How To Fold Flat Diapers: Origami Fold

I’ve made it far enough in my flat diapers experiment to figure out folding techniques, yay! Baby girl and Pinky the Elephant obliged for some photos for you all, so here they are. There are quite a few since I wanted to break it down step by step, so we’ll start with the origami fold–the one that has most folks running scared. Honestly it’s not that complicated once you figure it out, but even I was intimidated by the instructions on the back of the diaper package. I thought I might get a crane or a frog out of the deal by accident! JUST like paper origami instructions, lol. I hope my explanation here will make it simple for you to get started if you want to try flat diapers. Honestly, I’m feeling liberated already, because I now know how to turn even a receiving blanket into a diaper. Flats users are like the MaGuivers of cloth! “Hand me that blanket… and a paperclip!”

How To Fold Flat Diapers: The Origami Fold

Step 1: Lay Flat (Obvs)

First step to using a flat diaper is to lay it flat on the ground! Awesome, I knew we could at least get that far without anyone getting intimidated. Lay print side down for ultimate cuteness in the final product (i.e. print aiming out to show off the adorable giraffes).

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Step 2: Fold Up In Half

Fold the bottom corners up to the top corners to fold the diaper in half with the open side on top. You will now catch a glimpse of giraffe cuteness.

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Step 3: Fold Right In Half

Now fold in half again but to the right this time, layering the left corners onto the right corners. The top and right sides should be open.

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Step 4: Pull The Top Right Corner To The Left

Take the top layer of the top right corner and pull it to the left until the fabric is flat. This will create an inverted triangle shape on top of your diaper.

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Step 5: Flip The Diaper Over

Flip the diaper over horizontally so the square is on top and on the left.

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Step 6: Fold The Square Over By Half

Take the left side of the square and fold it to the right, about half of the way across the square.

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Step 7: Fold Over By Half Again

Fold that half of the square over to the right again, to create a centered thick rectangle of fabric with wings on each side. It’s starting to look like a diaper! Now we will fasten it on junior.

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How To Fasten a Flat Diaper

Step 1: Place Elephant Child On Diaper

As Pinky demonstrates, place the child waist-high on the diaper. If the baby is small, you might fold the waist of the diaper down to make the rise shorter. A typical flat diaper will fit a toddler, so you may need to fold the waist in and tuck the front down to get a good fit for little babies.

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Step 2: Pull Front Of Diaper Up

Pull the rectangle of fabric up between baby’s legs. If you have too much fabric, tuck the waist down by folding the extra fabric into the diaper for a shorter rise. Hold with your right hand as you grab for the left wing.

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.Step 3: Tuck The Left Leg Gusset

To get a snug fit and hold in messes, tuck or fold the bottom edge of the diaper wing toward baby’s bum like so. You may also want to tuck in any tags protruding from baby’s leg for a neat appearance.

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Step 4: Pull Left Wing Across Baby’s Waist

As you hold onto the center of the diaper with your right hand, pull the left wing across baby’s waist with your left hand.

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Step 5: Tuck The Right Leg Gusset

Fold the bottom of the right wing up and tuck it toward baby’s hip again, to create a right leg gusset. This isn’t anything fancy. It’s just designed to keep the leg holes snug against baby so you don’t have a droopy diaper. You’ll see what I mean when you try it.

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Step 6: Pull The Right Wing Across Baby’s Waist

Holding the left wing and center rectangle of fabric with your left hand, now pull the right wing across baby’s waist with your right hand. Voila! Doesn’t Pinky look comfy now? You can put a wrap-style diaper cover over this as-is, or you can fasten the diaper with a pin or Snappi. If you’re going to use this diaper without a fastener, I would recommend laying a diaper cover beneath the diaper once you are ready to begin putting the diaper on baby, so you don’t lose any snugness trying to scooch a cover under the diaper at this point..

.Step 7: Fasten! (Optional)

If you want to pin your diaper, you can fit one diaper pin through all the layer of fabric that meet in front at the waist. We like Snappis because they’re sleep-deprived-mama-proof and I can’t scratch baby girl with them if I tried. To fasten with a Snappi, grab the crotch of the diaper with the center piece of the Snappi, and then stretch it out to grab fabric at the right and left hips.

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Step 8: Cover

Lay a wrap-style diaper cover underneath baby, with the edge just covering the edge of the flat diaper at the waist. You don’t want any bits peeking out of the cover, or you will have leaks! Alternatively, you could use a pull-up style diaper cover if the flat diaper is fastened in place.

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Step 9: Snap for Super Cute Fluffyness

Snap or velcro the diaper cover on top of the flat diaper, and make sure no cloth is peeking out the leg holes. Your baby is good to go! I promise this is much quicker than it looks. I just wanted to show you every step of the way, but I managed to complete this process pretty quickly after my first few tries. You may want to pre-fold a few flat diapers to have them ready to fasten at the changing table, just to make it quicker, though.

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