Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love cloth diapers. We’ve had an amazing experience with prefolds, and we are a lot less broke because of them. Now, though, we’ve become spoiled.
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A while back we decided that Axel was doing well enough with EC (elimination communication) to start wearing underwear. Or, at least, something similar to training pants, with a little padding. Sad thing was that the cheapest “baby” training underpants I could find were $4 a pair! There was no way I was paying that. My really nice prefolds were only about $2.50 each, so it didn’t make sense to spend that kind of money on tiny underwear.
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Patrick had the great idea to buy some regular undies, and sew cut up cloth dipes into them. We went to Walmart to buy the whitey tighties, but the smallest size we could find was 4t. We bought them anyway, figuring we could probably shrink them pretty good in the dryer. After successfully shrinking them, we cut up some prefolds into thirds, and went to a friend’s house to use her sewing machine. That’s when the problems started.
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The thing is, I had never used a sewing machine, and had to be taught how to use it in roughly 15 minutes. Needless to say, I must not have been the best student, because that stupid little wheel thingy at the bottom kept falling off, and my needle kept losing it’s thread. I spent so much time and energy trying to sew those darn things, but after 3 hours of frustration, I gave up. I wasn’t a complete failure, as I did end up with 9 pairs completely finished. Granted, they look terrible, but they serve their purpose well enough.
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The sewing episode took place about 6-8 weeks ago, and we haven’t touched the subject since. My husband is starting to get really annoyed with the the bulky prefolds. The underwear are so much easier because you don’t have to worry about snappis, or finding a place to lay Axel down to put on his diaper. You can just pull the things on and off in a few seconds. Plus, Patrick loves walking Axel, and the prefolds make it harder for him to do so comfortably. (By “walking”, I mean holding Axel’s hands while he walks.)
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Anyway, point being is that I need to get to another sewing machine and finish these things! Having the remaining 10 pair finished would make a world of difference, especially since Patrick does whatever he can to avoid using the prefolds, even if that means washing the underwear twice as much. (Which is ridiculous!)
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So, my official New Year’s resolution is to have the underwear done before the new year. That’s ironic.
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Also, just FYI, these homemade training pants are really inexpensive. We bought a pack of 6 undies at Walmart for about $5, and then we cut up our newborn prefolds into 3 pieces, and seamed the edges closed. Those prefolds were about $2 each, so, divide that by 3 and add it to the underwear cost. In the end, they came out to be about $1.35 each. A good deal, if you ask me, and so worth the effort!
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Way to go! Elimination communication really is an exciting process. We love it. (Although, we have our off days for sure!) I would suggest trying to find 2-3t underwear and shrinking them. The smallest we were able to find was 4t and they are still too big, especially now since our son is thinning out. One other thing- we bought our underwear from Walmart and they are falling apart. It would probably worth a few extra bucks to get better quality underwear. TJMaxx is a great place! Let me know how it goes!
My daughter is 7 months and we started EC by accident. I was starting to dress her after her bath and she started to have a BM. 2 days previous I watched a documentary about it… but I can’t remember where I found it online. Anyho, I watched how the mother straddled the toilet and held the baby over so they could ‘go’. This is what I did and she had her first BM in the toilet… since then I have done a bunch more reading and she has sucessfully gone #1 & #2 multiple times. I am on the hunt now for a pair of pull up cloth diapers for her cause putting a disposible on and off soooo many times each day is not fun. I think I’ll give this a try…. off to Walmart I go!
Liquid stitch, huh? Never heard of it… I’ll have to check it out. The only problem would be that we have to wash the diapers in hot water, and they are washed quite a bit. Wonder if it would wear off? I may end up buying a tube, and testing it out in the near future. Thanks for the tip!
lol, I can relate to not knowing how to use a sewing machine. My baby is due in august and I was thinking of sewing my own cloth diapers and making some baby outfits. I have never sewn in my life and the one time I tried I completely ruined the project I was working on and somehow sewed my sleeve to the cloth!
I have two words for you: LIQUID STITCH!!!
It’s this little $2-3 tube in the Walmart sewing section and goes exactly where the thread would, so you at least need to make sure you know how to do basic construction of the item as if you were going to make it on a sewing machine (i.e. turn it inside out when sewing for a seamless look). I made my son’s little toddler pillow case in about hour — after already having measured the pillow and getting the fabric — which simply took cutting to size and placing the liquid stitch. It recommends taking a full 24 hours to dry and I still have NO IDEA how well it washes as he keeps his pillowcase very clean (wish I could say the same for my fiance *lol*) but it’s definitely worth a shot because it can be used for just about anything, is extremely strong, and seems as though it would wash well in cold water. Good luck!
I totally agree about loving the little undies! Or trainers… My daughter is 17 months old now and we’ve done the underwear-only thing for the last 4 months or so…SO NICE! (We got a friend to send us some from the UK! 18mo-24mo instead of the 2T-3T we could find here. Still “walmart” cheap and so cute! and they FIT! yay!!) EC rocks!