Newbie Cloth

Sam is our third baby and our second to wear cloth. With our second child, I was excited about cloth diapering but had no clue what I was doing. I put together an erratic newborn stash that was centered on hand-me-downs a friend generously passed along. I added some diapers I thought were cute and called it a day. I basically tried one of everything when I found a good price, and hoped for the best.  This time around, I was determined to build a good, but cost-effective stash. We were planning for Sam to be our last baby, so I knew I wanted to get one-sized diapers when he was bigger, but I suspected I wouldn’t be able to use those at first. Both of my children had been tiny little babies (5’11 and 6’3), and I was expecting another peanut. I wanted to cloth diaper from the very beginning, though, so I wanted to get a tiny sized stash, too.

First I caught up with my sister, whose little guy had been born the previous fall, so she could explain what had changed in the last six years.  My sister’s favorite newborn item had been XS Thirsties covers, so I made sure to buy several of those. I added a dozen Kissaluvs size 0s, a few newborn sized BSWW (Bummis Super Whisper Wraps), and 12 prefolds in the smallest size. Kissaluvs had worked well with my older child, and my husband had always preferred using prefolds. I also wanted a few pockets or AIOs (all-in-ones) to keep in the diaper bag, so I got one small Swaddlebees AIO and two small Happy Heinys pocket diapers. I bought a pail liner, two little wetbags for the diaper bag, a package of snappis, and more wipes to add to the ones I still had (they held up quite well!).

Well, I didn’t get a peanut baby this time around—Sam was 7’13 and 21”, so he was a lot bigger than my second child had been! We used disposables in the hospital, but I had prefolds and covers ready to take Sam home in. He fit into his diapers really well—Adam had been quite a bit smaller, so we had more issues with leaks when he was tiny. Sam really had very minimal issues with leaking, and the stash worked great for us. My MIL knew we were cloth diapering, and she gave us a Little Beetle One-Size fitted diaper, which actually fit him quite well early on. I used it at nights when he typically went a bit longer between changes.

Sam wore most of his newborn stash for about two and a half months. I still use the prefolds as stuffers for his pocket diapers, and he wore the XS Thirsties covers until around the 16 lb mark—not only did they work really well (the leg gussets were excellent), they lasted quite a long time. Had he been as tiny as his brother, I bet we would still be using them now. The first picture shows him around 2 weeks wearing one of the XS Thirsties covers (he was right around his birth weight at that time,) and the second shows him around 3 months in the same size of cover (he was around 13.5 lbs at that time). The small AIO and pockets lasted until he was about 4 months (15 lbs). The diapers are in good condition and I look forward to passing them on. If I were doing it over again, I would get a few thicker fitteds to use at nights, probably something with Velcro like the Thirsties fab fitteds—we were so happy with the covers. Or I would have bought some doublers to use with the Kissaluvs at nights. But overall, I was pleased with our choices this time around—cute, functional, and within my budget.

By Anne-Marie