nicer weather they can be worn in place of shorts/pants!!! How cool is that?!?

If any mammas out their are looking for a night time diapering solution for your heavy-wetter, I highly recommend some sort of cotton diaper (fitted or prefold, though prefold is cheaper) and wool cover. At the beginning of my cloth diapering experience I never would have tried prefolds, they scared me; but now that I have "experience" and more confidence, I feel silly for being so intimidated by them before, they are great!

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