Naptime Adventures: Prepping Hemp Inserts

For this naptime adventure, I'm going to prep some new Thirsties hemp inserts for my pocket diapers by boiling them.  This isn't a true naptime adventure because my Gremlin is wide awake, but Dad is keeping him occupied.

Unless you have someone to keep your baby 100% occupied, I would really recommend doing this while your baby is asleep.  Mostly because of the boiling water, but also because you need to keep your eye on the process and you don't want to get distracted and burn your house down.

Hemp is a natural fabric, which means that when it's brand new it is coated with natural oils.  You need to strip these oils off before using the diaper, or it won't absorb much.  You can do this by washing in hot water in your washing machine and drying 4-6 times, or by boiling on the stove.  Boiling uses a lot less water, especially for something small like inserts.  You don't want to boil anything with PUL, snaps, or elastic because that will ruin the diaper, but pocket inserts and prefolds are generally ok to boil.

Today, I'm prepping 4 new Thirsties hemp inserts.  These are the best pocket inserts that I've found.  They're incredibly trim, but hold a ton of pee.  Arthur can be a bit of a super soaker, but a single Thirsties insert will hold him for at least 2 hours.  The first thing that you'll notice is that they're huge.

On the right is one of the inserts that is already prepped and heavily used.  When fabrics are prepped, they shrink.  Once these inserts are done being prepped, they'll be about the same size as the one on the right.

Get a pot of water boiling.  Use a stock pot if you have one, especially if you're boiling prefolds.  I'm only doing 2 inserts at a time so a regular pot will do.

Ugh, that's sideways.  Sorry!  Add the inserts to the pot, set the timer for 15 minutes.  Stick close by the stove, and stir the inserts around.  If you want you can add a squirt of dish soap to help draw the oils out, but I don't usually remember to do that.

See how the water is all gross and yellow-ish?  That's the hemp oil that has been boiled out of the fabric.  After your 15 minutes are up, if you're a competent person you will have a pair of tongs in your kitchen.  Pick the diapers out of the pot with the tongs, put them in a bowl/bucket and bring them to your washing machine.  I don't have tongs, so I just use potholders and dump the whole pot into the washer.  Now you're going to run a hot wash with a little bit of detergent.  I usually take this opportunity to wash some towels or sheets.  Use whatever detergent you're using for your diapers (I use Gain on everything, to keep it simple) and run a normal hot wash.  Put everything in the dryer when that's finished, and you're done!  At this point they're ready to go and should be close to full absorbency, but I personally put them straight from the dryer into the wetbag and wash them again with the next load of diapers.  Pretty simple!

Like I said, you can do this with prefolds too, but you are going to want to use a big pot.  Before my son was born I bought 18 brand new prefolds and I had plans to boil them because I didn't have hot water in my washing machine.  I kind of procrastinated, and then my son was born early.  Then I found myself with a 4 day old baby, boiling 2 prefolds at a time on the stove.  I don't recommend it.  If possible, do any prepping and boiling before your baby arrives.

Favorite Things Friday: Prefolds (part 1)

This is something new that I'm going to try out.  Every Friday (ummm maybe every other Friday) I'm going to pick one (probably diaper related) product that I really really like and write about it.  I'm hoping that this will keep me focused and give me something to write about each week.

For my first post, I'm going to talk about prefolds.  Not Gerber prefolds, but nice, high quality cotton ones.  These are the backbone of my stash, and if I had to choose only one type of diaper to have, it would be prefolds.  I'm actually going to have to break this up over a few entries, because I have a lot to say.

The main benefits of prefolds are:
- Low cost.  They're the cheapest cloth diaper option, aside from flats.  They typically cost somewhere around $2/diaper, compared to all in one styles that can cost over $20 each.  That's why prefolds are the most commonly recommended diaper for the newborn stage.  Newborns go through a ton of diapers every day, so you really want to have as many on hand as possible (generally 36 diapers, if you are planning on washing every other day) and prefolds are a perfect, inexpensive way to do that.
- Versatility.  They can be used in diaper form in a variety of ways- folded and snappi-d/pinned/boingo-ed, trifolded in a cover, or used as a pocket insert instead of microfiber.
- Longevity.  Prefolds can be used and stored for decades and still work perfectly.  You don't have to worry about elastic or PUL degrading like with a fitted or pocket diaper, since they're just cotton.  When you're done using them as diapers, you can use them around the house for cleaning rags or crafts.  Buying prefolds will give you the most bang for your buck, especially compared to disposable diapers.

But, of course, there are a few downsides:
- Learning curve.  If you aren't trifolding and putting the diaper in a cover, then you will need to learn how to fold the prefold onto your baby and how to fasten it to keep it on.  I recommend practicing on a doll before your baby.  Youtube is full of how-to videos, so definitely look there for some guidance.  In the same vein, people who watch your baby might not want to "hassle" with prefolds.  This is easily remedied by having a small stash of pockets or all in one diapers for them to use.
-   Prepping.  Any diaper that is made with natural fibers (cotton, hemp, bamboo) needs to be prepped before you can use it.  That's because there are plant oils coating the fabric, and until you get all of those oils off, your diapers won't be absorbent.  To reach full absorbency, it usually takes 4 or 5 full wash/dry cycles, with hot water.  This is time consuming and uses a lot of resources.  You can also boil them in a big pot on the stove, but that is still time consuming but at least it saves you some hot water.  If you want to, you could just wash/dry them one time and then start using them.  The only thing is they won't be quite as absorbent right off the bat, but as long as you keep that in mind and change your baby more frequently they will get more absorbent with each use.  Honestly, the best way to get prefolds is to find them used and take advantage of someone else doing the work for you.

The next time that I talk about prefolds, I'll discuss different cover types and different ways to fold and fasten them.  Like I said, prefolds are very versatile and can be used a ton of different ways, so that gives me way too much content for a single post.