Cloth Diapering in the Hospital

Pin It

We have already established that I'm a cloth diapering Mama.. really .. it isn't that hard.

The LAST time he ever wore 'sposies.

But cloth in the hospital takes some maneuvering....  The last two times Lil'C has had a hosptal stay (one over night and one for about a week) we used cloth.   The time before (his open heart surgery) he used the hospital provided Dry Max Pampers......  OMG... his poor poor bum..  Chemical burn.  So I swore then to avoid 'sposies from then on.
So how do you use cloth in the hospital?
There are a few ways.

Hybrid diapers are  one way.  We use Flip diapers.  They have inserts that are organic, stay-dry or disposable (they don't have all the chemicals and junk like the pampers).  We used up the last of our disposable inserts for the week long stay and then swapped to stay-dry and our smartipants.
The biggest  issue is getting the nurses to go along with it.  Ours didn't really have a problem.
They needed to be able to keep up with his "output" and guesstimate his "input" (exclusively breastfeeding both times, and no bottles).   So to be able to get his output they took one clean diaper of each style and weighed them.  Did you know a clean smartipants weighs 3 oz?  I do!

You have to admit it's the cutest back of a hospital gown ever :)

Then when Lil'C filled a diaper I would wrap it up, either in itself (smarti) or in a medical glove (flip inserts).  The nurses would weigh them and have his output measurement.
The trick comes when you start to run out of clean diapers...  which I only had to do a few times on the week long stay, with the overnight stay I just took them home in their wet bag.  Our hospital (one of the Children's Miracle Network) has a laundry room for the families of the kids, they have quite a few long term residents.  I would go to the laundry room and do my normal wash routine.  Thankfully their washers had a pre-wash button so I only had to come back down once to move them to the dryer and then again to take them back to his room.  Really not to  big of a deal.
I fluctuate on if I prefer the smartis or the flips.   Smartis are easier for the novice cloth diaperer to use, but require stuffing when they come out of the dryer.  Flips require no real work post laundry (maybe folded in half for easy storage)  but require you to handle dirty inserts, and are sometimes harder to get on.
Have you ever used cloth diapers?  Do you have a favorite brand or style?  Ever used a Hybrid's disposable insert?  Ever composted it?