I had a late introduction to the lovely world of cloth diaper terminology. Basically, we were just looking for something to put on our baby’s bum – preferably something not too expensive and relatively environmentally-friendly that wouldn’t cause terrible diaper rash. Oh, and it had to hold various sorts of bodily excretions, too.
So when I first heard of pocket diapers, I thought: hmm, diapers that you can fit into your pocket? What a great idea!
No, pocket diapers don’t tend to fit in your pocket, but they’re still a great idea. What is a pocket diaper? It’s a diaper that is designed to be quick to wash and versatile to accommodate your baby’s needs. It has an outer shell with an inner pocket, and you place as much or as little padding as you need into the inner pocket. There is generally room for more than one layer of padding, making pocket diapers a good choice for long outings or for night time and naps.
Pocket diapers are convenient for those who want a versatile diaper that can be stuffed full for night time and used with one layer of padding in the day time, or even used without padding for elimination communication. They’re also fairly quick to wash and dry. Try to do all of your diaper laundry together, or you may end up losing pocket diaper inserts as you do single socks.
While pocket diapers have a little more hassle factor than all-in-ones, it’s fairly easy to pre-stuff several pocket diapers for long outings, making them as simple to put on as all-in-ones, and often at a slightly lower cost.
Like many diapers, pocket diapers come in cotton, bamboo, hemp and organic versions of all of these materials as well.
Have you used pocket diapers? How have they worked for you?