Bringin' Mama Home: Covering Little Bums

Yet again cost effective collides with healthier choices! Our babies sport cloth diapers one hundred percent of the time. This includes road trips and even camping (there is a laundromat near by). We save quite a bit of money using cloth. Plus, the many chemicals in disposable diapers never touch my babies' bottoms.

I have several different brands and styles of diapers. If you are just getting started you may want to do the same. In my variety I have learned my favorite types. Brand is not nearly as important as style. I prefer one-size pocket diapers with snaps. The one size allows the diapers to be used through the entire diaper wearing career. The pockets allow me to choose the number of inserts to use based on the amount of absorbency I need. I double stuff for sleeping, long car rides and even church (so my children don't have to be taken out during services). Snaps seem to be much longer lasting than Velcro.

My Velcro diapers have stopped sticking after less than two years of use on one child. It has happened at an unfortunate time as Harli is not quite ready to be potty trained, Levi is growing out of his newborn diapers and I am going back to work (meaning I can't wash diapers whenever I need to). Not a great time to be running short on diapers.

Instead of buying new (or even used) diapers, I decided to convert my Velcro diapers to snaps. I had to buy a few tools and the snaps. It is still by far cheaper than buying more diapers!

The first step is using an unstitching tool to remove the Velcro from the diaper. I found it easier to work between the Velcro and the diaper after getting started. This method allowed me to pull the Velcro away from the diaper a few stitches at a time. Then I picked away all the remaining thread to clean up the diaper.

Next, I traced and cut out a piece of card stock to use as a template. I pinned it to a snap diaper. Then I used a pencil to shade the card stock. This outlined the position of the snaps.

I then used an awl to poke holes on my card stock.

I placed the card stock on the old Velcro diaper using a pencil to mark the snap positions.

This handy press assembled the snaps rather easily. I had a different snap press that turned out to not be compatible with the snaps I purchased. It delayed my project by a few days while I waited for the correct press to arrive.