Cloth Diapering with Special Needs - Julie's Story

As many of you know, we have been cloth diapering our micro-preemie son since he was a week old, which included his 7 month NICU stay. He's six years old now, and we still have to use cloth part time for car rides, etc. due to his developmental delays. We've found more and more families find us because they are researching how to use cloth diapers with their children with special needs, and we felt it was time to put together a resource for those families.

We reached out to well-known members of the cloth diapering community and asked if they'd be willing to share their stories. We share these stories with you with the hopes that you will find them helpful and feel free to share these far and wide as a resource for other families with differently-abled kiddos so we can normalize acceptance and #makeclothmainstream!

If you're looking to get started with cloth diapers, please check out our cloth diapering starter kit HERE as a great, affordable way to get off on the right foot. We'd be happy to customize it to fit your child's needs if you just send us an email!

Our second story in this series comes from Julie Melton who just happens to be the sister of AppleCheeks' social media superstar, Natalie Holladay! Her son Flynn is super adorable (as you'll see in the photos below), and he rocks his fluff!! Thanks so much for sharing your story, Julie.
 
Julie and Flynn

Our son, Flynn, was born with spina bifida, specifically, myelomeningocele with Chiari II malformation and hydrocephalus. When he came out via C-section, they turned him over and saw the lesion. It was unknown up to that moment. He had surgery the next day to basically put his spinal cord back inside his body and close the opening. As is common in these cases, his head size began increasing so they inserted a shunt to drain the fluid into his abdomen.

My husband and I adopted Flynn at 3 weeks old. He was being released from the hospital in Miami and the agency was scrambling to find a family. We didn't even know what he looked like until they texted us pictures while we were somewhere north of Tampa on 75 on our last leg of the drive from Texas.

It was daunting to deal with a tiny human with what I constantly feared was a self-destruct button on his back! He had a bandage from surgery that was to be left alone until it fell off, and a mud flap contraption that had to be changed daily with diaper changes. I had planned to start cloth diapering with some hand me down diapers from a family member, but with the newness and medical stuff each change (his poor bum was a mess) to fix diaper rash and clean the area, we just started with disposables.

By the time he was about 2 months old, with the guidance of my sister, an old pro at clothing already and working for a cloth diaper company, I started cloth diapering. It took some trial and error to get the right fit, but we had good success. Washing cloth diapers isn't hard. It may take some tweaking to get the wash routine right, but it's nice to never have to worry about running out of diapers! I highly recommend a diaper sprayer. (Disclaimer: I have a Spray-Pal shield and sprayer sitting idle while I still dunk and swish as we are setting up his bathroom.) And there's nothing cuter than a fluffy bum! We also love our cloth swim diapers for bath time, since there's almost always at least a poop smear.

Some people think cloth diapers keep babies from moving around. Flynn's physical development has been delayed due to a really big head and muscle weakness, mainly in his legs, yet he learned to roll over, army crawl, and sit up wearing cloth diapers. He's not walking yet, but they don't hold him back at all!

With spina bifida, the bowels and bladder are affected. We deal with constipation since his bowel doesn't function normally, so we give him a stool softener. This can lead to wet poop when he drinks a lot of fluids. In fact, earlier this evening, we had a 'Code Brown' that did escape the leg ruffle, but that couldn't be helped. It would have laughed in the face of a disposable. Also, diaper rashes are a rare thing here, and are usually caused by something out of the ordinary like antibiotics.

We moved up in cloth diaper size and now that he is a chunky 2 year old, we are wearing size 3 in AppleCheeks. They developed their Universal line, sizes 3 and 4 for larger kids/kids who are in diapers longer. Flynn won't be continent on his own, but we will start a bowel management program in the next year or so. We catheterize him now. We are glad to have a product that will be usable and cost effective for several years. I see people talking all the time about the expense of the pull ups they use for their bigger kids. Cloth diapering, especially over an extended period of time is worth it!

Thank you again to Julie for sharing her story. You can read the Christine's story, the first in our series, HERE.