The Supersoaking Boy's Flat Diaper Fold

We're temporarily living in a tough water situation, so I'm putting our beloved prefold and pocket diapers into hibernation and using flats until spring. But it's been a challenge finding a way to fold the flats to work best on young Conner. He needs a lot of absorbency at the center front, but little absorbency anywhere else.

The origami fold almost did what we needed, but the pad extended all the way to the back and the wings came around his legs at too shallow an angle. The Jo fold was very reminiscent of our beloved prefolds, but didn't put enough layers right where we needed them. So I started playing, and came up with this fold. It's customizable to any level of doubler you need, and it's so effective that I might just stick with this even once we're out of our water situation. Anyway, here's how to do it in case someone else out there needs something similar.

1. Start by laying a flat diaper out like a diamond. Then fold each of the side corners a little past center.

2. Fold the top and the bottom corners to the center, resulting in a 2-layer rectangle of fabric that's longer than it is wide. If using a doubler, lay it in lengthwise at the center front.

3. Fold up the front and doubler a little past center, completely encasing the doubler in the diaper fabric.

4. Lay the baby on the diaper with the baby's bum at the top center of the diaper. Fold the front of the diaper (bottom center of the above picture) into thirds and bring the resulting pad up between the baby's legs. Bring the top corners around the baby's waist and snappi or pin into place.

You now have 12 layers of diaper fabric, plus any doubler material, between baby's legs where the absorbency is needed, but only two layers coming around the waist. Cover with a waterproof diaper cover and go play with that baby!