Cloth Diapering a Newborn

Mikaela in a newborn bumGenius AIO

Kainan was almost 20 months old before I started using cloth diapers on him, so I was excited to try cloth on a newborn. Now that Mikaela is a month old I have to say that when I have another baby I probably won't use cloth in the first month or two. Why? Well several reasons. First you are likely to get enough free diapers to last for the first week or two anyway. Between what you can take home from the hospital and gifts from friends/family most parents start out with at least a few disposable diapers. The other reason is that nearly all babies are born with very thin legs making most cloth diapers not fit very well. If you are trying to save money by using one-size diapers from the start, they will likely NOT work unless your baby is very large. Mikaela was 7 1/2 pounds and has grown quickly (over 10 pounds at 4 weeks) but still is just tiny bit too small for her onesize diapers.

The diapers that did fit Mikaela well were the "expensive" AIO diapers (Bumgenius XS) and she is just about too big for those already. I loved them and fortunately bought some smalls before  they stopped selling them. I got really good deals on all of my diapers so I don't think I have lost much money (I will find out for sure when I re-sell them) but it has been somewhat of a pain. You really don't want things to be more complicated right after having a baby! If it weren't for Amazon coupons I would be out quite a bit on my prefolds/covers but thankfully most of them were free or nearly free. I bought tons of prefolds and covers hoping to love them and they didn't work for me at all. I know several moms who they have worked for, and they worked great with my son but for now they just don't work for Mikaela. I sold all but a couple of the covers and use the prefolds as burp clothes.

What about the chemicals in disposable diapers? This is a valid question. There are disposable diapers that are more baby and earth friendly than others, I used a package of 7th generation and they were great. Neither of my kids have ever gotten rashes from Huggies diapers, so when I use disposables that is usually what I get. They have never had any sort of negative reaction to them. Using a disposable diaper is no worse than putting a baby to sleep on a conventional mattress, using conventional bath products or taking a baby outside if you live in a polluted area. If you can avoid all of these things that's great, but it's not realistic for everyone. I use only natural products whenever possible with my babies so maybe that evens out the fact that they wear disposables from time to time. :)

Now that Mikaela is getting bigger and fitting into her size small diapers things are going better. We still have some leaks but not as many. I think I would recommend waiting until the baby is a month or two old, or over 10 lbs (with chunkier legs) to start cloth. At that point you could probably get away with one size diapers or at least a better fit in sized diapers. If you do choose to use cloth diapers from birth I have to recommend bumGenius newborn diapers and Thirsties Duo diapers (size 1.) Different diapers work for different babies, many moms swear by prefolds and covers for newborns.

If you CD have you done it since birth? What did you use?

Posted in: Cloth Diapering,Diapering,Living Green,Parenting,Saving Money,Thrifty