Dear Ladies, I need to tap your fountain of wisdom. We've decided to pursue cloth diapering with Little One and I have no idea what I actually need. Oh, I've spent weeks looking at different websites, offering more and more complicated (and expensive) cloth diapering soluntions. I can tell you one method (I'm pretty sure) we're NOT doing: I don't think I want to buy 20+ all-in-ones at more than $20 a piece. I'm leaning towards contoured diapers inside covers. Of course, I've never done this, so I could be wrong...
Here's where I need your help:
- Did you cloth diaper? If so, what kind did you use?
- Did you like doing it that way?
- How many diapers do you REALLY need? I don't want to be stuck doing laundry EVERY day, but every other or every third is totally reasonable.
- Any other advice you can offer a first-timer?
HELP! My mom asked me to pull together a registry, and I definately want to get the diapers on there if I can. Thanks in advance for any thoughts!
11 comments:
Well, I can tell you from my experience -- I ended up going for the all-in-ones from bumgenius at $17 each (in a 12 pack). I tried contoured diapers in a cover, I tried prefolds, bamboo, cotton, hemp, and the ONLY thing that worked for my baby and me was the bumgenius AIO diapers. For our busy life, they were much easier than putting on a diaper and then having to put on a cover. They have the waterproof outer layer already, they come with two inserts, one for newborn and one in the regular size (I use the newborn insert as an extra layer of protection at night), and they have snaps that allow the diaper to be folded down for smaller babies, so it goes from newborn all the way to 24 mos....depending on the size of your baby, of course.
I will say this, though: I didn't use these when Victoria was newborn because I didn't have a stash of cloth diapers yet. She was about 3 months when I started cloth, but she was already 9 months old or so when I started using bumgenius.
I, personally, wouldn't use any other diaper -- it was worth the money to me to have a cloth diaper that was as easy to put on as disposables. It's just what worked for us; you might be different.
I'll be happy to send you some of my original covers and prefolds if you want to try them out. Victoria hardly used them.
Amy
Oh, I meant to say -- I didn't use them when Victoria was newborn, so I don't have any experience with how the all in ones work for the very small babies. I just know they worked well for her when she was a bigger baby -- 18 lbs or so -- when I started using them. I started her when she was on the middle snap, but now she uses them at full size, and there is still some growing room around the waist.
And I've never had a leak out of them!! :)
Oh yeah....I was able to get away with 36 diapers without doing laundry constantly. Expensive, yes. Worth it for ME, though. But that's just me. You might have a totally different way of doing it once your little bundle is here.
I liked cloth diapering a lot. I thought prefolds with Bummis Super Brite covers worked great (I liked those as opposed to the original Bummis because the gussets worked well on my babies). I'll definitely do the same with the next baby. I was given a few of the all-in-ones, and I preferred the prefolds and Super Brite covers. There's less laundry that way.
I've ordered from Green Mountain Diapers, but I registered with Cotton Babies, because they actually HAVE a registry. ;)
I also used a few of the Newborn Proraps at the beginning. It's definitely nice to have that smaller size, even if it's not for too long, because otherwise they can seem like they're swimming in the diapers. Of course, that brings me to my next tip: use disposables for the first few weeks. Especially with your first baby, you want to be able to concentrate on getting a good nursing relationship going, plus you're learning and getting used to everything else (and recovering from giving birth), so I think that giving yourself a few weeks of grace in the diaper area is a good thing.
I think 24 prefolds should do, but they also make excellent burp cloths, and they're not too expensive, so you could go for even a dozen more than that. I think 4 covers at the least will work, but 8 might be nice to have. You can always wash them in the sink and hang them to dry if the situation gets desperate. ;)
Lastly, cloth diapering, like babywearing, is a very personal decision. What works for one mama might not work for another, but you can make anything work!
Oh, I see Amy has commented. See what I mean about it being personal? ;) I liked the prefolds and covers, she liked the all-in-ones. I will add one tip here, though: You can lay a prefold in a cover ahead of time and put it on all in one piece, which I found easier than stuffing the all-in-ones. :)
I second the use-disposables-in-the-first-few-weeks tip! :) And that sticky newborn poo is hard enough to deal with without having to clean it out of cloth diapers. And it stains! Uck.
The other thing I did was get some of those cloth diaper liners -- they work great when baby's poo starts turning more solid, usually once solid foods are introduced. Since I started using them, I haven't had to spray out poo from the diapers.
I'm commenting way too much. :) Hee hee.
Amy
I tried posting my reply here, but it said it was too long, so I just put it as a blog post! http://herheartathome.blogspot.com/2011/01/clother-diapering.html
I realise I don't have babies of my own yet, but my mum used cloth diapers with all of us - prefolds with the blue edgings (I don't know what size those are...) and various covers at various stages of life. I know we had some of the plastic pull-on, panty style covers, and some more complicated looking waterproofed cloth ones, and when my older brother was a baby she used wool ones, which she said were the best, but they tend to be expensive. (Although if you knit, you can make your own - they are just felted wool. I know I've seen a pattern online which I could hunt down for you if you're interested!) We had a diaper pail that stood by the toilet... "dirty" diapers got shaken out/rinsed before they went in the pail, but the wet ones just went straight in, and Mum would just upend the whole pail into the washer when it was full. I imagine it had some sort of solution in to keep from smelling, but I was only about 8 when the youngest went out of nappies so I don't remember for sure!
I also know that she double-diapered all of us (especially the boys) once we started sleeping through the night, and we had very few leaks. And the old, beginning-to-wear-out cloths are perfect for spit-up rags! :)
Oh - here's the wool cover I was looking for, along with a pretty nice post about diapering :) I think you have to have a Ravelry account to actually access the pattern, but you can get a good look at it first here!
Dear Ladies,
Thanks so much for your responses! I'm going through each one carefully and thoughtfully. It's neat to see how each of you do things so differently and yet it works so well for your own family. My work schedule is strange this weekend, but I look forward to responding personally and asking more questions as soon as I can. Please check back!
Jenny
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