Cloth Diaper Check-in

TheOtherJacobsons

Mostly I just needed to talk about how it's going. My baby is 6 weeks and today is the first day I attempted to CD. she hardly slept at all and so she nursed just about every hour. Not sure if it is due to the CDing or maybe a growth spurt.

Since she was 3 weeks early she was really small and we were also in a heat wave. I thought it was too much fabric to have on her and they were so bulky. We also had BFing issues and jaundice to worry about, so we put CDing on hold. We just had too much going on.

I felt like a failure. I still feel that way. I'm really bummed about it. I am also not sure I still want to do it. I am not going to give up on it just yet, but maybe some of you experienced ladies can talk me off the ledge. I don't currently see a lot of positives to CDing and it's bumming me out.

How is it going for everyone?

JJsMum

I haven't started to CD DS#3 yet. I typically wait until somewhere between 6-8 weeks. The first couple of months are crazy enough without adding those laundry concerns.

I wouldn't think that the sleep and nursing issues would be because of the diapers. It sounds like a growth spurt. When I first started CDing I worried about the bulkiness too. Never seemed to bother my boys though. DS#2 is a super soaker, so his diapers are massive, but he runs around just as easily in cloth as he does in a disposable.

Try not to get too discouraged! CDing takes a bit to get into, but once you can get a good routine down and get comfortable with it, CD are totally worth it!

hecklet

How often are you changing her? With cloth diapers, they will feel the wetness more than disposables. You may want to lay a fleece liner in the diaper to wick away wetness from LO's bum. Luckily our little guy doesn't seem to be bothered by the wetness but I know some babies are.
We have been using cloth for 1 week now. Yes, I do an extra load of laundry every other day but I don't find it burdensome at all. I'm amazed by how many diapers we go through. It's nice to be using something reusable. More cost effective, better for the environment. We are also using cloth wipes. Super easy. When we were using disposable wipes we were going through a package every 2 days or so. Crazy!
What kind of diapers are you using?

mb314

My diapers say they are good for 7 lbs or larger, and DS2 just hit the 6 lb mark, so I am going to wait another week or so before staring cloth with him. I forgot how many diapers newborns go through! And they're expensive. I am excited to go back to cloth.

DS1 is not yet potty trained and I gave myself a 2 week break before going back to cloth diapers for him. I plan to return to cloth on Monday for him.

@TheOtherJacobsons‌ I don't think your LO's behavior had anything to do with the diaper. Sounds like a growth spurt to me. In my experience, babies don't have a preference for the disposable -if anything, a dry cloth diaper is probably more comfortable. It takes a week or so to get a good CD system going, but I eventually got to the point where I was doing laundry just once a week and the extra work wasn't bad at all. I live in the south and the summers here are brutal. The cloth diapers have never been an issue heat wise.

sabby2

I haven't started yet. FTM so no experience yet. We plan to CD during the day and use disposables at night. I felt like our schedule was crazy enough that I didn't want to add the learning curve of cd to learning to care for a baby too.

DreadGamerWife

We started CDing about a week ago. We will use diaposibles while out but are mostly just using our newborn cloth stash at home. I just have to remember to wash them frequently enough. Can't wait until she is big enough for our regular stash.

HappyCianci

Our LO is 3 weeks old tomorrow, and we've been using cloth about 50% of the time for the last week and a half. The biggest problem right now is she has a horrible diaper rash, so we're in disposables all the time and using zinc cream with every change to try to get a handle on it. It looks so red and miserable, and even bleeds sometimes. Ped says it's just a regular "I poop a lot" rash, but it's looking worse since she first saw it, so we may go in for another assessment.

Baby is probably about 9 pounds now, and barely fits into her orange-edge prefolds. I like the flats a lot! What I don't like is the bulk. I don't like how it elevates her lower half when she's sleeping.

@theotherjacobsons, don't beat yourself up about your flagging interest in CD. Cuddles and breastmilk are more important to your baby than cloth diapers... it's one of those parenting decisions that makes us feel good but that really doesn't matter to baby. Even if you throw in the towel with CD, you're doing great!

squirrelygirl12

We are In cloth 50% of the time. It's easier at night to use disposables. I am hoping once she is in her own room we will be using cloth all of the time.

I have a large stash of fuzzybunz but I am not a huge fan of those, with DD1 they leaked more than my bumgenius. I am looking to get rid of the fuzzybunz what are you guys using?

MissMandyD

We started as we were leaving the hospital with cd and cloth wipes. So far it is going really well. Byron looks adorable in his diapers and we have only had one leak so far. As i suspected he has my sensitive skin so it is good we have minimized the chemicals.

We have alittle diaper rash right now so we started using gramna el's and he is tolerating that well. Just had dh turn up our water tank to make sure they are getting disinfected...since he got that little rash.

So far so good and i love not spending any money on diapers. Looked at how much a pack of honest conpany was at target yesterday...dear lord those things are expensive!

The next hurdle is teaching my mother to change a cloth diaper!

crystal8503

I tried to start shortly after baby was a week old but she was still too small and we had leaks. I'm going to give it a try again when she's over 7 lbs and on her way to 8 lbs. We have her two week appointment on Monday and I will have a better idea as to when we'll be getting into it fulltime. We still CD our 22.5 month old son and he wears sposies at night because he's such a heavy wetter. We never found the right combination for nighttime and I got tired of buying new diapers to try.

mariek312

squirrelygirl12 said:

We are In cloth 50% of the time. It's easier at night to use disposables. I am hoping once she is in her own room we will be using cloth all of the time.

I have a large stash of fuzzybunz but I am not a huge fan of those, with DD1 they leaked more than my bumgenius. I am looking to get rid of the fuzzybunz what are you guys using?

My newborn stash consists of Rumparooz newborn covers, orange edge imagine prefolds, Softbums inserts (bought them before I realized I didn't want microfiber...), and Osocozy unbleached flats (mini kite fold). I just started using them when little one reached a week old yesterday, but so far no leaks. I'm thrilled since sposies were leaking like crazy. I think it's all thanks to the Rumparooz covers!

I'm still building up what we will use next, I look forward to hearing what others are/will be using!

TheOtherJacobsons

Thanks guys! I was worried that she was one of those babies that is super fussy when she is even a little wet. I changed her diaper when I noticed she was wet either before or after a feeding. Since she was fussy all day and the only thing I changed with regards to her routine was the type of diaper, I thought it might be related. We put her in disposables last night since I wanted to be able to sleep if that was the case. We put her back in CDs today and she's been asleep practically all day. It appears that it was the 6 week growth spurt after all. 

I am doing prefolds with fleece inserts and I have a few contours that I might want to start using at night. I got the perfect fit prefolds and I do like that they don't require the front to be folded over. I might take my serger and make all of them perfect fit ones. 

What types of folds are people liking? I started with the newspaper fold and think I like the jelly roll fold, so I started doing that one today. I like that it makes a little barrier at the leg joint. 

wearenutts

Our plan was to finish out the disposables we got from the hospital and then use our cloth. However, just like DD1 she is sensitive to Pampers and got a bad rash at 2 days old so we went ahead and switched to cloth. It's going great so far! I don't really notice the extra laundry. Our newborn stash consists of Flats, newborn workhorse, newborn Rumparooz covers and some Thirsties covers (xs and duo size 1). She's 2 weeks old today and we haven't had any blowouts. 6lbs 9oz at birth.

KingsDaughter76

We are doing good with the cloth here- I use XS motherease sandies and just fold down the front and snappi it shut since she is still tiny and nothing really fits- I top it with a NIkkis newborn pull on cover or newborn dappi cover and we are good to go. We do keep some Bambo or Earths Best disposables on hand for when we need or want to use them, and these 2 brands are safer and do not contain a bunch of bad chemicals etc. Right now I sometimes use a sposie on her at night for ease. We are cloth diapering about 90% of the time currently. 

Arctic_Seal

I just started using my cloth occasionally.   I bought a box of Costco size 1-2 disposables to use until we got into cloth.  It's been nice but I think she might have grown enough to fit into my OS cloth diapers and I think I'm ready to switch her so we'll go into cloth more regularly soon.

bennikki

DS2 isn't here yet, but we didn't start CDing DS1 until he was about 4-6 weeks old (I forget).  He was too long for the newborn stash I had, but not yet chunkie enough for the OS ones I had for later.  Like you TOJ, I was very unsure of myself the first few days, but the CD board on TB is great along with several other Facebook groups, online forums, and YouTube channels.  I'm hoping DS2 is small enough to fit into the newborn ones this time around, so we can start earlier than with DS1.  The laundry doesn't intimidate me anymore, and I love that both my kids will be in the same OS diapers, so I don't have to remember to stock the diaper bag with two different sizes.

huntress17

I was a November mom turned October. But we are cloth diapering. Little one was in the NICU until 9 days after she was born(born at 36 weeks but she is my big little baby weighed 8 lbs 2 oz at birth). She has been in cloth since she got home and we love it. We do the jelly roll because we use thirsties covers and flour sack towels. So far it's gone pretty well