Category : Flats

Affiliates Cloth Diapers Flat Diapers Flats Flats Challenge Made in the USA Natural Fiber Natural Fiber Diapers Review

Hemp Babies Flats/Flat Cloth Diapers Review

hemp babies flats 1

I’m feeling OK about the Birdseye flats and flour sack towels I bought for the flats challenge, but I was worried about how to make flats work at night.

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Affiliates Cloth Diapers Flat Diapers Flats Flats Challenge Review

Flour Sack Towels as Flat Cloth Diapers / Comparison to Birdseye Flats

flour sack towels 1 vs birdseye

As you may already know, I signed up for the flats challenge and I needed more flats. I’d never used a flour sack towel as a flat cloth diaper, and wondered how they compared to Birdseye flats (especially since they are often priced similarly.)

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Affiliates Cloth Diapering Flat Diapers Flats Flats Challenge

I Signed Up For the 2nd Annual Flats Challenge!

flats challenge

In case you missed the announcement, May 21-27 is the 2nd annual flats challenge, hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry.

I did not participate last year. It is the week of my son’s birthday, and I was also pregnant/sick/exhausted. The idea of mastering flats & hand-washing diapers for a week made me feel nauseated (more so than usual, hee-hee.) When Kim announced that she’d be hosting the challenge again this year, I immediately thought I’d support it, but wouldn’t participate. No way, no how! After all, it is again my son’s birthday week, and I have two super-soaker boys in diapers now! My little guy is 4.5 months old right now and still wants to be held/worn all the time. I am honestly struggling with meeting his needs, while also meeting my older son’s needs (mostly constant feeding, LOL!) and getting my daughter to and from school and activities, getting her homework done etc. I am completely overwhelmed with keeping up with junk cleanup, dishes, cleaning and the constant laundry. Washing diapers for 2 is a lot, even with a washing machine. The other day my husband remarked that the laundry room looked empty without diapers hanging, LOL.

I also don’t have enough flats to use, and I assume I’d need to use my tub to wash, which would be an extra hassle to deal with the kids and running up & down the stairs. I don’t know if I even have enough places to hang up that many flats! Excuse after excuse, I know! It sounds crazy, but the idea of using & hand washing flats for a week ramped my anxiety up 10 notches and made me feel physically ill.

Then I started thinking about what it would be like if this was my reality and it made me want to try! I took a deep breath, hit the submit button on the sign up form, and ordered some flour sack towels to use as flats. Eek!

Since then, I found out that we are allowed to use a diaper sprayer this year (it wasn’t allowed last year) and we’re not limited to the # of covers we use (the limit was 5 last year.) I only have a couple of wipeable covers, since I sent what I wasn’t regularly using to my friend. I was concerned about keeping covers clean, and I was also concerned about my older son freaking out that he couldn’t have the diaper he wanted!

I’m going to try to limit the # I use, especially since I don’t need more to hand wash! I have a utility sink in my laundry room that also has a sink sprayer. So I figure I will just be washing flats constantly, all day every day that week. However many I can fit in the sink at a time.

You’re also allowed a night time diaper of your choice, but you’re encouraged to make flats work for you. So, I ordered two hemp babies flats to use inside a pocket diaper at night. Hopefully that will be enough absorbency!

I’ll be writing more about my thought process as I imagined doing this out of necessity, and I’ll also be posting about the hemp babies flats and flour sack towels I bought, as well as comparing them to the Diaper Rite flats I’ve already posted about.

I’ll be tweeting with the hash tag #flatschallenge, and I’ll be blogging daily about my experience! Want to join me? Read about the challenge and sign up!

This post contains affiliate links. If you click and make a purchase, I will receive a small portion of the sale. Thank you!

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Affiliates Cloth Diapers Flat Diapers Flats Review

Diaper Rite Large Unbleached Flats (Flat Cloth Diapers)

diaper rite large unbleached flats 1

Although I enjoy pocket diapers and other modern diapers, I love knowing that I can cloth diaper really affordably, and even with things I have around the house. We have well water so a power outage means no well pump, no water and not even hand washing is possible. Things like receiving blankets and kitchen towels can be used as diapers in a pinch, and when you’re doing it by choice (rather than out of necessity) there can be something a little fun and relaxing about folding flats!

diaper rite large unbleached flats 2

Diaper Rite is sold by Diaper Junction, and offers quality, affordable cloth diapering products. (You can see my Diaper Rite pocket diaper review.)

diaper rite large unbleached flats 3

I picked up a dozen Diaper Rite unbleached Birdseye cotton flats in the large size (about 32″ x 32″ pre-washing) for $22. They are also available in a small size (27″ x 27″ pre-washing) which would be fine for pad folding or for smaller babies, priced at $17.50/dozen. Both sizes are also available in white.

Naturally, cotton shrinks quite a bit in the wash.

Pre-washing:

diaper rite large unbleached flats 4 pre prep diaper rite large unbleached flats 5 pre prep

Post-washing/drying:

diaper rite large unbleached flats 6 post prep diaper rite large unbleached flats 7 post prep 2

Even after shrinking, the large was large enough to snappi on my 2 yr 10 month old son, who is around 29ish pounds.

diaper rite large unbleached flats 8 on 29 lb almost 3 yr old

When you look at these next pictures, you will probably say “but Maria, you didn’t…and it isn’t…and it wasn’t…” You’re probably right. I didn’t and it isn’t and it wasn’t. But that’s the beauty of flats. You can fold them any way you want, totally customizing where you put the most layers, and they are very forgiving. I know some people have amazing flat folding demos where all the folds are crisp and the corners are sharp. Mine were done with an audience and were done very quickly, as they are in “real life!”

This is my sloppy version of the Diaper Bag Fold:

Fold each side to the middle

diaper rite large unbleached flats 9 diaper bag diaper rite large unbleached flats 10 each side to middle

Fold the bottom up (this is a great time to adjust the “rise” of the completed diaper, and put the absorbency where you want it. Then you’ll trifold and fan the back out, then fold the “waist” down.

diaper rite large unbleached flats 11 bottom up good time to adjust rise and add absorbency in front diaper rite large unbleached flats 12 trifold and fan diaper rite large unbleached flats 13 back down

Then fold the front up and wrap around baby!

diaper rite large unbleached flats 14 front up diaper rite large unbleached flats 15 close

When I was doing this one, my husband said “what’s this wacky diaper origami?” I said “yeah, it’s pretty much diaper origami!”

Again, flats are very forgiving! Nothing terrible will happen if it’s not exactly square or even. Fold in half, then in half again, so the flat is folded into quarters.

diaper rite large unbleached flats 16 origami diaper rite large unbleached flats 17 half
diaper rite large unbleached flats 18 quarters

Grab the bottom corner and pull it up to the top to form a triangle.

diaper rite large unbleached flats 19 grab corner diaper rite large unbleached flats 20 make triangle
diaper rite large unbleached flats 21 triangle

Then flip the whole thing over

diaper rite large unbleached flats 22 flip over

And fold the rectangular portion to the middle.

diaper rite large unbleached flats 23 fold diaper rite large unbleached flats 24 fold 2
diaper rite large unbleached flats 25 fold 3

Tuck the legs in and pull up over baby.

diaper rite large unbleached flats 26 fold up diaper rite large unbleached flats 27 tuck legs

Wrap the wings around baby and cover. You can secure with pins or a snappi first!

diaper rite large unbleached flats 28 fold wing diaper rite large unbleached flats 29 fold wing 2
diaper rite large unbleached flats 30 snappi and cover

Flats are just a single layer of fabric, but you can get 8-12 layers in the wet zone depending on how you fold. You can pad fold (basically just quartering and trifolding) another flat to use under for extra absorbency, fold two up together, or combine with an insert or whatever you like!

diaper rite large unbleached flats 31 on almost 4 month old diaper rite large unbleached flats 32 under a cover

The large size fits just fine even on my not-quite-4-month-old.

Have you used flats? I know many of you participated in the flats challenge last year. What was your favorite fold? What brand did you like best?

FTC compliance: Although I paid normal retail prices for the pictured items, this post contains affiliate links. I was not compensated for this post, and all opinions are my own.

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Affiliates Cloth Diapers Flats Mailbox Mondays

Cloth Diaper Advice – Mailbox Mondays 3/19/12 – Flat Cloth Diapers

flat #clothdiapers via @chgdiapers

Do you have a cloth diaper question? Each Monday, I answer a reader question, and ask for my other readers’ input as well.

Questions don’t have to be cloth diaper related, just email maria at change-diapers.com with “Mailbox Mondays” in the subject, or fill out my contact form for readers, which you will always be able to find on my Contact Page.

Leigh says::

Tell me all things flats! I don’t really understand how they are so simple when the folds seem so confusing…

Carolyn says::

And are there different kinds of flat? (What the HECK are flour sack towels, anyhow??) But do they come in different sizes and materials? (Like prefolds?) Or is a flat always a certain size and a specific kind of material?

Ok, you all know I’m a pocket diaper loving Mama, and I am very glad I don’t have to use flat cloth diapers & pins like our Grandmothers did. Even so, lots of people love flats. They can be very affordable, are easy to wash & dry (they are a single layer of material) and can be customized based on how you fold them. Hannah wrote a guest post about using flats while traveling to Italy.

You can get flats for as little as $1.46 each for birdseye cotton and as much as $7.50 each for hemp flats. You may hear people refer to flour sack towels used as flat diapers as well. They are simply lint-free, absorbent kitchen towels very similar is size and makeup to flat diapers. They are available in different sizes.

Flats are generally about 27″ x 27″ before washing (some you can get larger, like Diaper Rite’s) and can be folded into quarters and used pretty much like a prefold; trifolded, or folded & snappied, pinned or simply placed under a cover. Green Mountain Diapers has a page about flats that includes folding a flat to prefold size with another inside as a doubler, flats on a newborn and many other babies, and a photo tutorial of the origami fold. Diaper Pin’s Diaper Pin Corner has lots of flat diaper posts including a photo demo of the mini neat fold and how to pad fold a flat.

I didn’t participate in Dirty Diaper Laundry’s flats & hand washing challenge last year because I wasn’t able to commit to it the week it was being done. However, I believe 50 (or more?) moms participated & blogged about it.

If I had to choose between diapers or food, I would definitely use flats, t-shirts, towels or whatever I needed to. Especially if I didn’t have access to a washer & dryer. Fortunately I have a stash of modern cloth that I love and my own washer & dryer! I know I need to master all the flat folds so I can really be a cloth guru, but it may have to wait until my little one is a bit bigger and I have a little more time on my hands!

Have you used flats? What do you think of them? How did you fold them?

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking the link, I receive a small portion. Thank you!

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