Cloth Diapering a Newborn: Yes, you can!

{This is an old post, so the covers mentioned are no longer made. I’ve also since had another baby. Find all my more recent newborn diapering posts here.}

Almost everyone I talk to who is interested in cloth diapering tells me they plan to start when baby’s a few months old. There’s something intimidating about cloth diapering a newborn when the newborn phase in and of itself seems so complicated! I put baby Cub in cloth when he was 4 days old, and haven’t looked back. For Cub #2, I plan to start cloth at the hospital. There are a lot of newborn-sized diapering options. I don’t know of any one-size diapering systems that fit perfectly right from birth for most babies, so from all the Facebook group posts I’ve followed, Mamas recommend that their peers have a newborn-sized option for the first few weeks. That being said, many of these options would cost you upwards of $500, since I strongly recommend having 24 diapers for the newborn stage. 

Want a cheap and easy solution to get a fluffy butt right from the start? If you buy exactly what I list at full price, you’re looking at $125 (with GST). I’ve got lots of ideas on how to reduce that price tag, though!

What I suggest you buy:

8 Bummis Super Lite Covers, newborn (6-10 lbs) [update, 10/10/2014: The Super Lite cover has been discontinued and replaced by the one-size Simply Lite, however, if you are in Montreal, Boutique Bummis on St. Laurent is still stocking them until they run out of fabric.]

Bummis has other models of newborn-size diaper covers, and I have some of all of them. The ones I preferred hands down were the Super Lites because they fit the trimmest and looked the cutest. At first I was closing the Velcro tabs so they almost touched in the middle, and as Wolfie grew, the tabs grew further and further apart. You can use the same covers multiple times, so you could probably get away with fewer than 8 if you don’t mind rinsing them off and hanging them to dry in between. (For that messy newborn poop!) You can use them through multiple changes if there’s no poop on them. Even if there is some poop, rinse it off and hang the cover to dry. You’ll be able to use it again in a matter of hours.

4 packages of preemie size prefolds (24 in total)

Prefolds are just rectangular pieces of fabric with more layers in the centre for absorbency. You fold them to fit inside the cover and away you go. Newborns poop a lot. I counted 11 poops and 14 pees in one 24 hour cycle, and that was a slow day. You have a lot less laundry to do if you’re just washing a handful of covers and then the soiled prefolds. You can read about the different sizes of Bummis prefolds in this post. Preemie-size prefolds are very small, and labelled for up to 9 lbs. When baby outgrows this size, you can use them as boosters, as rags or as burp cloths.

If you’re concerned about how small the preemie prefolds are, and that you might not get enough use out of them, you might consider buying the middle size, known as “Infant.” Here’s the difference in how I used both sizes on my newborn:

The larger size of prefold is too big to just fold as a rectangle into a newborn cover: you’ll want to fold it around baby and secure it with a Snappi. As baby grows, this size is perfect to trifold in most one-size covers, or even to use in the pocket of most pocket diapers until baby is about 20 lbs.

If you really want a one-size cover that will fit your newborn, I would suggest trying Bummis’ new Simply Lite. Of all the one-size covers I’ve tried, this one seems most likely to work very early on. You can read about that cover in this review.

Frequency of changes: Now, cloth is not as absorbent as disposables, which are full of super absorbent polymer than holds liquid in the core as a gel. You need to change baby when he’s wet, whereas disposables can hold many pees (I still think you should change him as soon as he’s wet, even in a disposable.). Unlike prefolds, pocket diapers and AIOs usually have a stay-dry layer that helps keep wetness away from baby’s skin. You might find baby is more prone to a rash if you let him sit in his wet prefold for too long. (You can try cutting up a fleece blanket, or buying fleece liners to create this stay-dry layer.) That being said, I don’t think anyone would disagree that when there’s poop, it’s diaper change time (in a ‘sposie or in cloth).  Consider my stats: 11 poops and 14 pees in a 24-hour period. Assuming you would change baby as soon as he poops, regardless of what type of diaper he’s in, I only had 3 pee-only diapers in a full 24 hours. Newborns poop all the time! Almost every change involves poop anyway. I confess I didn’t use a lot of cloth overnight when Cub was very small. I would definitely recommend adding a booster to your prefold if you want to increase absorbency for longer stretches of sleep. (My favourite, which I used when he was tiny and continue to use now that he’s over 25 lbs, is the AMP 3-ply hemp booster.)

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