You don’t need to change wet diapers in the middle of the night if your baby sleeps through them.
However, if diaper rash becomes an issue, then you should change them.
A mildly wet diaper can wait until the morning because good quality diapers will wick the moisture away from their skin.
Changing their diaper wakes them up more. Your baby will benefit more from sleep than from a perfectly dry diaper.
Go ahead and change a soiled diaper (more than just wet) – but do it with the minimum amount of light you need to see to do the diaper change and as quietly and calmly as possible to give your baby the best chance of easily falling back asleep.
Now is not the time to play with them. Save those moments for the daytime.
Warm wipes will soothe them and wake them up less than cold wipes. For my son, we bought a $15 wipe warmer and stocked it with our own homemade reusable wipes (which were inexpensive diapers from Target that we cut up into convenient wipe sizes).
It was one of the best $15 we ever spent. We quickly stitched the edges of the wipes with a sewing machine so they wouldn’t fray as quickly.
We helped the earth and saved money by not continuously buying and throwing away disposable wipes. My wife is a genius.
We used cotton diapers with a wool diaper cover around them. The wool wicked away the moisture and left him pretty dry.
I highly recommend this technique. We tried lots of different diaper covers because we usually bought them at 2nd hand baby stores since they can be expensive ($20 to $40 each).
However, even at $40 each, it turns out to be less expensive than diapers you throw away each time, (but they sure is a shock when you see that initial price tag).
Some of the diaper covers are held closed by snaps and some with Velcro. Both closures worked great for us.
There are various cover sizes as your baby grows.
Using cloth diapers and wool covers – we saved a lot of disposable diaper waste from going into landfill.
When my wife proposed using cloth diapers from a diaper service with wool covers for my son – I thought it would be harder than using disposable diapers (I had used disposable diapers with my daughter).
But the cloth diapers with covers turned out to be easier.
In both cases, you simply wrap up the soiled diaper and throw it into a plastic bag.
With disposable diapers – you put that plastic bag out with the trash.
With the cloth diapers, I put that bag out to get picked up by the diaper service. They leave a clean set of diapers when they pick up the old (and unlike disposable diapers, I don’t have to make trips to the store to get more diapers).
The diaper service deals with all the washing and drying and folding and delivery. The cost and ease of the service was great compared to constantly making trips to buy expensive disposable diapers.
Hybrid Diapers?
Yep. For those who don’t want a diaper service and don’t want to wash cloth diapers themselves – here’s a diaper cover & biodegradable diaper insert combination that is very cool.
It’s a colorful diaper cover with a biodegradable diaper insert that you can flush or compost.
Earth Friendly Diapers
Holy Cow! These could make a big difference for the earth. Instead of buying and throwing away an entire disposable diaper each time, you only buy and flush, compost or trash just the insert.
The reusable diaper cover is a one time purchase that can be handed down and/or donated. I wish I’d had these for my two kids.
When I saw how the gDiaper insert breaks down in a couple of months compared to conventional disposable diapers that will take about 500 hundred years to decompose completely (because conventional disposable diapers are made with plastic) – I got goosebumps. I’m a sucker for anything that helps the earth.
The biodegradable gDiaper inserts have no plastic.
It’s a win-win because you reuse the diaper cover and the insert can be flushed, composted or put them in your trash.
In all three cases, the insert decomposes in a couple of months which is much better for the planet and the people who live here.
Flush them down the toilet or add them to your compost. Very impressive concept.
Here’s a look at gDiapers in action and some of the styles they offer:
They offer fancy ones too!
Once you know if you like these – multi-packs will lower the cost of each diaper cover…
gDiaper Save with Multipacks
Here are links to some of the colors (they all start with g)…
Gooseberry Purple
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