"Reading all these comments. Man, I sure miss having babies! Aren't they just the best?????????"

"I still have some. Don’t know where I got them."

Reading these last 2 comments together made me laugh so hard!! Jshep, one of these days we will tell you how you get babies.

I went to a luncheon sponsored by my woman's club and since we were donating disposable diapers to a local charity a crafty member made favors for the table by folding napkins into a diaper and using a big blue diaper pin. She filled the diapers with chocolate candy. I saved my diaper pin and I wonder where on earth she found enough to make favors for everyone. My baby is 61 years old also and I wish I had saved some of the cute pins I used. I had birds, ducks, flowers, etc. Many happy memories.

Someone is having a bad day. This board is about supporting one another and having a sense of humor. Don't take yourself too seriously. Noone else does.

Good grief. I never knew a discussion about diaper pins could lead to "rude and snotty" words.

really - she blocked me a while back with a very ugly personal message!!

I went to a baby shower abut 8 years ago, a friend of the future grandma. One of the games that I got caught having to play, was can you diaper a bear. The bear was about the size of a 3 month old, and then they said you are blindfolded and its a cloth diaper! I just looked at all the young people around me and thought really? It took me less than a minute and when I stood the bear up the diaper didn't fall off. It was a little difficult getting the pins thru the 4 layers of diaper since I folded it over at the tops to make it small enough. Remember one size fits all! just fold to make it smaller.:) I think it took the other girl (friend of the mother to be) about 15 minutes and it didn't stay on. If I remember correctly they move on to a different game quickly. I told them I had two in diapers and we were in the military, cloth was cheaper than those fancy disposables. But when the girls had to go to a sitter I had to provide disposables, so I did have to use them sometimes.

Grandkids are more fun and you get to give them back at the end of the day, and you don't lose sleep,

This was a fun post, I remember when I had my daughter, she was the first and now is 49yrs old, when I changed her diaper, I accidently pinned her to it, I didn't know I had done that till I picked her up off the changing table and she stared to scream, them like a dummy I put rubbing alcohol on it so it wouldn't get infected (nope didn't know what I was doing) laugh about it now but I didn't then, I cried and called my husband and told him I was going to be put in jail for abusing our baby, he just laughed at me. MEN! I still have her diaper pins and the one I pinned to her.

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Originally Posted by PurplePansies (Post 8542487)

I was pinning blocks together the other day and, when the pin wouldn't slide right in, I automatically just ran it through my hair. Anyone else remember doing that with diaper pins? (My "baby" is 45!)

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Running the business end of the pin through my hair at change-time was something I did back in the day when I used to babysit (teen years), cloth diapers and rubber pants were in vogue back then. Swore by it as a mom, too, especially when fastening bulky double diapers.

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Originally Posted by lberna (Post 8542512)

Oh my gosh. What a walk down memory lane. I still have a couple of them. How about rubber pants. I used to buy Gerber rubber pants because I could get them at my grocery store.

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Yuppers, put all my kids through rubber pants. Yes to Gerber! Nothing beat the old Gerber's!

Gerber rubber pants were truly the only rubber pants I found that stood up to being laundered with the diapers, unlike cheaper brands which would rip, tear, and fall apart when subjected to the rigors of my old top-loading agitator washing machine.

Diapers and rubber pants were hung to dry on the clothesline.

Did everyone double and triple diaper in their homes, too?

Was always double diapers when I babysat, so did the same with my own gang... double diapers with rubber pants (daytime), triple diapers with rubber pants (nighttime), and I remember diapering my baby brother the same.

Hi, Endora -

Now I remember you - long time no posting -

Sure with I could get my hands on some of those Curity long gauze diapers - at a price I am willing to pay. They make the very best dishtowels.

Never liked the prefolded ones. Or the flannel ones. Or whatever that other fabric was.

DH did a much better job of putting the diapers on to stay without sliding down off the baby than I ever could.

I remember the plastic - not actual rubber - pants that we put on over the diapers.

I bemoan the amount of trash that disposable diapers create. And then I realize i am now contributing to that waste. Sigh.

I still find large safety pins to be useful items.

Greetings, Bearisgray!

Yes, long time no post (or chat)!

So nice to know you're still here!

I'm with you on traditional fold-and-pin diapers, never cared for the prefold variety either, and as for the waterproof pants, the ones I used were plastic as well, though I always referred to them as rubber pants.

Like yourself, the disposable world we live in today is so defeating.

Saved my kids diaper pins in my notions basket, and still use them today for odd things!

P.S. I laugh at the thought of babysitters today having to deal with old-fashioned cloth diapers!

And, almost forgot, I remember how I used to hold open diaper pins between my pursed lips when changing a diaper!

I still remember and can hear that distinct plastic-rustling sound the rubber pants made when changing a diaper, and I even remember the ammonia smell they carried even when clean, and no amount of washing got the pink staining out from around the elastic leg-holes!

Wow, i'm old and never heard the hair thing. but then my Mother never told me anything. I learned by doing I"m afraid. I did have a diaper service for awhile. Good thing too, no washing machine in our apartment!

I used to keep my babies' diaper pins in a bar of soap. Same idea. Cloth diapers and hung them on a clothesline. This was in 1967

I remember diaper service. We had it until the late 80's. Never used it though, always did old-fashioned home-laundered diapers.

I remember the bar of soap method from babysitting.

Keeping the moisture resitant wrapper over the soap helped contain soap fragments inside, because the pins would slowly start breaking up the surface of the bar soap.

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I used disposables, but I covered them in "Ruffle-butt panties". Those underwares that had the ruffles!-Both girls!

I remember those cute little ruffled dress-up numbers!

Thank you for the walk down memory lane!

Goodness yes!

Soap, water, and a soft 100% cotton baby washcloth, that's how I dealt with my kids butts at change-time, and it worked for generations before me.

Baby washcloths went into the plastic diaper pail with the diapers and rubber pants, and all was laundered on wash day. As a mom I couldn't have asked for a better system.

Speaking of rubber pants, does everyone remember when rubber pants came in pastel colours?

These were in vogue when I used to babysit (1970's)!

Used these with my older kids but couldn't find pastel coloured ones when my younger ones came along.

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The newer style prefolds are dumb. They're often found as 'burp cloths' at Target or Walmart but they're not layers of cotton. Instead they have a later of polyester batting to make them thick in the middle.

Polyester doesn't absorb. Sigh.

It's been years since I last dealt with cloth diapers, but seeing all of the funky styles today, I would be turned off as a new mom having to mess around with all of the stuffing, etc, and as you say, dealing with diapers that aren't 100% cotton, what in the world are the makers of those diapers thinking using polyester???

Then there's today's modern Velcro closing diaper covers which just don't seem like they would be as waterproof and reliable as the old-fashioned rubber pants I used.

I used 100% cotton flannelette diapers, the large rectangle sheet ones, they were so absorbent and soft, and once I had them folded and stacked on the dresser top beside my kids cribs, all I had to do was pluck a diaper from the stack, fit it to the baby, and a safety pin on each side took care of the fastening. No-nonsense diapers they were, and boy, did they ever get the job done, and very well may I add.

Always preferred folding diapers from scratch, because I always felt I could get a better fit from the old traditional fold-and-pin diapers.

Throwback Thursday!

Changing these for a whopping .25¢ and .50¢ an hour babysitting!

Anyone else grow up babysitting (back in the day), and remember stooping over lowered crib railings changing cloth diapers and rubber pants?

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I vaguely remember my Mom using "real rubber" - or was it latex - diaper covers on my baby sisters.

I think it was during the same era as the playtes "living girdles" that were rubber or latex.

(1950 - 1955)

Or the three types of diaper fabric available when my kids were babies (1960-1969) , there were the long gauze rectangle, the gauze prefolds, flannel, and birdseye cotton.

My preference was the long gauze rectangles.

Don't remember much about the safety pins- except that the bigger ones were easier to handle, and the novelty ones were a bother.

The kids Dad did a much better job of diapering the munchkins than I did. He could make them stay up on the kids. He was not very enthusiastic about the job at first, but his older brother was a good example and showed him that it was okay for men to change the baby.

As far as using my hair to lubricate a diaper pin - I don't think I heard about that. Soap, probably. One could always stick the pin in a jar of vaseline for another alternative.

What did people use for leaky babies before cloth was available?

When my kids were babies, I had a wringer washing machine - was totally thrilled that I could fill the tub with a hose and drain it into a floor drain. My Mom had to carry water to her wringer machine and laundry tubs and then carry the water out.So wash DAY for her was a whole day process. It was for my MIL, too.

It was diapers and rubber pants for my baby siblings as well, I changed many being the oldest, however, I never seen actual real rubber pants in my day, all were vinyl-plastic, but mom always referred to them as rubber pants, so I carried the name forward as the years went by.

The diapers I used were cotton flannelette and rectangle in shape, and they fit from birth to toilet-training. I started off with 4 dozen diapers when my oldest was born, and then as they wore and became thinner and even threadbare, I replaced them with one to two dozen at a time which allowed for another 3-4 years of diapering. So economical.

I agree about novelty pins. Always used no-nonsense diaper pins with the larger traditional plastic safety caps, and I also used pins with metal locking heads.

Gosh, dear husband never changed a single diaper, never even touched one. He was raised in a gender specific and strict home, so baby-care was off limits. My dad was the same, never changed a diaper in his life. I sometimes wonder had I used Pampers, if I may have been able to convince dear husband to change an occasional diaper or two, but probably not.

As for waterproofing, rubber pants were a must for me, without the pants I wouldn't have considered cloth diapering. Had a couple of great aunts that claimed that they never used rubber pants, so lots of checking and changing with plain old-fashioned cloth. Me on the otherhand, I always used rubber pants. Do think rubber pants were more for moms to allow them to relax when tending to other domestic chores and things around the house... no worries over constant checking and changing when baby was diapered in rubber pants.

Was cloth diapers and rubber pants all through my babysitting years as well, and all the moms did old-fashioned home-laundered diapers in the washing machine, and hung them to dry on the clothesline. My mom told me that for the first year after I was born, she washed my diapers (by hand) in the bathtub at the end of each day, then she'd hang them to dry and pray they were ready by morning.

Then came her first washing machine, a wringer washer, and that lasted until the early 70's. Baby brother was born in 73, and in and around that time mom got a modern electric automatic washing machine. Washing diapers was never more easy! I remember how I would dump the diaper pail into the washing machine (top-loader), select the hottest water setting, add a little detergent and bleach, close the lid, then pull the button out to start the wash cycle.

When the wash cycle was done, into a waiting plastic laundry basket the diapers went, and out the back door and onto the line they'd go. On a hot summer day diapers would dry lickety-split! An hour often did it, and I'd be back outside unpinning and pulling down off the line, the long row of white rectangles, then back into the house, dump the basket out onto the kitchen table or mom and dads bed, fold and stack, and baby brother had a clean fresh supply of didies for another day.

Always double diapered, and always rubber pants over the diapers. No changing table in our house with my baby siblings, and I never relied on a changing table for my kids either. Diapers were changed in the crib, and the plastic diaper pail sat in the corner in the bathroom.

As for lubricating the pins, I did the bar soap thing, too, and my SIL used to stick her pins into a stiff sponge with a little baby oil added to the sponge. Both of my sisters used cloth diapers, too. They kept their pins in a pincushion and ran the business end of the pin through their hair at change-time like I did.

Cloth diapers and rubber pants saved us a ton of money, and when I had two wearing diapers at the same time, nothing beat old-fashioned cloth, pins, and pants! Rubber pants were cheap and lasted for months before needing replaced. $1.44 Day at Woolco... a package of 6 pairs of rubber pants for $1.44! Some months Woolco would offer two packs for the price of one! $1.44 for 12 pairs of rubber pants! Talk about economical!

I used disposable (flushable) diaper liners with my babies for the first 5-6 weeks after they were born. Had blue and white liners, and boy, were they ever a godsend!

Those liners made cleanup a breeze when it came to the early meconium poops. Unlatch pins on the diaper, roll up the liner and flush, diaper into the pail!

The Curity brand diaper liners were blue (I used them), and the other brand of liners I used were Johnson's.

Once my babies were toddling, diaper liners didn't work, they shifted, bunched, and would sag and end up in a ball in the bum of their diapers, but when my kids reached the daytime toilet training stage but still needed to wear diapers at night, I'd line their nighttime double-fold diaper with a liner, pin-fasten the diaper on, top the diaper off with rubber pants, and not once did any of my kids suffer nighttime irritation or a diaper rash when I used a liner in their diapers, and by morning they'd always wake soaked, yet those liners kept them comfy and helped keep wetness away from their bottoms.

Thats just what I did!

I used them too. For first one only the white ones were available. Then for Sweet Son who died in 2020, we had the blue ones. He was slow to potty train but was a good talker. He would say "I pooped and I want the duck diaper pins and a blue liner" and I would say "if you can say all that why can't you tell me before?" And he said "when we move to our new house I will use the toilet". We were due to move soon. And as soon as we moved he said "now I will use the toilet" and he was potty trained from then. He was almost 3.

Yes, me, too, though running the pins through my hair was my favoured method.

I am so sorry to hear of your sons passing, Stitchnripper. :)

OMG, OMG, OMG... your story of your son being able to vocalize what he did to you is amazing!!!

One of my sons would pull at and snap the front elastic waistband of his rubber pants when he was wet or needed to be changed, so I'd say to him, go get mommy a diaper and I'll change you, and so he'd race off to the baby room and arrive back in the kitchen with a pair of rubber pants in hand, and in an excited and loud voice he'd say... "pop-a-pants, mommy, pop-a-pants"! Cutest thing ever.

I'm convinced he got the name "pop-a-pants" from me allowing him to hold the diaper pins at change-time, then as I needed a pin I'd say to him, okay, pass mommy a pin, and he'd pass me a pin, so he must have put one-and-one together that mommy uses pins to put on his pants, so I'm guessing he automatically thought mommy is popping his pants with the pins, so rubber pants were "pop-a-pants".

Alyce, did your son toilet train completely at age 3 (day and night)?

Nighttime diapers lasted for what seemed like forever with two of my kids! Triple diapers with rubber pants, and they'd wake each and every morning absolutely drenched! Soaked right to the diaper pins!

They looked like they were wearing fishbowls!

Reading through the many wonderful posts, old memories are resurfacing, like how I used to hold the open diaper pins between my pursed lips at change-time!

No fumbling for loose pins set down carelessly on the crib mattress where baby could reach them, just pluck a ready diaper pin from my mouth and fasten the diaper!

Made for quick and efficient diapering!

And how I used to drape the rubber pants over the crib railing when changing a diaper!

I'll never forget how my kids used to waddle like penguins/ducks, because their diapers were so bulky!

Oh, and... the unmistakable plastic rustling sound of those rubber pants! Swish, swish, swish... the pants would sound with their every step!

Long-standing joke I used to tell everyone... I always knew where my kids were in the house by the plasticy rustling sound of their rubber pants! I could hear them coming from a mile away!

Question to all QuiltingBoard cloth diaperers of the past...

Did anyone ever lose a diaper (flush one) when toilet swishing/dunking/rinsing a poo-poo diaper?

I flushed two in my day! One at home rinsing out one of my own children's diapers, and another at my SIL's, when babysitting at her house! Lucked out both times, no toilet clogging! Both diapers went straight down!

Nieces and nephews all wore cloth diapers and rubber pants!

Did not enjoy rinsing the poopy ones out in the toilet.

I do remember those days. yuck.

Neither me!

I recall all the kerfuffle that would arise when I had a poo-poo diaper soaking in the toilet and one of the older kids would go into the bathroom to use the toilet, only to find a waiting lumpy diaper in the toilet bowl.

MOM... they'd call out! Into the bathroom I'd dash to clear the toilet bowl for them!

Speaking of the old days... my SIL was going down her basement stairs one early morning with a full diaper pail in tow and she tripped. When the diaper pail hit the basement floor, the lid popped open spilling out the entire pail full of wet and dirty diapers. Dear SIL didn't get hurt, but what a mess she had to clean up.

My youngest would have been around 15 months at the time when he came up with the brainy idea to store a few of his toys in the nursery room diaper pail which stood at the foot of his crib. Silly little boy. The things kids do.

Check ETSY.

You'll be able to garner quality vintage diaper pins.

Today's pins aren't worth wasting ones time on unless you can find the Dritz brand with the snap-locking plastic safety caps.

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Better yet, if you can find any of these pins, buy them!

These are what I used on my kids back in the day and they were the sharpest pins I used and made really well.

https://www.angelfluff.com/images/di...color-pins.jpg

This thread reminded me of snap-on rubber pants!

How I loathed having to fuss with snap-on rubber pants at change-time! If it weren't already involved enough with the folding and pinning of cloth diapers, snap-on rubber pants added to the mix.

Thankfully 99% of the moms I babysat for used pull-on rubber pants! Made for speedy changes, fit better, and no fussing with snaps!

Snap-on rubber pants did have their place though... they were good for when baby had a diaper rash.

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Just remembered another oldie... an aunt used to add orange peels to my baby cousins diaper pail to help with odour.

I used baking soda, and also remember adding a little Diaper Pure in the pails to help keep odour down.

Had two diaper pails on the go back in the day, one for wet-wets which was kept in the nursery, and the other pail for dirties which was kept in the bathroom.

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