When our son was born, I was very excited to start using my stash of cloth diapers! I felt like I was doing what was best for my baby while helping the environment and coincidentally our pockets as well. We opted to use a prefold system with a snappi fastener because it seemed easy and convenient. Our little boy looked so cute in his diaper, too!
However, I soon came to realize that I might be missing something. He was doing great with his diapers and I was doing great getting them on him successfully, but we were also having to change his clothes quite a bit more than normal. I really needed to get him some diaper covers! I went to the store to see if I could buy some but would you believe that even though these stores sold cloth diapers, they did not sell diaper covers. So I went online to see if I could order some and I was amazed at how expensive they were. One of the reasons we wanted to use cloth was because of how much it would save us in the long run. A friend of ours suggested we use the plastic pants used for toddler potty training, but when we put it on him it was way too big and he sounded like a plastic bag when moving. This definitely wasn’t going to work, so I needed to find another solution.
That’s when I decided I would try and make his diaper covers. There was a section at my favorite craft store dedicated to doing just that. The first thing I did was buy all my materials, fabric and velcro. I used a disposable diaper as a template and hand sewed my first diaper cover using velcro as a closure. This cover worked ok, but it really didn’t fit my baby well. I went online to find another pattern, but every time I attempted one it just wasn’t right. We also discovered that our son’s skin was too sensitive for the velcro.
So, after much trial and error, I went back to my favorite craft store for some advice. There was a wonderful book all about cloth covers there and I learned how to put snaps on his covers instead of velcro. I have now successfully made lots of pocket diapers and diaper covers. And the best part is that each cover cost me less than ten dollars to make!
