Cloth Diapering a Newborn

Over at my old personal blog, Townhouse Homestead, I wrote a post about why we decided to start cloth diapering and why we love it so much. Since now I'm starting a store, I've decided to continue the series on this blog.  I'll begin with how we cloth diapered our own newborn, and leave all the definitions and terminology up to the many other brilliant sites who have already covered that information.

In the hospital, we stuck with disposable diapers. They were free, we were learning the ropes of caring for a newborn, and I wasn't ready to worry about diaper laundry.  I've also heard mixed information about staining from meconium, the tarry nightmare that comes out of a newborn baby's behind.  We decided not to risk staining our diapers and waited until the meconium was an icky memory.

When we arrived home, we started out with newborn prefolds and covers. (Prefolds are what our moms and grandmoms used). Newborns go through an astounding number of diapers in a day, and prefolds are a very economical way to start out.  DH (Dear Husband) did all of the early diaper changes, especially at night, since I'd had a c-section.  He opted for disposables at night instead of trying to mess with folding and Snappis (which, if you haven't heard of them, are the awesome modern alternative to diaper pins).

We had a beautiful stash of pocket diapers all ready to go, and I was impatient to put something colorful on Abby's bum. We chose pockets for our main diaper system because of the removable inserts.  The removable insert makes the diaper dry faster, and the pocket can accommodate extra inserts for added absorbency.  When they are assembled, they are as easy to change as a disposable diaper. We also opted for one-size diapers to maximize the amount of time we could use our diapers.  In our stash, we had mainly two kinds of one-size pockets: Fuzzibunz Elites and BumGenius 4.0.  Looking at our barely eight pound baby, the BumGenius looked much too wide.  They adjust in rise (length) through snaps but the width remains the same. The Fuzzibunz, on the other hand, have hidden adjustable elastic both in the waist and in the legs.  We had them on the recommended newborn size setting, and they worked for us before Abby was even a week old.

Abby at 3 days old in a Fuzzibunz OS Elite

There are newborn diapers, often with a notch to accommodate the umbilical cord.  Stephanie over at Abby's Lane has found that this is often unnecessary.  Newborn diapers are adorable, and have a great resale value, but we wanted to avoid that upfront investment.  My dear readers, what have you done to diaper your newborns?