Are there any rules of thumb on fitting cloth diapers with snaps?

Question

We are using the Bum Genius Elemental with snaps (not Velcro) and have been having a tough time finding the correct snaps to use as our son (currently 6mo, 23 lbs, 22") grows. We like the snaps as they are said to hold up better over time than the Velcro option - but they are not as easily fitted. We started out having the best luck with a block of 4 snaps open in the middle and using the middle range of vertical snaps. As he grew, we expanded the snaps to 3 open on each row but then had issues with him leaking through them in the middle of the night (did not have these issues before when he was smaller). Currently we are now doing a hybrid of 3 snaps open on the bottom row and 2 snaps open on the top row but I worry that I might be making him uncomfortable (or causing diaper rash) by going too tight to avoid leakage.

Are there any rules of thumb on correctly fitting snapped cloth diapers for the child's comfort as well as being somewhat leak proof?

Answer 1

I don't know if there are specific or recomended rules of thumb for this, but we have been using the same brand of diapers as you for our son since he was 2 months old (he's now nearly 19 months) and had similar problems with leaking. When he was your son's age, we had three buttons open in the middle and he leaked through during the night approximately 75% of the time.

Our solution has evolved over time. At first, we put an extra liner (the small liner, not the big one that normally goes into the pocket) into the pocket to absorb more pee. This didn't eliminate the leaking, but reduced it to happening about 2 days per week. As he got older, the "leak-through rate" slowly started to increase again. We found it helped to "strip" the diapers, but again, it didn't eliminate the problem, it just alleviated it for a while (see here for a description of how to strip this brand of diaper).

Finally, what now works 99.9% of the time is to just use disposables during the night. It wasn't an easy decision to make because we had consciously decided to use cloth, but felt that we should try it to reduce the drama and discomfort of waking up due to being wet! We still use the "cloth" diapers during the day.

To answer your question, we found that the snap configuration did not have an effect on leakage.