Adventures in Diapering

So I've been trying to write this post ALL DAY. What happened to Little Man napping all day long and Mom being able to get stuff done? Like laundry, homework, craft projects??? He slept for a few hours this morning, which of course my husband and I conked out with him on the bed, because we were so exhausted. For the past three hours he's been awake and fussy. I couldn't get him to sleep or calm down. I hand him over to my husband and in less than a minute he's passed out alseep. What in the world little man? I swear he hates me, my husband says he doesn't. He just loves his daddy. Whatever, hubby, whatever.

My husband has been big on trying the cloth diapers, something that up until now I have been avoiding. But dang are diapers expensive! So dear hubby bought a one size only diaper from Bum Genius. We gave it a try and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The diapers are about $20 a piece, so to get 5 of them it would be around $100. My husband took one look at the price tags and the diaper he purchased and decided that I could make those.

Well then...

We went to JoAnn Fabrics and holy cow what do you know? There was new line of diaper making products put out by Babyville Boutique. We looked at the cost of items and the book and I dug out all of the 40% and 50% off coupons that I had stored up. The cost of materials wasn't too expensive (about $14.99 for PUL fabric for three diapers) and I got EVERYTHING at 40 to 50% off thanks to those wonderful coupons. So the cost per diaper (not including the cost of the tools or thread) is about $3.50-$5.00 a diaper. What a difference from $20.00!

Of course, like with every big project there is a crazy snag. The fact that the Babyville Plyers were out of stock at my local JoAnns. *gasp* So I had to go to the next closest JoAnns (which was only about 20 minutes away but I didn't want to be seperated from Little One for that long). So I drove up there, grabbed one of the lose bloody plier tools, slammed down a 50% off coupon and wnet home with my prize:



Now, I was armed and ready to make my diapers!

So I opened the diaper making book (published by Babyville Boutique) to the center pages to make the flannel pocket diaper. A few things I've learned:

1. DON'T invest in the template plastic as recommended. A regular hole punch will not reach where you need to punch the holes and trying to fold the plastic down to punch them is a pain in the butt. I recommend using a piece of cardstock. Heck, even a piece of paper would be good enough.

2. It is vitally important to make sure that the plastic snaps are centered on the snap pliers. If not, you'll crack the sides of the snaps. I did this about three times, before figuring out why I kept breaking them.

3. This is the best way I've ever seen to apply snaps

4. I hate sewing elastic. What a pain.

Snap Pliers? Awesome. Highly recommend this tool and the plastic snaps, even if you are not making diapers. WAY better than sew on snaps.

The book? I'd give the instructions a 4 out of 5 stars. I would not recommend this project to beginners (although why a beginner would want to tackle diaper making is beyond me). There were some items left out in the instructions (such as leaving space at the top of the diaper to turn it right side out) that would leave a rookie confused and with a mess on his/her hands.

One thing that really bothers me is that there are several places in the pattern book where they tell you to reference their website. Guess what? Their website says "COMING SOON". In this day and age I think its important to make sure that your website is up and running before your product hits the shelves, especially if you're telling people in your book to go to your website for more information!

But I digress, overall I am very impressed with Babyville Boutique and went back to JoAnns today to get more PUL fabric in order to make some more diapers.

It took about three hours (working here and there) to make the diaper and the soaker yesterday. I had to keep stopping because Little Man needed to eat (I'm convinced that he's going through a growth spurt because I swear he's constantly attached to me). I started with the diaper. I couldn't find microfleece at the fabric stores, so I ended up using flannel.


(somehow I messed up on the wings and I had to move my snaps back on the wings in order to make it a successful diaper.





After succesfully completing the diaper I started on the soaker (super easy):


I didn't want to test it out over night so we tested it out first thing this morning. I made the small diaper and the small soaker. He has some room to grow into it but not much, since I messed up on the wings. About five seconds after I put him in it, he pooped. I was hoping to test it out with some urine (what has motherhood done to me?) to see if it was as absorbant as it needed to be and if the legs were tight enough to keep it in the diaper. Oh well. Its being washed, so I'll update later with how it held up in the wash.

I wanted to try and make a one size only diaper today, but the Little Man is refusing to sleep. Its 10:45 at night and he's back to being cranky...