Which Diapers Should I Use for the Night?
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Diapering during the day usually poses no great challenge. You and your baby are awake and active, and you can check and change your child's diaper at any time. And the latter happens quite frequently during the day, so you might find yourself wondering: Which diapers are best for nighttime? How can I ensure peaceful nights? Even though we can't tell you when your child will sleep through the night and you can skip the night-time diaper changes, we can still offer you an array of tips on how to best get through the nights.
So, which diapers are the most suitable for the night? Cloth diapers are excellent for nighttime use, as their absorbency can be perfectly adjusted to your child's needs. The optimal design of Judes also ensures a perfect fit and prevents the diapers from leaking.
Below, you will not only find out which diapers are the best for the night but you will also receive valuable tips on night-time diapering and preventing diaper leaks.
Changing Diapers at Night – What You Need to Know
A milestone eagerly awaited by all parents is the baby sleeping through the night. Unfortunately, we also do not have a secret recipe, as every baby is unique with individual needs regarding night-time nutrition or body contact. What we can tell you, however, is how to make the nights with a baby or toddler as relaxed as possible. Below we have summarized the most important information about night-time diapering:
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How Often Should Diapers Be Changed at Night?
How frequently you need to change your baby's diaper during sleep depends on various factors. For example, the digestive system of newborns is not yet fully mature, which means they often have bowel movements at night as well. In this case, you should change your baby's diaper immediately to avoid unnecessary irritation to their skin. Typically, between the third and sixth month of life, the digestive system matures and night-time bowel movements become a thing of the past.
For urine, it depends on the absorbency of the diaper and your child's sensitivity. If your baby becomes restless in wet diapers and has trouble falling back to sleep, you should change them. If, on the other hand, the diapers leak during the night, you will likely find the solution to the problem in this post.
The frequency of diapering thus entirely depends on the needs and elimination patterns of your baby. Again, every child is individual. While one child may sleep through the night peacefully in wet diapers, another sleeps much better in dry diapers, meaning that night-time diapering or elimination communication is inevitable. Some other children rarely or never urinate at night and wake up with a dry diaper. The reason? The antidiuretic hormone.
What is the Antidiuretic Hormone?
The human body, even in childhood, produces a special hormone at night: the Antidiuretic Hormone, abbreviated as ADH. This hormone significantly influences the body's water balance and ensures that we need to go to the toilet much less often at night since the body produces less urine. Over the course of 11 to 13 hours at night, babies excrete as much urine as they do during 3 to 4 hours in the daytime.
Primarily, the hormone ensures that we can sleep soundly at night without being constantly awakened by the urge to urinate.
The Proper Way to Diaper at Night
When changing diapers at night, a gentle approach is key to not fully wake your child and make it harder for them to continue sleeping. For peaceful nights, consider the following tips:
Have all the materials you need for diapering ready. For the least hassle, change your child directly in the bed. Keep in mind:
- Enough spare diapers
- Change of clothes
- Wet wipes or washcloths
- A changing pad (usually, a towel will suffice)
- Sleepwear that is easy to open
One thing you should definitely avoid is bright light. Use dimmed lighting when changing diapers at night. Portable nightlights have proven to be particularly useful.
During the day, diapering is often a lively and entertaining situation. At night, however, you should be as quiet as possible. Speak as little as you can, ideally limiting yourself to telling your baby in a calm tone what you are about to do. More important is a lot of skin-to-skin contact and minimal movement.
Photo by Minnie Zhou on Unsplash
Which Diapers Are Best Suited for the Night?
While absorbency is an important factor, it is just one of many criteria that a good night diaper should meet. Other important aspects include:
- The right size
- Perfect fit
- Leak protection
- Comfortable material
- Skin compatibility
- Ease of use
If you opt for disposable diapers, you will come across the wackiest tips to prevent nighttime leaks. Many parents opt for a larger diaper size or position the diaper backwards on the child so that the larger absorbent area is in the front. The latter is especially recommended for babies who sleep on their stomach and tend to overwhelm the diapers at night.
However, consider this: During the day, your baby's skin is caressed with fresh air with each diaper change. At night, however, your child wears the diaper non-stop. Due to the poor air circulation in disposable diapers, an unhealthy diaper climate arises, and your baby's skin becomes softened and thus more prone to bacteria.
An alternative – and for us, even the best diapers for the night – are cloth diapers. With these, you achieve the same, or even greater, absorbency as with disposable diapers while avoiding many negative side effects. Points that speak for cloth diapers include:
- Cloth diapers are just as easy to use as disposable diapers.
- Better leak protection due to snug-fitting, flexible leg cuffs.
- Waste reduction: By using cloth diapers, you actively contribute to reducing waste on our planet. If you substitute wet wipes with washcloths for cleaning baby's skin, you can completely sustainably diaper your baby. You can prevent a ton of diaper waste per child in doing so. Here you’ll find numerous pieces of information about the sustainability of cloth diapers compared to disposable diapers.
- Financial advantage: If you take good care of your cloth diapers, you can save a large amount of money you would have spent on disposable diapers. Thus, cloth diapers can be passed on to up to four children. Alternatively, used diapers can also be sold for a good price. In this post we dared to compare the costs of cloth diapers and disposables.
- Skin-friendliness: Did you know that disposable diapers are full of chemicals? By choosing cloth diapers, you rely on natural and skin-friendly materials, thus preventing the development of skin irritations and diaper dermatitis.
- Earlier toilet training: Babies and toddlers get natural wetness feedback in cloth diapers. This means: they feel the wetness as soon as they urinate. This is very important for toilet training, which is why children diapered with cloth diapers often become toilet trained earlier than children who use disposable diapers.
- Last but not least, cloth diapers are also a real eye-catcher aesthetically. Different colored designs provide joy not only to us parents but also to children who enjoy being involved in the choice of their daily companion.
Photo by @madame.vio
Judes – Diapers for Night and Day
We are an innovative start-up with the goal of creating the simplest cloth diaper in the world. With Judes, we have developed a diaper that meets all the criteria and is even easier to use than disposable diapers.
Simple & Sustainable: How Judes Work
Our cloth diapers consist of two parts: an absorbent inner diaper and a waterproof outer cover. The system not only holds incredibly well but is also very easy to change. Just like a disposable diaper, you open it. The inner diaper goes into the wash, more precisely into the diaper pail, and you hang the outer cover out to air. The latter only needs to be washed after multiple uses or if it’s heavily soiled.
You can find a guide to the proper washing of cloth diapers here. Washing cloth diapers is simple and quickly becomes routine.
Now you put a fresh inner diaper and an outer cover on your child in succession and close both using the infinitely adjustable Velcro fastening. Judes are designed to perfectly conform to your child's body shape. Flexible leg cuffs and an additional waistband in the back ensure optimal protection and comfort. Because of this combination, Judes are not only more absorbent but also offer better leak protection than disposable diapers.
Additionally, we completely abstain from the use of chemicals because the health of baby's skin is our top priority. Here we have summarized further health benefits of cloth diapers. Our soft inner diaper is made of 100% organic cotton. It provides a pleasant feeling on the skin and stays dry for up to 12 hours. Even with the outer cover, we focus on sustainability, as it is made from recycled plastic bottles.
Safely Through the Night with Judes Diapers
While our highly absorbent inner diaper quickly and securely absorbs all liquids, the waterproof outer cover ensures optimal protection. The material is breathable and thus maintains a healthy diaper climate.
Our diapers are perfectly suited for nighttime. For additional protection, you can add one of our Booster inserts into the inner diaper. It takes up hardly any space and noticeably increases the absorbency.
We've designed our diapers so that 99% of all babies fit right away. You save yourself the long search for the right diaper and get a cloth diaper that combines all possible advantages. Judes are available in two sizes, which are sufficient for the entire diapering period.
What tips do you have for nighttime diapering, and which diaper gets you best through the night? Feel free to tell us in the comments.
