Cloth Diapering Carnival VII: Newborn Edition

It’s time again for the CDC: Cloth Diapering Carnival, hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry. This time we will be discussing cloth diapering newborns.  Did you use prefolds and covers, fitteds, or adorable teeny tiny AIO’s?  How many did you need/ have?  What was your biggest challenge?  Tell us about the first time you cloth diapered a newborn.  Were you afraid to wash the poop?  Were there any blowouts?  What about the meconium?  The cord stump?  We want to know everything!  And, if you have pictures, share them!

Well, I will admit that the first couple of weeks with our new (preemie) baby, we did not cloth diaper. We were in the middle of a move, and several other things, besides the little one’s untimely, early, freaking us out as new parents, 3 week early arrival. Did I mention early?  I literally was on my last clean clothes, we had no clothes washed for the baby yet, no baby detergent, no bag packed, and the car seat was still in the box.

However, after about a month, my husband reminded me, through sleep exhaustion, of our desire to cloth diaper. I hemmed and hawed, I thought it would be too hard (I was already pumping and bottle feeding breast milk every couple of hours, because of her preemie status and my naivete-we eventually got it), and I wasn’t sure I could handle it at all.  I agreed to go ahead and give it a try, with a small amount of diapers, spending as little as possible.

So we got a dozen chinese bleached prefolds and 2 types of covers, 2 Prorap classic covers in white and 2 Bummis Super Whisper Wraps, one white and one celery dots. We also got one Kissaluvs contour diaper and one Kissaluvs fitted diaper in size 0 (zero).  Because we had so few, I cloth diapered during the day and when my husband got home, after dinner, we switched back to disposables. After feeding her in the morning, I switched back to cloth. At first, it was a relief to just put the disposable in the trash can and be done with it. We did not have  pail liner or wet bag so we were using a rubbermaid box to put the dirty diapers in. Eventually, we got the wetbag. Eventually, I started dreading the disposables. Eventually, we fell in love with not buying, smelling, and taking disposables out to the trash bins.

We found out there was a cloth diaper store near by (Cotton Babies) and picked up 2 more Bummis covers (froggy and Super Brite pink) and 3 itty bitty small Bum Genius AIOs. One each in blossom, butternut, and grasshopper, I think. Pretty soon I was reaching for the AIOs first. By the time she outgrew the small AIOs and her prefold/covers at 15 lbs and 3 months, I’m assuming the newborn stage is over. We have had many other adventures and tried other diapers, but this was our first ‘stash’ of 17 diapers. I started to dread putting her in a disposable or two in order to wash the diapers. Let’s just say, from there, we switched to full time cloth in short order and haven’t looked back!

Did we have blowouts? Yes. Most of them were due to not knowing how to properly fit a prefold, or not realizing that she had outgrown them. After about a week of her blowing out the rear, we realized her whole tush wasn’t being covered, and that’s when we upped our stash in size and quantity! We had WAY more blowouts from ‘sposie diapers being used than the cloth, though!

We were past the cord stump and meconium stage (she passed the meconium in the hospital and the cord stump was also gone ahead of time. However, should we endeavor into babyhood again, I think we would use diaper liners for the meconium stage. (Note: my husband, who is READY for another baby, wants to take cloth diapers to the hospital with us. No ‘sposies for baby #2). Since baby #1 is still in diapers, not ready for baby #2! Now that I ponder this, we would REALLY need more diapers if we had another baby, I couldn’t make it washing diapers every night anymore!

Oh, and I got over the poop when she exploded, pooping on the blanket, floor, playpen, wall, and furniture, just as I took her diaper off during her 2nd or 3rd week of life. Ahh, the good old days!

The first time I diapered her? Well, let’s just say I folded the prefold the wrong way. My husband had to show me how. As I’m writing this (3-20-10), I was afraid our baby was outgrowing her current stash of one size diapers, and I said, well, you watch me put it on then, and tell me, and sure enough, I was jacking it up way too high on her hind end, and not stretching it enough in front. I thought she was outgrowing it in the rise and couldn’t figure out why it was always so easy for my husband to diaper her, and why it was leaking a bit at nap time. Going so far as to show that cloth diapering for over a year is not enough to teach you EVERYTHING about it. Go ahead and laugh. My husband is the diapering champ (except when it comes to washing!)

Top tip for moms with a newborn planning to cloth diaper? Honest to God, go for the ‘sniff’ over the ‘peek’. Even breastfed poo has a sweet odor that will become undeniable, whereas a peek can be deceiving. There’s no doubt that your solid-food eater has gone, though! Whew!

I can’t believe this is the only ‘young’ photo of her in a cloth diaper. It was WINTER and she was in onesies and pants for all the rest of her photos (or in the tub!)

QUICK NOTE: If anyone reading this has ANY questions at all, either about my blog, myself, cloth diapering, etc. Please feel free to comment and I’ll get back to you!!!