Have you ever just assumed that everyone knows what you know?  I have been cloth diapering for more than 10 years, now, and I forget that not everyone knows everything there is to know about cloth diapering.  Now, I know the importance of teaching childcare providers about cloth diapers.  All it takes is a few minute to convey some important information.

Last week, I learned that just because I follow my own etiquette of daycare or nursery cloth diapering and put Velcro AIO diapers in the diaper bag for church to make it easier on the nursery workers, it doesn’t mean that I should just assume that they know what to do with it.

When I went to pick Jett up from the nursery, he had the same diaper that we put on him when we left the house.  In hindsight, the workers were really busy, and they should have changed him, at least once, (no excuse for that), but the experience reminded me that I really needed to educate them on the ins and outs of cloth diapering.

Teaching Childcare Providers About Cloth Diapers

Don’t stop at just telling your childcare provider to change your baby every 2-3 hours.  Make sure they know why so that they can understand the importance.  All it takes is a few quick tips!  You can either tell them or print them out on a card and put with your little one’s diaper bag.

• Soaked cloth diapers will not be visible like soaked disposable diapers.  The gel beads in disposable diapers are a visible sign that a diaper needs to be changed.  The appearance of a cloth diaper (unless wicking or leaking) will be the same as when it’s put on the baby.
• Once the soaker pad of the cloth diaper is full, it has nowhere else to go but out.  At this point, the diaper will began to leak.
• When the diaper is fully saturated, your stay dry inner fabric or stay dry liner becomes powerless, causing your baby’s bottom to be wet because the soaker fabric can no longer contain the urine.  This is called compression wicking which means that when it touches the baby’s bottom (compression), because it’s full, it has to escape somewhere.
• Prolonged periods of urine against your baby’s skin can cause redness and rashes.

Just remember that knowledge is power.  If you take a few moments to educate those caring for you baby about how cloth diapers work, they will make an extra effort to keep your little one’s diaper changed to protect his/her bottom.