For my Husband: When to Change a Cloth Diaper

Any basic parenting manual will tell you to respond to a crying baby by checking three things: 
1. Is baby hungry? 
2. Is baby tired? 
3. Is baby wet? 


My husband is an expert at asking the first question, especially while a baby is exclusively breastfed. ;0) As baby gets older, he has a tendency to skip on over to question 2. Question 3 is a bit more dubious – he rarely asks it, but is terrific about changing a diaper when you tell him it’s time. Frankly, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard him call, “Does his/her diaper need to be changed?” over the past 3 years. I wish I could say that I’ve always responded with the utmost patience, but I generally reply with an exasperated, “Have you checked it?”


I feel a bit guilty because now that he’s fairly good at doing the look and/or squish test for disposable diapers, I’ve gone and switched baby to cloth. Hubby is all for cloth diapers, but there’s a whole new learning curve. Since they fit differently than disposables, the standard tests for wetness don’t really apply. Unless a cloth diaper is hanging from a baby because it’s soaking wet (which it never should), you can’t really see when it needs to be changed. With the cover fabric, it’s also difficult to feel when a cloth diaper needs to be changed with a squish test. So, now that the rules have changed, I decided to use trusty google to discover what cloth diapering sites/blogs say about when to change a cloth diaper.


From what I’ve read , you can go two ways with cloth diapering:
1. Figure a baby needs a change every 1 to 3 hours and simply create a changing schedule (unless you have a poopy diaper or clearly need to change earlier).


2. Check baby at regular intervals (open the diaper up or do a touch test for wetness) to see if he or she is wet.


I’ve tried both of these methods and found that they are virtually the same thing. I don’t want to leave the impression that I let my baby sit in a disposable for long periods of time, but I definitely changed him less frequently in the “sposies” days. Now that he’s in cloth diapers, I have a much better idea of how often, and how heavily, he wets his diapers. I actually feel a bit guilty that I didn’t change him more frequently before. I think he is much more comfortable overall in cloth diapers.


Once you get into a rhythm with a baby who is in cloth diapers, there’s much less guesswork involved in all of this. You simply build changing into your routine and can tell if a change is needed sooner. If you’re not the primary caretaker of a cloth-diapered baby, however, this might be a bit trickier. Here are my suggestions figuring out when to change baby:
1. Communication. When it’s your turn to care for baby, ask when the last time he or she had a diaper change.


2. Figure that  a cloth diaper doesn’t wisk away wetness, so you’ll need to change baby every 1 1/2 to 3 hours. (If this elicits a groan, trust me, it’s really not a big deal.)


3. Watch baby for classic signs of irritation. No one wants to sit in a wet diaper.


4. Remember that checking is easy. Simply move the cover aside or undo the fastening on a pocket or AIO on one side and check for wetness.


All joking aside, my husband is the best of dads and my children are so lucky to have a father who is so involved with them. We couldn’t ask for a better dad at our house!


My next cloth diapering experiment will involve “elimination communication.” I’ve read a bit about this recently and, since potty training has been so difficult with our oldest, I am curious to see how this method works!