If you’re getting leaks with your cloth diapers, and the inserts are completely saturated- it means you need more absorption. The best way to achieve this is with booster! I’ve used a lot of interesting things as cloth diaper boosters. Pretty much anything absorbent will work, even random things around your house! Here’s some great ideas if you need to boost your diaper absorbency, but don’t want to spend any money on boosters.
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Traditional boosters
Traditional cloth diaper boosters all have one thing in common: they absorb liquid. I wrote an article a while back about my favourite cloth diaper boosters on the market, and I meant to do this one as a follow up but time got away from me.
Any booster out there is basically a smaller version of an insert, and they come in as many different materials as inserts do. They typically have serged edges, for a nice neat finish and to prevent the material from fraying over time. Lagoon Baby has a bunch of great booster options available. Hemp, cotton, and bamboo boosters are the most common choices, but you can find microfiber ones as well. Be sure any microfiber you use with your baby isn’t touching their skin directly.
Boosters can be sold later on when you’re done with your stash, and are fairly popular on the sales baords. But the truth is, you don’t have to buy a bunch of boosters if you don’t want to spend more money on them.
Items around the house
To save some money, try any of these items that you probably already have in your home! A good wash routine also means that they can probably go back to their intended purpose when you’re finished with cloth diapering.
- Cotton socks
- Cut-up old clothing (especially cotton)
- Microfiber wash cloths
- Cut up receiving blankets
- Cloth wipes
- Baby wash cloths
- Newborn cloth diaper inserts
- Outgrown baby onesies and T-shirts
- Cotton baby bibs and breast pads
Re-purpose just about anything
My absolute favourite is cotton socks. I have a bin of mismatched socks that I can’t seem to throw away. I harbor this useless hope that their mates will one day be liberated from whatever dimension they’ve been sucked into. But in the meantime, they make great boosters! Women’s ankle socks are pretty much ideal inside any size diaper, and dad’s long tube socks are perfect folded in half for overnight boosting!
I have many microfiber wash cloths floating around the house. They are quite absorbent and make good boosters, so long as you don’t put them directly against baby’s skin. Tuck them inside a pocket diaper or just lay a strip of flannel across the top. You can even hand stitch or serge it on top if you’re bored!
In the newborn stage, I notoriously tucked in a clean wipe to boost many of our newborn diapers. My babies were all breastfed, so I didn’t know how many ounces they drank- but wow, they peed a lot!! They out-peed our all of our newbie all in ones, and newborn size prefolds so I had to boost them. A nice large cloth wipe folded and laid on top worked great.
As my baby grew, I tucked old outgrown clothing into the back of the diapers, behind the inserts or in the pockets. Little onesies and baby t-shirts work fantastic! Especially stained ones that I new I wasn’t going to save or pass on.
Join the discussion
I absolutely love reading your comments! Please share any other tips and suggestions you have for me andy readers in the comment section below. We want to hear what works for you, and what doesn’t, and anything I haven’t thought of!
Please also share this article with other cloth diapering caregivers so that they can join the discussion as well. We’re a community and we need to support eachother with kindness and sharing.
I know this is an old post, but thanks for this! I thought I was the only one who cloth diapered like this ?