A few weeks ago, my husband was getting Evie ready for bed, and the tab on her fresh diaper popped off in his hand.  He grabbed a new one and threw the broken one into the trash, and he said, “It’s not like we can use it now.”

And with that, I covertly snatched the diaper out of the trash, because…. oh yes we can.

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Simply stick the tab back in place and use your sewing machine and a simple zig-zag stitch to re-attach it. Voila! It took me longer to take the pictures for this post than it did to fix the tab.  My machine was already threaded with some brown thread, which was convenient for contrast in the picture.  This diaper will only be worn once, so any color of thread will do.  And no, stitching on the tab will not affect the absorbency of the diaper or cause it to leak.

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Evelyn was cloth-diapered until recently, and I sewed most of her stash, so it wasn’t much of a stretch for me to repair a disposable diaper. I wouldn’t undertake a lengthy repair on a single-use item, but this was so simple and fast that it was worth it to me just to make my husband laugh. (I hid the diaper from him so he wouldn’t know what I had planned.)  But seriously, diapers are expensive. This is a size 5 Huggies overnight diaper.  There are 27 diapers per package, and the retail price on the shelf was $12.99 (let’s get real, though. I do not pay $13 for diapers. If that was the final cost, I would still have E in cloth, no questions asked.)  They were on sale for $9.99. After store and manufacturer coupons and rebates, these particular diapers cost me about $2.07 per package, or 7.5 cents each.  (Compare that to paying retail price of 48 cents each–ouch!)  So.. did I save that much by fixing this diaper? No, not really.  However, throwing a perfectly repairable and usable item in the trash grates on me. It’s bad enough that diapers go into the landfill but must we put them there unused?

Oh, and if you don’t sew?  Well, you still don’t have to throw those tab-less disposable diapers away.  It may not be the classiest solution in the world, but a small piece of duct tape is probably going to solve your problem just as well.  ;)  If I had known where the duct tape was, I might have tried it today instead of using the sewing machine!

Things We Have Learned Here

  • I am really contrary sometimes, and enjoy doing things because someone tells me we can’t
  • Saving a dime is still saving a dime, and saving fifty cents (at retail prices) will pay for can of a mushrooms.
  • Waste not, want not!