Folding Flat Diapers: The Origami Fold

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Just over a week ago I introduced my first flat diaper fold tutorial. That was for the airplane flat fold which is a great fold for boys as it puts lots of layers right up front where boys need it most. Today, I want to introduce the origami flat fold. The origami flat fold works great for boys and girls as it places the most layers right through the centre of the diaper (equally front to back). I find that it leaves me with lots of length in the wings of the diaper for wrapping around a pudgy baby. If you’re doing the fold on a smaller/skinnier baby, you can fold those wings back a bit to shorten them up. Don’t be intimidated by the name of this fold! I promise it’s way easier than folding an origami paper crane! For this tutorial I’m using the Geffen Baby Fladdle flat diaper again. If you’d like to purchase a Geffen Baby Fladdle, you can order directly from Geffen Baby or, if you’re in Canada, you can order from Lagoon Baby. 

As always, you want to start out with your flat diaper completely open in a square. That’s step one! From there you’re going to start folding. To start the origami fold, you’re going to fold your square flat in half from the bottom up (so the fold is at the bottom where you’re standing/sitting). Then you’re going to fold it into a square by folding the left side over the right.

The next step is probably the most tricky of the origami fold steps. You’re going to grab the top layer of the top right corner and pull it out to the left. This will create an upside down triangle with the rest of the flat still in a square on the right.

Now you’re going to flip the flat upside down. Grab the two upper corners and flip the whole thing down so the square of the flat that was under the triangle on the right is now on  the right on top of the triangle.

Next, you’ll take that square on the right and you’re going to fold it over to the left in thirds. It will overlap the centre of the triangle when you’re finished so it looks like a rectangle laying centred on top of a triangle.

Rotate the folded flat diaper 180 degrees so the widest part is farthest away from you and the narrowest part is closest to you.

Now the diaper is ready for baby! If you’re not about to do a diaper change, you’ll just fold the narrowest part up so the bottom edge meets the top edge, then fold each of the sides in (those are your diaper wings).

The origami flat fold will give you EIGHT layers of absorbency through the entire centre of the diaper!

And that’s the origami fold! A great option for both girls and boys, and easy enough to do once you get past making the triangle part. If you’d like to use this one overnight, you can fold a booster right into the middle. You can place the booster in the centre of the triangle before step four (where you fold the square into thirds).

Which folds are you most interested in learning?