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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

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Cloth Diapering a Toddler

Now at the age of 2 ½ I was hoping my youngest son would have potty learned by now. His older brother trained easily at 29 months old, so I was kind of hoping that he would as well. After diapering for over four years now, I’m anxious to leave the world of poopy diapers in the past, even if it means saying farewell to my cloth diapering days. We gave potty learning a shot a few months ago only to have it all go downhill after a great first day. Not wanting to push the subject only to frustrate us both, I decided to follow my son’s ques, and wait until he is ready to try again.  We are back to him using the toilet before bath time, but he still refuses to tell me that he needs to go during the day. This leads me to believe that my #1 New Years resolution is to help him potty learn before his 3rd birthday in March.

After being over 10 pounds at birth, Brendan continues to be a big boy. He’s been over 30lbs for over a year now and outgrew many of his one size diapers long ago. This lead to a difficult time finding CD’s that both fit him well and worked to my satisfaction. The only one size diapers that still fit well for us are the Blueberry Minky diapers that I’ve had in my stash for two years now. The rest of my stash is now made up of toddler size fitted diapers made by a WAHM for Piddle Poodles.  These diapers give me the rise my son needs, as well as the fit around the waist without digging into his skin. Of course, the larger fitted diapers also make it difficult to find covers that work over them. I’ve found the only commercially available cover that fits well are the large Thirsties covers. In addition, my son now wears a lot of wool and fleece pants since they work double duty as a cover and as pants. Of course this also gives me a great excuse to buy beautiful wool yarns to knit into longies for him!

Brendan has been in cloth ever since he was around 11 weeks old. It’s amazing to think that when we first began cding he was just beginning to fit in the smallest setting of his BumGenius 3.0’s, and now he literally is bursting at the seams in almost all CD’s.  Cloth diapering a toddler has proven itself as an adventure in itself, but at the cost of toddler size disposable diapers I see the financial savings each time I pass by the diaper isle at the store.

By Katrina W.

9 comments:

Phamos said...

Best OS for older/bigger kids that I've found is Knickenappies. Happy Heiny's also makes an XL pocket that my 33-lb not-yet-two-year-old has plenty of room to grow in. Been disappointed in the supposedly 40-pound BabyKicks, Thirsties Duo 2, and Fuzzi Bunz Perfect Size large.

Wendy @ ABCs and Garden Peas said...

Cloth diapering a toddler is an adventure, isn't it? I can't believe I'm breastfeeding a toddler already, too! When he was a newborn, I had trouble imagining he'd ever be a toddler...and now poof! Here we are in the blink of an eye! :)

Julie said...

Thank you, thank you for posting this! I have just been wondering what to do myself with my 2 year old who is 36 lbs and fits in NOTHING! I'm going to check out those you mentioned, and like you am hoping that ds figures it all out by 3!

Vered said...

Thanks for this post :-) My 2 year old is a big boy too - he has been around 35 lbs for about half a year - although he has slimmed down in the waist since starting to walk at 18 months. His waist is 22" naked, 24" with a fitted on.
Pocket wise - HHs are still great on him (although the new design is a bit smaller) but I have moved towards fitteds. Sbish have XL fitteds that are VERY big.
Most covers are on the largest setting which means that I need snap covers for most of them for the snaps that touch the skin. I recently ordered a custom cover from Zookies and it is wonderful to finally be able to use the middle (center) snaps again.
I'm hoping our potty training goes well - I leave him diaperless when at home and most times he goes in the potty but if he has a diaper on he goes in it 98% of the time.

Anna said...

My toddler isn't so big, and he has mostly been in disposables. But since I'm using cloth for the baby, I'd like to use it more for him. But it seems like somewhere around the age of 2 by kids start getting these incredibly disgusting bowel movements from time to time. The acidic smell burns the nose, it's either super thick and creamy or not so thick and gritty- almost impossible to wipe off the bum. I can't imagine how hard it would be to get out/off of the prefolds. I always count myself as so grateful that I can just chuck that in the garbage, that I'm a little scared to get further into the cloth. Anyone else have that issue? How do you deal?

Unknown said...

Just wanted to encourage you not to stress about the potty training. It will happen. My eldest daughter wanted to start potty training at 15 mos then lost interest and finally really got it down during the day at about 34 1/2 months. My younger daughter started potty training by her choice at about 21 1/2 mos & is day trained in weeks. She one day just wanted to wear underwear and that was it. All kids are so different. However, I agree about diapers getting quite challenging when the kiddos get so big.

wendyroo said...

I ordered some Antsy Pants to see how they work for my toddler son as training pants for road trips and stuffed with inserts for at night. We have not gotten them yet, but I think it will work well that they pull on rather than him having to lay down. They also come in several toddler sizes.

Amanda Mock said...

Cloth diapering a toddler is definetly and adventure! We have had good luck since she is only 30 lbs at 2.5, so most of the OS diapers still fit. Excited to use my itty bitty fluff in just 11 days for DS!

Emily Dulin said...

I have some large Thirsties covers. My son is only 2 months old, but I'm happy to know that I will have something that will fit him when he gets older.