Question form a Friend on Mamapedia

Q.How do you use cloth diapers? How do you clean them and care for them so they last? I was raised on plain old cloth (I do mean cloth) diapers. I have no idea what they are like now but I heard it is different. It would be nice if you could write an article about using and cleaning them.

A. Well there are several different ways you can use cloth diapers since there are several different styles of cloth. First there are the traditional prefold like the ones our grandmother, but different (a piece of cloth folded in three's and the middle section is thicker)  Like this:

 Then you put it in a cover like this

This is where the traditional diaper pins can come into place. You can do three things.
1. Use diaper pins. I haven't used them so I wont go into details. But here are some pics. I don't suggest this since it's a bit dangerous. NOTE: I don't have diaper pins, so since this is a demo with a teddy bear so I went a head and used saftey pins. Which they basically are them, but diaper pins have plastic safety heads. And I will show you how to actually use the diaper in the snappi demo.

2. Use a Snappi which is a Y shapped tool that uses claws to catch the cloth. I know I used the word claws. SCARY. But no, not at all. Ok here is a step by step picture demo. Please let me know if you have any questions.

This is a prefold folded in thirds with the back wider so that it's easier to use.

Place the "baby" (Oliver's favorite teddy) on the diaper. Oh FYI the cloth part is called a diaper and the cover is called a cover or wrap.

Fold the front half over the baby and tuck the corner behind the back. If it makes more sense think of the green serged edge as the Velcro tab on a disposable to cover the front. I hope that helps.

This is a snappy. See how it has the claws? That is what goes attaches to the diaper. It's safe. No fear and is preferred over diaper pins.

Attach to one side. The claws will do all the work and attach.

Do the other side.

Then pull down on the bottom one. NOTE: Normally you don't hold down your baby's leg with your knee. . .It's just hard to do this with a stuffed bear. LOL.

This is a cover. This one is a Blueberry wrap. Those black dots on the top part below the velcro strip, is how you get the different sizes out of one diaper. This diaper has 3 sizes. Small, medium, and large.

Place your diapered baby on the cover.

And put on like a disposable! You do have to check that the cloth isn't sicking out of any of the holes or that the elastic around the leg is on the thigh and not in the crook of between the leg and torso.

3. Just placing the trifold in the cover.  Pretty simple. I do this during the day and the Snappi at night.

Ok so now here is the All in ones aka AIO (I'll refer to them as aio from now on). This is super easy. It's the one most like a disposables and the one I suggest to get to try out for newbies. Or do what I did and just emerged myself into the world of prefolds! Any who. They usually are take longer to dry because they have a fair amount of cotton to dry. I like the Sposoeasies because they have a section of the cotton that is sewn on one side so it's like a flap. Like so:

See! It take less time to dry.

And this is what it looks like with it folded in looking like how it should.

And this is how it looks like folded on Rowan the bear. Super easy!

Ok so I know there is one more type of diaper and this is called a pocket diaper. The two that I have are currently in the wash. . . So that will be tomorrow's post. Along with how to wash. I think this one is long enough.
And yes, If you notice my nails, the left side have a french nail paint job and the right is plain ugly. I tend to do this. I paint my nails because I'm bored, but then get bored doing it lol!