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Every Monday I will answer user submitted questions. They don’t have to be about cloth diapering! I’ll always answer questions via email, but if you would like your question to be answered in a Mailbox Mondays post, send an email with the subject “Mailbox Mondays” to Maria at change-diapers dot com.
I’m looking for MM submissions for late October and beyond!
Marah says:
I am so sick of leaks overnight! What is your solution for overnight cloth diapering?
Marah
This is a pretty common dilemma, and one that caused me a lot of trouble! Sometimes, it’s as simple as the right fit and the right insert. I was stuffing my Bumgenius diapers so thick that I had to size up, and was having leg gap issues.
Make sure the diaper fits snugly at the legs, and that the inner of the diaper and the insert are all tucked in. Also make sure no clothing is tucked into the diaper! I’ve accidentally had my son’s shirt stuck in the back of the diaper before!
If your diaper fits well, but you don’t have enough absorbency (the insert is completely saturated in the morning) try adding a second full size insert, a hemp doubler, or what really worked for me, a Knickernappies Superdo insert.
If you still have trouble, bring out the big guns. Super absorbent fitteds with wool soakers are an awesome combo. I’ve had great luck with the Guerilla Fluff utilitarian. Make sure your wool soaker is well lanolized, and look for soakers designed for night time, since they have extra layers in the wet zone. I love our Mobums Night Night Wool Soaker.
Now that it’s getting cooler, putting your child in fleece pajama pants will give you another layer of wetness protection! Like wash routines, overnight diapering is annoying since as soon as you figure it out, something changes! Once I finally had our routine down pat, my son stopped wetting as heavily!
Nancy says:
Here’s a question for Mailbox Mondays: What are the best soaking, washing and drying methods to keep your diapers clean, soft, and absorbent?
Nancy
Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer for this! It depends heavily on your water, your machine, how often you wash, how many diapers you wash at a time etc.
For me, a cold wash with no detergent, hot wash with a tiny amount of detergent, with an extra rinse works well.
I hang my shells to dry and tumble the inserts in the dryer.
About every other month, I soak all of my diapers and inserts overnight in RLR, then rinse until the water is clean. Then, I wash only the inserts with a dab of bleach, then rinse until the water is clean and I don’t smell bleach.
I spent a lot of time playing with wash routines and detergents. Right now I am using Tide HE powder, but I use only about 1/4 of the lowest load line for a full load of diapers.
How about you gals? Did you have trouble coming up with an overnight solution? What have you tried? What works for you?
How about wash routines? How do you wash & dry? What detergent do you use? How many detergents did you go through before you found the right one? Do you strip your diapers or treat them? How often? What do you use?
Maria wants to live in a world where cloth diapers are the norm and moms can make parenting choices without judgement. When she’s not chasing her 18, 14 and 11-year old kids around, you might find her checking out the latest gadgets, organizing something (again) or exercising in the fresh air. 
