Making overnight diapers

[colsxjack]

Hello.
Our DD is 6 months old. We have been cloth diapering from birth.
At this point due to money and time we are using a service for pre-folds (we do not own a washer and have to use a laundromat).
I am looking for something to use as an overnight diaper. At this point a a prefold folded into thirds and used as a soaker in another prefold seems to work...its just too big and bulky for DD.

We are hoping to find something that can last the night without a change, if possible. We co-sleep and DD does wake to feed, but she is just fed without DW getting up or fully waking up and we would love to be able to keep it this way. And we do not want her to leak in our bed.

What is the best fabric to use for an overnight diaper or soaker? We are hoping to make something for nights and continue on with the service for days.

Thanks.

[Cetan Luta]

My 2nd son was a heavy night wetter, and the most helpful thing I found were wool diaper covers. They breathe, so it takes longer for them to get quite as wet, they are warm even when wet, and it made the exact same diaper last much longer than with plastic pants or even good velcro covers did.
Also sometimes you can get good diaper liners that are highly absorbent and relatively slim (compared to prefolds) to add some extra layers with less bulk. It's been awhile though, so I'm afraid I don't know the best ones to recomend. HTH

[npl]

I find night time diapers require more cleaning than day-time diapers, because of more concentrated urine (and more of it). So my suggestion would be to find another way to may your diaper-service diapers work overnight.
Is your dd in infant or regular sized diapers? If she is in regular, you can probably get the diaper service to provide some infants, too, to use a doublers to add absorbancy with less bulk.
And, although I never used wool (yet), I'm thinking that would be a good cover solution for you, because of the leak-proof properties and the ease of washing. If you don't want to invest in wool, you might find a decent fleece option that would be easy to wash with your clothes. Don't have recommendations, though!

[ccknox]

I've tried to make super absorbent night diapers and it's always been a fail. I bough one that is super think and great but is hard to wash and takes forever to dry! Main issues I couldn't overcome were getting the legs small enough while having the rise long enough...and getting it all to stay up!

I second the recomendation to get some extra sizes for PF's. For my DD I use a flat as my doubler because I found that with girls you really need to get it fairly narrow between their legs or the pee runs to werid places as you nurse them during the night. Then as she got bigger I have added a newborn/ premie PF inside the flat, the extra layers folded like a pad in the middle. I use a larger size PF over it all and snappi it as tight around her waist as I can get it. Then I cover with wool that is also sized up. I have wool shirt that I use on the top but occasionally I use cotton ones. No onsies or sleeper things all the compression causes leaks. While you work out how many layers of what size you need...you can put a double sided fleece blanket under you DD to get extra dry bed reasurance...little leak won't go through it.

Going night wool...you want something stretchy to get over all the bluk and a waist and rise that will work with the layers you need. The wool isn't bad to take care of. I love the Little Beetle Pants...they are two layers...one is underware like and the other is pants like. They are easy to care for and don't shrink! I also love Ruskovilla, again two layers but the whole pants are they have a high waist which is great for bulking up and keeping their tummy warm...especially when a cold wet diaper is under it, I've not cared for them as well and had some srinkage though. You should be able to either get a wool sweater at a thrift store or order some wool interlock to make up bottoms/ cover easily...you can just use a pants pattern.

Then if you really need leak protection for heavy wetting...you use two wool covers...I used an aristocrat and Ruskovilla pants with my first for a few months when we had major flooding going on.