# Old-fashioned cloth diapers w/pins & rubber pants **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 25, 2020, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503 "2020-02-25T17:35:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/41 "2020-02-26T14:48:36Z")
> [@Newtosite](#): > > I remember a babysitter sticking me with a safety pin when she was putting cloth diapers on me for the night > (I told my mom, “She gouged me!”). I had a baby doll that came with rubber pants. 🙂 I have no memories of being diapered, but my youngest two remember. Pin-pricks happened using the old, that’s a fact. Three of my kids (that I remember) experienced the business end of a diaper pin at change-time, and once is all it took. All three quickly learned to lay still while having their pants changed after that. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/42 "2020-02-26T14:50:02Z")
> [@DummyGladHands](#): > > Folding cloth diapers was my job as oldest. Millions of them Me, too… folding _AND_ changing… \*LOTS \*of changing. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/43 "2020-02-26T14:53:04Z")
> [@someone11](#): > > If only more young kids today, were able to have seen their mothers use proper cloth diapers with plastic over-covers, and they were able to be more in touch with their children as human beings, by way of caring about their nappy rash and so forth, then we would not have this current generation of whatever they are, x or millennials, I don’t know but I do know that if they witnessed the care and love that goes into raring a delightful bundle of screeching joy, then surely they’d think to themselves, ‘no fcuking way am I going to be breeding’, thus making the world a better place with one less carbon footprint. There is definitely something to be said for good old-fashioned proper parenting, and I see both pluses and minuses related to today’s generation of childrearing styles vs yesteryears childrearing styles. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/44 "2020-02-26T14:59:03Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > When I was 8, my aunt showed me how to change my infant cousin’s cloth-and-pins diaper. When I recently reminded my cousin of that, she cringed (she’s now 66). So true, how quickly time passes us by. I was age 10, when I started babysitting for an aunt who (at the time) had two babies, both in diapers, and to this day I still tease them about how I used to change their diapers, and both wore cloth diapers with pins. They’re in their 40’s now. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/45 "2020-02-26T15:01:54Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I raised my kids with cloth diapers, and their mom had to wash them with a wringer washer and hang them on a line to dry. Yes, we had solar dryers then. Men all made enough to support the family with one job. Ah… the old wringer washing machines! Yes, I remember helping my mom wash baby siblings diapers in one. Occasionally a pair of rubber pants would accidentally make their way through the rollers, and BANG, those rubber pants would pop so loud! ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/46 "2020-02-26T15:10:49Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I never made any kids (and arguably may never have been one) so I wouldn’t know a whole lot about diapers. > > But this: > > As a senior in high school (age 17/18), lo! these 50 years ago, I lived for one year with my big brother and his wife (who had, some 10+ years earlier, been my babysitter), and their babe-in-diapers. > > I saw sister-in-law (who, to this day, I still see as my babysitter) hand-washing kiddo’s diapers. So I would have to guess they were re-usable cloth. > > She washed them in the bathroom sink. The same bathroom sink whereat I brushed my teeth! :eek: I’ve heard stories of mothers rinsing and washing diapers in the bathroom sink, but I never did such. Diapers were rinsed out in the toilet and laundered in the washing machine. Had a new babysitter sit for me one evening, and upon my arrival back home, I was greeted with several wet and dirty diapers (still inside rubber pants) sitting in the bathtub. Needless to say, I never called her again to babysit. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/47 "2020-02-26T15:12:01Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > In the late 80s I lived in an apartment building in Landsdowne, PA for a while. Someone in the building had a diaper service, so once a week there’d be a big bag of diapers in the vestibule where the mailboxes were located. > > The smell was pretty awful. The sack of stink would be left there in the early morning and not picked up until late afternoon. There were complaints, petitions, nasty graffiti, etc. Then I moved. I can definitely see how such would raise a stir. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/48 "2020-02-26T15:14:55Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > We used almost exclusively “pre-folded” diapers. But … you still had to fold them to put on the kid. Marketing buzz terms, gotta love them. I remember prefolds from babysitting, however, 99% of the households I babysat at used traditional flat-sheet styled diapers. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/49 "2020-02-26T15:15:57Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > Un-prefolded diapers are single ply and very large. Prefolded are the ones we all remember, with several layers of thickness. Yes. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/50 "2020-02-26T15:18:57Z")
My sisters and I were all diapered in cloth diapers with rubber pants. That was from 1961-1974. I did the same with my kids in the late 70s and mid 80’s. My mom MADE the cloth diapers! She would buy white flannel, cut them to size and stitch the edges. They were pretty big pieces of cloth that we folded in a somewhat complicated manner. I could probably still do it! The fold started out like a kite shape and eventually turned into a perfect doubled up triangle. They were so nice and soft. We would rinse them in the toilet, toss thim in a covered diaper pail and then wash them in the washer. They were hung outside in nice weather or put in the dryer. We had no thoughts of the environment back then! It was purely economics. Disposables were too expensive. I would buy a package of disposables now and then and use them when we went somewhere or if we spent the weekend at the cabin. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/51 "2020-02-26T15:19:50Z")
We used cloth diapers for my daughter, but when my son came along my daughter wasn’t quite out of diapers yet and we gave up and went to disposables. Cloth diapers are a nice try at being greener but a lot more work in the end. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/52 "2020-02-26T15:40:10Z")
I remember the ones with the pins. And the different ways to fold them for girls vs boys. When I babysat I usually left the rubber pants off of them. I was watching, so they wouldn’t get super wet, and those pants caused horrific diaper rashes. I was always paranoid I might hurt one of them with the pins though. By the time Celtling came along the process was much simpler. A soft vinyl-ish outer cover with inner cotton flannel diaper and thick inserts for nighttime. Daycare insisted on disposables, but we always used cloth ones at home. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/53 "2020-02-26T15:54:14Z")
> [@TRC4941](#): > > My sisters and I were all diapered in cloth diapers with rubber pants. That was from 1961-1974. I did the same with my kids in the late 70s and mid 80’s. > > My mom MADE the cloth diapers! She would buy white flannel, cut them to size and stitch the edges. They were pretty big pieces of cloth that we folded in a somewhat complicated manner. I could probably still do it! The fold started out like a kite shape and eventually turned into a perfect doubled up triangle. They were so nice and soft. We would rinse them in the toilet, toss thim in a covered diaper pail and then wash them in the washer. They were hung outside in nice weather or put in the dryer. > > We had no thoughts of the environment back then! It was purely economics. > Disposables were too expensive. I would buy a package of disposables now and then and use them when we went somewhere or if we spent the weekend at the cabin. I have often given thought to the idea of, how many of us put our kids through cloth diapers, because that’s what we wore as babies. Such was the case with me. Economics, the environment, the comfort and health of my children’s skin, none of that figured in when I opted to use cloth diapers as a mom, it was based solely on me being old-fashioned in my ways and preferring to diaper the traditional way. As for folding, I remember I had two go-to folds that I used all the time (birth to potty), and both were versatile in that I could increase or decrease the size of the diaper depending on how big, how small, how old, how chunky, or how skinny the child was that I was diapering. Typically, when I was on top of folding, two stacks of diapers sat on each kids dresser top, one stack being single daytime folds, the other stack being double nighttime folds. I definitely remember how to fold diapers. Had a nephew still in diapers in the later part of the 90’s, that I used to occasionally babysit, so folding still sits fresh in my mind. I’m certain I know of the triangle fold you’re talking about, it’s the fold where the middle part of the diaper ends up with what looks like a thick pad running down the entire centre of the diaper. It’s the fold where you can use one pin to fasten. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/54 "2020-02-26T15:55:32Z")
Double post ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/55 "2020-02-26T16:00:11Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > We used cloth diapers for my daughter, but when my son came along my daughter wasn’t quite out of diapers yet and we gave up and went to disposables. Cloth diapers are a nice try at being greener but a lot more work in the end. I never found cloth diapers to be a lot of work, mind you, I was a stay-at-home mom, so I’m sure that helped. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/56 "2020-02-26T16:11:40Z")
> [@Polyester](#): > > I never found cloth diapers to be a lot of work, mind you, I was a stay-at-home mom, so I’m sure that helped. We both worked with commutes. It got too tough to do two kids. We also were finding it tough to find a diaper service at that point and it made it easy to give up. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/57 "2020-02-26T16:11:48Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > I remember the ones with the pins. And the different ways to fold them for girls vs boys. When I babysat I usually left the rubber pants off of them. I was watching, so they wouldn’t get super wet, and those pants caused horrific diaper rashes. I was always paranoid I might hurt one of them with the pins though. > > By the time Celtling came along the process was much simpler. A soft vinyl-ish outer cover with inner cotton flannel diaper and thick inserts for nighttime. Daycare insisted on disposables, but we always used cloth ones at home. I agree about the rubber pants. I was a bad mom, because I used rubber pants around the clock (24/7/365), and do remember the heat and rashes that occasionally resulted. As for when I babysat, I always used the rubber pants, but I was anal about checking and changing. Yep, thicker in the front for boys, thicker in the back for girls. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/58 "2020-02-26T16:15:50Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > We both worked with commutes. It got too tough to do two kids. We also were finding it tough to find a diaper service at that point and it made it easy to give up. Totally understandable. Ultimately at the end of the day, you have to go with what works. We had a diaper service back in the 80’s, but by the late 80’s, it closed it’s doors. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2020, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/59 "2020-02-26T16:39:53Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > When I was 8, my aunt showed me how to change my infant cousin’s cloth-and-pins diaper. When I recently reminded my cousin of that, she cringed (she’s now 66). Same here. By age 8, I was making bottles and changing diapers (cloth, pins, rubber pants) – baby siblings. ---
**Author:** ![Polyester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@Polyester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polyester)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503/60 "2020-03-03T17:11:00Z")
Anyone remember diaper liners? The ones I used were disposable (flushable). I used them for a few weeks after each of the kids were born. No messy meconium to rinse and wash out of the diapers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-fashioned-cloth-diapers-w-pins-rubber-pants/848503.md?page=4)