Cloth Diapering a Newborn

Now that I'm long past the newborn stage (*sob*), I figured writing an entire post about the logistics of cloth diapering a newborn would be a good idea. Hopefully it will be helpful to those of you that are pregnant with your first, or plan on starting cloth diapers from birth with your future babes.

First off, I had a home birth. This made it easy for me to make Noah's very first diaper be a cloth one. I don't know the "rules", if any, with hospital births. Either way, if you are planning to use cloth from the time you get home, it should be very similar to my experience.

A quick review: I bought an entire newborn cloth diaper stash. I had about 30 diapers, including a dozen prefolds. The other 18 were mostly itty bitty fitted diapers, some Kissaluv size 0s and some no-name. I also had a couple GroVia All in ones and a couple Tot Bots Tiny Fit all in ones. I also had 4 newborn covers, for over the prefolds and fitteds. Three were Bummis brand, the other was Rearz. I washed diapers every other day and line dried/sunned them. Not a single one of my newborn diapers had any stains when I packed them up into that vacuum sealed bag - thank you Mr. Sun! It was July and August that these were used, mind you.

Okay, I'll move into the actual logistics.

I did a ton of research and knew that I'd be changing approximately 10-12 diapers a day, in the newborn stage. This was true. For Noah, almost every diaper was wet and poopy, as well. Newborns poop and pee ALOT. The good news is that newborn poop (whether they are breastfed or formula fed) is water-soluble. This means that until they start eating real food, there is no spraying/scraping/swishing required. Also, in the old days of cloth diapering, the diapers were put into a "wet pail" to soak until wash day. That is a thing of the past. The materials in modern cloth diapers would not hold up well if they were soaked in water on a daily basis. So, the diaper just gets tossed into a dry diaper pail with a pail liner, or a hanging wet bag, and then gets rinsed and washed in the washing machine on wash day. Easy peasy.

Here is what my newborn stash consisted off, broken down and with links to some of the brands:

12 infant prefolds (I bought used from a local mama)
3 Kissaluvs size 0 (my favourite newborn fitteds)

5 No-name newborn fitteds (I bought used off Kijiji)
5 Smarty Pants diaper service newborn fitteds (I bought new off Kijiji)
2 GroVia newborn all-in-ones
2 Tot Bots Tiny Fits
3 Bummis Super Brite newborn covers
1 Rearz newborn cover
I also had three size small Monkey Doodlez Tuck and Go covers and inserts. I started using them when he was a few weeks old, though they say they fit 6-18lbs.

On top of that, I bought a big "cloth diaper pail" at a local baby boutique. I do love it and some of it's features (it's huge, it has a built-in charcoal filter for smell, etc) but I also now suggest just buying a $10 plastic garbage pail with a lid, from Walmart. I got a big Rearz pail liner in the newborn pack that I talk about here. It's my main pail liner. I also got a Bummis pail liner as a gift, which I love as my hanging wet bag downstairs. It doesn't fit in my huge diaper pail though. I have two small wet bags, Fuzzi Buns and Bummis brands, that I alternate, for my diaper bag. They each hold about 4 diapers.

While I'm thinking about it, I'll quickly talk about using cloth while out and about. In the first few months, it's easy. I'd say no different / not any harder than using dispoables. I would take the dirty diaper off and instead of tossing it away, I just put it into my wetbag. Mine are zippered and I've never smelt the diaper once I zip it up. When I got home, I just transfered the dirty diapers to the hanging wet bag and wipe out my small wet bag. I usually wash my small wet bags once a week, they don't get dirty very often. I wash my diaper pail liner every time I wash diapers as it does get dirty. The only difference now that Noah's eating solid food, when I get home I take the dirty diapers out of the wet bag and if any are poopy, I spray them with the diaper sprayer before I toss them into the hanging wet bag.

The only other cloth diaper accessory I can think of is cloth wipes. I knew I wanted to use cloth wipes as well. For the first few months, we also used disposable wipes. I was given a few packs of them as gifts so we used them up, mostly in the diaper bag for when we were not at home. Now that they are gone (have been for a few months) we use only cloth wipes. At home, I just keep them in a little basket, dry, then before I lay Noah down for a diaper change, I dunk a wipe in a container of pre-made solution that I keep on the kitchen island (our kitchen/living room is open concept). The wipe solution is mostly warm water, a drop of baby oil, a drop of baby wash and then a vitamin E capsule. I make it about once a week, one container downstairs and one upstairs in Noah's room. I have about 40 or more cloth wipes. Most are just cheap baby wash cloths from the dollarstore/Walmart. A handful are actual cloth wipes I bought online and some are even just a cut up flannel receiving blanket. I find cloth wipes are even better than disposable wipes for actually getting the job done, they are softer and there's no yucky chemicals touching your baby's bum. When I am changing him in public or at someone else's house, I bring dry cloth wipes and just run it under warm water before I use it. The dirty wipes go right into the wet bag with the dirty diapers, as well as right into the washing machine with them.

Oh, I thought of something else. Cloth diaper safe bum cream/rash cream is great to have on hand. But I wrote a post about that already, so I'll just link it here.

I wrote down everything for the first two months of Noah's life. I had a notebook, and every day I wrote the date at the top of a page, then I wrote columns: Diapers / Feedings / Naps. He ate every 1.5-2 hours for a long time, so I usually changed him before he ate. Our cycle was clean diaper, feeding, nap. Then he'd wake up and "hang out" for a bit, then before I knew it was time to change his diaper, feed him and he'd be back down for a nap again. I definitely changed 10+ diapers per day for the first two months, at least. And until about month four, I changed him once during the night as well. It's alot of diapers, period. Now think about all those disposable diapers that would be filling up your garbage and then the landfill. Yuck.

The best advice I was given/read was: Do not buy 30 of one type/brand of diaper and call it your "stash". You won't know what works best for you and your baby until you start using them, so getting a few different brands and types is definitely a good idea. There are also "newborn rental packages" you can do through online sites like here, and there was also a newborn rental package available through my local cloth diaper store. I didn't do this, but I would suggest it as an good option to figure out what brands and types you like best.
　
　

Another good piece of advice was: Even though One-Size diapers say they fit 8-32lbs, that's not exactly accurate. I had an 8 lb baby and I didn't even bother trying a one-size diaper on him until he was 12 lbs. Even if you had a 10 lb newborn, the one-size diaper one the smallest setting are very bulky. Newborn or XS size diapers are definitely best for the first month or two.

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I was told so many time that I'd probably "quit" cloth diapering in those first few weeks. Everyone said that I'd be too tired to do "all that extra laundry" and that would be "wasted time". It came easy to me, probably because I wanted it so bad. I had my Mom and my husband to help those first two weeks. My Mom went up and down the stairs doing the diaper laundry while she was here (only because I had a more difficult healing process and didn't want to do too many stairs). Once I was feeling better and my Mom was gone at week 3, I was doing it all myself, no problem. I love cloth diapering, and, like I've said before, it's a way of life for us - it just goes along with recycling and composting and being eco-friendly in many other ways.

Noah in his very first diaper

5 days old, wearing a Kissaluvs size 0 fitted