Being a high school teacher is a fairly effective method of birth control, but there have been quite a few babies born to people in my life over the last few years. One of my friends, who lives in Mexico, uses cloth diapers and a simple inquiry led me down the dark path of cloth diapering. I have learned terms like "PUL" - polyurethane laminate - which is a cloth that has plastic on one side of it to make it waterproof, and "pocket diapers" - which have an opening in the back that allows you to insert "soakers" made of microfiber, terrycloth, or something else absorbent.
Other things I learned -
- PUL is not sold in stores, it has to be bought online
- the snaps used on a washable diaper have to be made of plastic or they will rust
- snaps come in different sizes that make no sense and even an extremely minor mis-measurement will result in the wrong size
But...it's a new skill, and since reusable diapers sell for between $15 and $40 APIECE, it is something that I could theoretically use to make a little extra cash sometime. If I become crazy.
B loaned me a diaper that she really liked and it was actually fairly simple to recreate, aside from the need for a third hand to stretch the elastic WHILE tracing the pattern. But problems soon started to come up. The snaps that I ordered were slightly smaller than I needed, and as soon as I got them I realized that they were going to require something more than my snap pliers to install them. Since I didn't have $65 to drop on a snap press, I did the next best thing and called my mom in a panic to see if someone we knew happened to have one. Meanwhile, B is leaving this week, and these diapers have to be done by Monday evening. So I fiddled around for a couple of hours and finally was able to rig up a bolt and a hammer to make it work.
After probably 3-4 hours of work total, and numerous searches on the internet for things like "what is the best way to sew PUL?" (plastic side down) and "alternative to snap press" (none), I finally finished one diaper.
11 more to go.
4 comments:
Christy? I laughed reading your post, which is hopefully something you intended. I feel your pain and I can't believe what you have been through to make a diaper -- and your writing style makes me laugh. I'm sending you lots of love and patience today, cutie.
Another nice cloth diaper company is http://www.gdiapers.com/ - they use velcro and snaps. They have a nice system. I figure more ways to know of creating reusable diapers the better.
What a nice friend, to make diapers for her! Cloth diapers ROCK. The cost can seem scary at the outset, but they saved us a bundle. :)
I actually laughed hard enough while reading this that a tear came! : )
You are my hero Christy!!! The diaps are SO GREAT. Demian has given them the complete test drive by now and all I can say is that we LOVE them better than all of the commercial diaps I have, save the "example" diaper.
Thanks you so much!
Maybe someday you'll change your mind and go into business...
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