An issue that not many consider, is the fact that there may be a difference between cloth diapering a girl and a boy. Sure, you’re an old pro, you’ve cloth diapered your child from birth through potty, but have you cloth diapered both sexes?
Rather than reinventing the wheel, I’m referring back to a past post that I have written on the Knickernappies Cloth Diaper Blog.
In this article I write
“It all makes perfect sense to me. If women could control the flow of urine like men then we’d pee standing up too! However we can’t, everyone’s body is shaped differently and the flow can shoot out at all directions. This is especially an issue with girls who are in cloth diapers that may have a little extra room. Imagine there being an open space in the crotch area of the diaper, she pees but it doesn’t go directly into the absorbent inserts, it sprays out this way and that, trickles here, there…leaks are inevitable.
With boys there is more of a concentrated and pressurized flow of urine similar to spraying a squirtgun. On top of the “squirtgun” effect, the tip of the penis is in some cases already up against the absorbent layers or very close to it. The urine has less room to pool in the diaper and ends up getting absorbed more easily by the inserts.”
I go on to give some tips on how to customize cloth diaper absorbency and with what. Boys and girls may need absorbency in different areas of the diaper and not all diaper styles allow for you to change the location of your most absorbent areas.
For more information on cloth diapering girls vs. boys and on how to troubleshoot leaks, please read the original post on the Knickernappies blog here.
I’m curious to know, have you cloth diapered both girls and boys? Did you notice a difference?
Sweetpetunia says
I have. I cloth diapered my oldest son. He’s nine years old now so it’s been a while. I used mainly one-sized prefolds on him so I had to fold them down in front so they could fit into his covers so that meant he had more coverage in front automatically. I didn’t have the cool mult-sized Green Mountain diapers prefolds or I probably would have liked cloth more back then.lol. I wish all the cool styles and colors had been around in those days. But I guess it makes me really appreciate them now. :) I didn’t get to cloth diaper his baby brother but I’ve used cloth on his two little sisters. (I had no idea cloth still existed when his big sisters were babies.)
I used mainly sized prefolds and a few pockets with little sister #1- she’s now five years old. And I’m using a big variety of styles with baby sister #2- now 11 months old. I currently have a ton of pockets, several flats, sized prefolds, different styles of AIOs, AI2s, snap-in-ones, hybrids, fitteds, one wool cover… am I missing anything?
I think that because you either folded the old school one-sized prefolds in front if you had a boy or in back if you had a girl when my son was a baby and now the absorbent layers in his little sisters’ diapers are mainly in the middle I never noticed that there was much of a difference. I’d love to have another boy to test out the more modern cloth but I don’t know if I’m physically strong enough to handle another. It’d be very interesting to see.
Sara Walden says
This is good to know! some day i am hoping to have a little girl.