I am taking part in the Second Annual Flats and Handwashing Challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry. For 7 days I will be using only flat cloth diapers and handwashing them in an effort to prove that cloth diapering can be affordable and accessible to all. You can learn more about the rules and why this challenge was started by visiting the announcement post. This year there are over 45o participants from all over the world!
I remember folding & pinning diapers to my little sister back in the late 70’s, vinyl pants and all. My mom showed me how to do it & I just did it. It wasn’t scary. So why have I avoided flats for the better part of my 12 years of motherhood except to use as an emergency burp cloth? Enter peer/societal influence. Convenience is the name of the game and according to the majority of people around me, flats are in no way convenient & are way too hard to deal with and too time consuming!
Wrong.
Folding flats is only as difficult as you make it. In fact, I only FINALLY figured out the kite fold after a year of trying at our recent Circle Meeting. I had a complete block, but one of the other mommas was just folding away & had an AH-HA moment. I followed her lead & finally, success. Granted, with the advent of sites like You Tube & the proliferation of cloth diaper sites & blogs you can get your folding questions answered rather quickly without ever leaving your house.
We use wool soakers for the most part so we pin & cover. My go to fold is the Origami fold. My older kids love it too. This is good because DH gets this glazed look on his face trying to do it. He will do it but a bit begrudgingly so having the older ones able to fold the diapers is a huge plus if my hands are busy (and when aren’t they?).
I discovered the Diaperbag fold on the DDL site while preparing for our last Circle Meeting & I really like this one too, but it’s not “look, no hands” fold yet. I still need to reference directions for it. One leg it has up on the Origami fold is I feel like it’s more Snappi friendly for some babies. With plain old woven flats (oh whoa is me) the thin material makes me leery to use a Snappi more times than not. But you can fold the Diaperbag fold so there are more layers for the Snappi legs to catch & I worry less about pinching or poking the baby.
Want to know how others fold their flats? Click the button below.
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