Cloth Diapering Solutions: Tips for Cloth Diapering with Boys, Bigger Babies, and Bedtime

Cloth diapering my daughter was a piece of cake. She never un-velcroed the diapers, she rarely leaked and was a relative breeze to potty train before she was 20 months. My son has proved to be a bit more challenging for several reasons, many of which are due to his little firehose that is already causing me grief. Here are my solutions for when cloth diapering is a little leaky.

This post may contain affiliate links. All opinions are my own. ​

My son is off-the-charts big which means he potties more at once than a featherweight baby. This means that one cloth insert is not gonna cut it at naptime and frankly during the daytime now that he is getting closer to 2 years old. There are a few things you can do if you are in a similar position.

• Use one or more disposable inserts. These are sold by diapers and are one of the many reasons I LOVE this brand. They are made from totally compostable, biodegradable stuff (I like to say tree pulp and fairy dust but really I don’t know exactly what it is) and are a bit more absorbent than the regular cloth inserts. If you are reading this, it may be because you are currently soaking through and thus washing untold numbers of cloth inserts daily and you might appreciate the information that you can use the inserts. Go ahead; it is okay! I figure that because you are already saving tons of money by using the cloth, a “splurge” of the disposable insert at nap and night is acceptable. If you use two, and/or have a boy, consider folding one in half (they come folded so this is pretty intuitive) and layering the second on top flat.

• Use a combination of cloth and disposable. You can layer a folded or flat cloth insert under a flat disposable insert with great effect. The only hang up is that you have to put one in the garbage or compost and the other in the diaper pail. Just don’t toss your cloth into the garbage can.

• Use up to 3 cloth inserts at once. No, three isn’t too much. I have a heavy boy wearing size XL diapers and 3 fits. I am almost certain 3 fits in a size large also. I put one flat cloth in, hemp side up (because the hemp is what holds the moisture, I figured it would be best to keep it away from the exterior of the diaper…this is an art, not a science so feel free to experiment), a folded cloth insert, hemp side out on top, and then a flat cloth insert on top of the first 2, with the hemp down. This makes a nice hemp core that in my approximation keeps the leaking to a very low minimum. If you do 3 at once, you may need to fold the whole thing hot dog style a bit to get the elastic edges up into the crease of Baby’s legs.

• You can try just folding one cloth insert hemp side out and layering one cloth insert on top. I use 3 at bedtime and 2 at naptime and any extended day play time.
• If you are using more than one cloth, and are thus soiling way more cloth than previously, dig into the stash of small or medium cloth inserts you have nicely stored away in a labeled box 😉 I brought out the smaller sized inserts in a moment of laundry desperation and I now use the smaller ones folded in half beneath the large inserts in the day time and it works perfectly. It really buys you a lot more laundry time.
• When diapering, make sure the elastic of the grants comes up to, if not over, the belly button. This is clutch for giving the little boy body plenty of coverage.

• For bigger or older babies who have more predictable bowel movements, I think the liners are a wise investment because they save a lot of time shaking/jiggling/soaking #2 out and off of the cloth inserts. They are kind of like a stiff paper towel that sits atop the cloth insert, next to the skin and you can just lift it out of the diaper when it is soiled. It’s very handy indeed.

If your BM intuition gets really good, you can just use them when you are expecting to need them.

As for the velcro that busy hands like to undo: I put pants on my son and he forgets about it and when I occasionally forget, it takes quite a while for him to remember what fun it is to pull at the tab. Just go for pants for a while, Mama.

If you want to read more about why in the world you would choose cloth diapers, check out this post.

Here’s my post about shopping for cloth diapers.

And here’s my post about the dirty details of cloth diapering. 

Some of the above photos are indeed affiliated links but the opinions are my own, as always, and I would never share a product with my dear readers that I don’t own and love or would love to own myself. 

What solutions can you share, Wildflowers? Share your comments in the section below! Happy diapering!