I hate pocket diapers. I know they are probably the most common type of cloth diapers that people use. Still, I think that stuffing pocket diapers is one of the main reasons people quit cloth diapers. I prefer everything sewn together into one piece, and in this post, I will show you how I did it.

If you are not a cloth diaper expert, you should note that- pocket diapers have two components. The main part is a pocket, created for stuffing the absorbent portion, and the other part is the absorbent portion. Here is a picture of a pocket diaper with the insert halfway in. If you look carefully, it's neccessary to stick a big portion of my arm into the diaper to stuff the insert all the way.

Why do I hate pocket diapers so much? You should remove the insert before the laundry, wash the diaper and the insert separately, match the right inserts with the right diapers and struggle to stuff the insert into the diaper. Then, after all the effort, you easily put the diaper on the baby, and 10 minutes later, you discover that the insert shifted and twisted while the baby was wearing it. This is especially true for thinner, less bulky inserts

We get it. Stuffing the diapers is annoying. What if I do not remove the inserts before washing the diapers? In this case, there are two options: In the best case, the insert will find its way out of the diaper inside the washing machine. In the worst case, the insert will get all jammed up into a tiny ball inside the diaper, will not get cleaned, and you would have to dig it out.

Why do I have a pocket diaper if I hate them? For the same reason everybody has them, of course! They are on the sweet spot of being cheap, and being a modern cloth diaper that does not require wrapping fabrics on babies and securing them with sharp pins. I got this specific diaper at a terrific deal. I paid $2 instead of $18 + shipping. There was a clearance on these diapers from tiny undies for $9, and I applied Shop cash on top of that. I could not skip such a deal!

Now that I have convinced you that I do not like pocket diapers, we have to acknowledge their benefits, especially because they allow non-sewers non-sewers to customize their diapers. However, I do not want to customize my diapers every time I wash them, and I will show you how to make laundry easier. Basically, I converted my pocket diaper into an all-in-one so I will never have to deal with stuffing a diaper ever again, and the insert will never move out of place. In the picture is my pocket diaper with a diaper I already converted in the past.

Before starting sewing, you should know that the diaper's outer layer is made out of a waterproof material called PUL. We want to avoid sewing through it as much as possible because it is laminated, which is similar to a piece of fabric glued together with plastic wrap. If we pass a needle through this material, a permanent hole will remain, which might leak.

Even though we want to avoid sewing through the waterproof layer, there is already a seam in the front of the diaper, so adding another one next to it would not be a deal breaker.

Now I stuff the diaper with the insert and use sewing clips to hold it in place while attaching it once and for all.

I stitch the insert down on the sewing machine, taking out one clip at a time.

And here is my final front seam. It is not perfect because it is hard to sew close to the snaps, but it holds the insert in place.

Now that we have the front seam down, we continue to the more challenging part- a seam in the middle of the diaper without piercing the PUL. One thing we want to be careful about with this particular diaper is not restricting the flap that it has that covers the insert. This is why I mark the end of the flap on the insert with a water-soluble marker.

I turn the diaper inside out and apply glue to the insert to make the rest of the sewing easier. Glue makes everything so much easier.

After the glue dries, I flip the diaper back in and transfer the marking to the part of the diaper that would be against the baby's butt. To make the stitch, I thread the diaper on the free arm of sewing machine. It requires some maneuvers and would probably not work on newborn diapers, but my diaper fits. After everything is set, I press the pedal of the sewing machine and make the stitch.

And that's it - we are done! The glue and marker residue will be washed away the next time the diaper gets into the washing machine.

To end this post, here are some pictures of a happy butt. She is also wearing a shirt I made myself :)

If you want to learn how to stop laying boosters in fitted cloth diapers, you should definitely read my post about sewing boosters into fitted diapers.