Issues with Leaks?

Sometimes you baby leaks.  It happens to the best of us!  If it is happening every time your baby wets, here are a few suggestions for you:

• Are you changing often enough?  Cloth diapers have to be changed more often than disposables.  My 15 month old gets changed every couple of hours!  When he was a newborn, he was changed every 2 hours, if not sooner!  If you find that the inserts (or prefold or fitted) are soaking wet every time you change your baby, try changing more during the day.
• Are your diapers fitting properly?  Make sure there are no gaps around the legs and no fabric sticking outside of the cover.
• Is it at night that you’re having the most problems?  Again, I would suggest changing more often first.  I know…who wants to be changing diapers all night long.  Once your baby is sleeping for longer stretches, then you’ll need to up the absorbency in your diapers.  Using pockets?  Try adding a Hemp Babies Hemp insert in with your microfiber.  These can also be pad folded and added in with your prefolds for more absorbency.  If you’re using pocket diapers at night and you are finding that you need to use a lot of inserts/doublers, try using your pockets like a cover instead.  Too many inserts stuffed in your pocket can make gaps in the leg holes which will lead to leaking overnights.
• Do you only hang your covers (PUL covers including pocket covers) up to dry?  Sometimes your PUL needs to be resealed.  20 minutes to half an hour in the dryer will do it.  Just make sure that your dryer isn’t on high heat if you can adjust it.
• Did a well-meaning helper use a diaper cream with zinc oxide?  This will need a full strip.  Take some Original Blue Dawn (Power Scrubbers is OK.) and scrub it into your diapers.  Then do hot washes until no bubbles are in your washing machine.  This could take 5 or 6 hot washes.  After your washer has filled and has started to agitate, stop it.  If there are bubbles left, keep going.
• Do you have smelly diapers and/or leaking?  Try Rockin Green Funk Rock.  Here’s the directions on how to “Rock a Soak”.
• If any of these suggestions are not helping, it may be a detergent build up.  Add your diapers to your washer, DO NOT ADD DETERGENT!  Keep doing hot washes until no bubbles are present as described above.

If you’re still having problems after all of that, the next best step is to contact us and hopefully we can help!  Good luck!