Cloth Diapering a Newborn
Wyatt is now 7 months old and we have been out of the newborn stage for awhile, but let’s go back and reminisce a little shall we? Let’s discuss how we starting cloth diapering a newborn.
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He sure was a cute little guy! They grow up too fast. In this photo he is only a day old and is wearing a disposable diaper. We did not cloth diaper him straight from the hospital. Some moms do, but I didn’t want to worry about laundry the day I came home! Mia even wore disposables the whole time I was in the hospital so I didn’t come home to a hamper full of poopy diapers! However, I wanted to start using cloth diapers very soon after getting home, and we did. But, it was a learning curve for me again because although Mia had been in cloth diapers since she was 4 months old, cloth diapering a newborn is different.
The biggest reason why is because of their size! Newborns are tiny! As sweet as they are, they have skinny little chicken legs that just don’t fill out diapers very well! One sized diapers have multiple snap settings so that you can use the same diaper on a baby from about 10 pounds to 25 or 30 pounds. Mia still wears the same diapers at 2 now that she did at 4 months. However, those snap settings just don’t quite go small enough for those teensy little newborns.
So, to cloth diaper Wyatt, I had to buy some different sized diapers to use for the first month or two. You have about all the same kinds of style options with newborns as you do with larger babies, and I tried a few different ones. I actually bought a used stash off a swap site from another mom, and while I liked getting some name brands cheaper and finding the style I liked, I would recommend just doing your own research and buying new. I did buy a few duds that weren’t worth the money and you are always at a risk when buying off swap sites.
Wyatt’s First Cloth Diaper
I put Wyatt in his first cloth diaper when he was 4 days old. Clearly it was not his favorite! 😀 He actually only wore it for about 10 minutes before he pooped in it! (Which was okay, because this style was still a little big on him.) His second cloth diaper went a little bit smoother and he wore it longer.
It is funny that I say this one fit better, because it looks bigger and it sure makes his legs look even more chicken-like! However, the fit that I am talking about is around the thighs. There were gaps in the monster diaper in the first photo, where the yellow diaper did not have gaps. There was just no way the onsie was getting snapped around all that fluff! 😀
So other than the newborn cloth diapers not really fitting correctly at 4 days old, there was one other issue. That was the vaseline. Wyatt was circumsized and to heal properly, it had to be covered in vaseline. Vaseline is a petroleum based product and it can coat the diapers and cause repelling. Any petroleum based product (such as most diaper creams) is not cloth diaper safe for this reason. So, to use cloth diapers at this point, I had to create liners to prevent the vaseline from directly touching the diaper. These were scrap pieces of fleece that I cut into rectangle shapes about the size of a newborn insert. They worked well for the most part, but were a hassle to use and I didn’t have enough to cloth diaper him all day.
Newborn Cloth Diaper Brands:
Rumparooz Covers and Green Mountain Prefolds
The first diaper that fit Wyatt was the cover and prefold option. I bought five Rumparooz newborn covers brand new off of diaperjunction.com on Black Friday. The prefolds came came from Green Mountain diapers. I bought 12 of the newborn size and 12 of the novice size.
There were both pros and cons to these diapers, but they were probably my favorite until I could fit him into a one-sized pocket diaper.
Pros:
- Fit the best around the legs
- NO leaks/blow outs. These things held a lot and were iron clad!
- Velcro closures made diaper changes a little quicker. (Which was needed due to the prefolds.)
- Covers could be reused if no poo landed on them.
- No stuffing required after laundry day.
- Fit the longest compared to other newborn sizes.
- Prefolds can be used to stuff pocket diapers after they are too small to be folded around baby. (I use them in Wyatt’s nighttime diapers now.)
Cons:
- Learning to fold the prefold around the baby was a little bit of a learning curve. I wish I would have gotten a picture of the prefold without the cover on. I found all sorts of fold styles on Pinterest and got snappis
to secure them instead of diaper pins.
- The cloth prefolds remained wet feeling after Wyatt peed. It seemed like he was more sensitive wetness in these diapers than others that had microfleece. While changing him more often wasn’t really a bad thing, it was a hassle.
to secure them instead of diaper pins.Blueberry Simplex
The first cloth diaper Wyatt ever wore was a Blueberry Simplex that I got from a resale. I had three of these and the prints were cute! But, they weren’t my favorites. They are an all-in-one style diaper that had inserts that flipped out to help with washing. However, these inserts didn’t have a lot of padding, so I was glad there was a place where you could add more stuffing, which I always did. Check out a video about them here.
Pros:
- Cute prints
- Could stuff extra inserts inside
- Had a umbilical snap to pull the top part down. (It’s being used in the first photo of this diaper at the top of the post.)
Cons:
- Texture of inside of diaper was actually kind of rough.
- VERY Expensive brand new. I would NOT have bought these for this price. ($19.99 a piece!)
- Had to make sure the leg holes were tucked in properly or else there were blow outs every. single. time. (See picture below. )
Kawaii Newborn Pocket Diaper
The Kawaii pocket diaper was a nice newborn sized diaper. Sadly, I don’t have any pictures of Wyatt wearing one of them. I had 2 that I got on resale.
Pros:
- Pocket diapers are easy to put on with no prefolding.
- Had decent absorbency and only had a few leaks. No blow outs that I remember.
- Velcro (hook and loop) made for quick diaper changes.
Cons:
- Pockets are small, so they are hard to stuff.
- Newborn inserts wouldn’t hold enough as they were only 2 microfiber layers. I actually stuffed these with a newborn prefold that I folded into thirds.
Lil Joey All in One
I received 2 Lil Joey
Pros:
- Small enough to fit newborns from day 1 (and baby dolls)
- Cute
Cons:
- Leaks upon leaks upon leaks
- VERY Expensive per diaper (like $15 apiece)
- Because they are thick and don’t come apart, they dry very slowly compared to other diapers and inserts
- Baby will grow out of them quickly if they do work
One-Size Newborn Hack
While we were getting by with the newborn diapers (covers and prefolds being the best), I couldn’t wait for Wyatt to fit into our one-size diapers. They were what we were using for Mia and they had few leaks and had microfleece to help pull moisture away from baby’s bum. The good news is I was able to put one-sized diapers on Wyatt sooner (closer to 9-10lbs instead of 12) due to a different way to snap cloth diapers to fit newborns. Feel free to search Pinterest for “newborn cloth diaper hack” as I probably don’t explain it the best here!
- Snap the two side rise snaps up to the hip snaps.
- Snap the center rise snap to the lowest setting.
- Put on baby.
- Snap the bottom hip snaps to the middle bottom rise snaps. (Whichever fits best)
- Snap top closed around baby’s waist.
There are actually a couple of variations to this as well that might work better for different babies.
Clothing Diapering a Newborn
Well, that is about all I can remember about cloth diapering Wyatt. It was 7 months ago! I look back at those diapers now and wonder how he was ever so tiny! They are all in storage now to be used again one day by future babies of mine or someone else’s! Have any other questions? Leave them below? Or did one of these styles work for you that didn’t work for me?! I would love any tips and info as if/when we have future baby(ies) I will be using cloth diapers as soon as possible!
Also: Check out my other posts on cloth diapering!
