First Baby & Wants to Use Cloth

raean127

Hello Everyone,

I am currently pregnant with our first child. So I have some experience changing diapers from babysitting, but my husband has never changed a diaper in his life. So, I have researched some of the cloth options and I think pocket diapers will work best for us. They appear to be easy to use (mostly for hubby) and he wants to use disposable liners to reduce his "eww" factor with washing diapers. So my main question is, what is the best brand options to keep costs to a minimum? I want quality so that I can reuse them for future kiddos, but I am a bit overwhelmed by the variety of options. Also, do you all have any advice on laundering or if pocket diapers are the easiest for hubbies afraid of all diapers?

Thanks all!!

blondolphn

For newborns I like Kawaii pure and natural or Thirsties duo all in ones. You will need a seperate stash for newborn and one size.

As far as the eww factor, where does he plan on washing the poop out of onesies?

raean127

I don't think that part has dawned on him yet.

Aurora_Borealis

Kawaii Pure & Natural pockets will fit most newborns. And they cost like $6/each when you buy them direct from theluvyourbaby.com (this is Kawaii's website).

Disposable liners are completely worthless with runny EBF poo. Trust me. You will end up having to fish out a liner from all of the poo and still have a poo-covered diaper. And it's possible your baby will poop 10x per day so that's a lot of unnecessary poop touching. EBF/EFF poo is water soluble and will rinse away in your washing machine in your pre-wash, so you're just creating more work anyway. (Really. No one would wash cloth diapers at home if the process left even a trace of poop in their washing machine. Because that would be disgusting.)

LaBellaVida

For NB stage I'd use prefolds/flats/workhorses with covers.

For OS pockets i like bum genius 4.0
For aio i like tot bots.

I'm not sure why everyone thinks cloth diapering involves touching poop. I touched more poop using disposables.
Up until recently i threw all my diapers into the washer. My lo was ebf. He's now starting to eat solids, so i spray my diapers with a sprayer and use the spray pal (i bought off Amazon) to keep water/poop from spraying everywhere.

emmylou78

Kawaii pure and naturals if you don't want to go the prefolds route for NB. They still fit my 5 month old. (Holy hell, is she that old?!) Prefolds are easy. The Kawaii are $10/dipe. I have bumgenius as well, which are about $19/diaper. They're more absorbent than Kawaii I think and seemed to be one of the cheaper ones that are generally liked by most. I bought liners. Used them for maybe the first 2 diapers. Total waste bc they bunch. Seriously, NB poop is nbd. I haven't made it to the post ebf poop.

freezorburn

I think the best way to feel that your money is well spent is to not commit to one type of diaper before you've actually done some diapering. What sounds good on paper doesn't always work best in practice, at least not right away. Also, different diapers may work better at different stages. I also thought pockets sounded great from the perspective of ease of use and laundering, but we didn't have a great fit with them (and we had 4 different brands in our stash) until about 6-7 months, and I've never been able to trust them as an overnight diaper. And pre-solids, prefolds and fitteds are just incredible at holding everything in.

I also thought DH would only be interesting in using CD if they were as easy to put on as disposables, but it turned out he really liked prefolds, especially during the NB stage. We relied on prefolds mostly until DS started to get really mobile and squirmy on the changing pad, then gradually transitioned to OS pockets and AIOs as they started to fit better. DS is very small and is a slow weight gainer, so for us it was really around 8-10 months when we started to use the "easy" diapers on a 50/50 basis with our prefolds.

The other thing to be aware of if you want your diapers to last a long time, is that anything with PUL or elastic will wear out over time. Line drying instead of drying with heat will probably go a long way towards helping your diapers last longer. I dry my AIOs in the dryer and they are showing a bit more wear than the pocket shells that I line dry, and have been using for the same amount of time. I'm prepared to replace elastic or patch PUL if the need arises. Or I can buy more diapers. Aplix can also lose its stickiness. People either replace it or convert to snaps.

The pockets in my stash that I like best are Thirsties and Oh Katy. Thirsties MF/Hemp inserts are good quality. They are the only pockets I have where I am still using the inserts that came with them. The Oh Katys fit on our skinny guy a bit sooner than the other OS brands we have (BG and FB -- actually I have never been happy with the FB fit), and actually playing with one of the shells right now I think you could use it during the NB stage. Apparently they are under new ownership but I don't think they have changed the diapers much.

kjsmith9

Agree with @freezorburn about trying different kinds.  My DH had changed a few diapers before, but not enough to have an opinion of what he wanted to use.  DD is now 15 months, and he STILL reaches for prefolds and covers before our OS pocket diapers - don't underestimate your husband's ability to adapt to anything if he doesn't have experience with anything yet!

Kawaii P&N would be my recommendation (like the ladies above) if you want to get going with pockets ASAP after baby is born.  They might not fit right away though (which is why a lot of us on here love newborn prefolds and covers).  They fit DD until she was about 9-10 months old.  

Chichigo

My husband had never changed a diaper before our son was born. We used prefolds and flats at first. I've been adding prefolds, pockets, and AIOs to our stash but I can't think of a time he used any of them.

ElleBeeDub

I agree with PPs. DH had never changed a diaper (even holding a baby kinda freaked him out), and he got really good with our prefolds and covers (he watched me do it a couple times, and then he was good to go). He actually preferred using them over our pockets when G started fitting our one-size diapers. 

I also agree that it can make a lot of sense to try out a few different kinds before fully investing (maybe look into a diaper trial?). I know that some people can buy an entire stash of one kind and it's great for them, but that's not always the case. Our stash still has a little of everything, and I like it that way. Plus, the brands I would have purchased an entire stash of before G was born wound up not fitting him well, so I would have had to start over if I'd stocked up.

As for not liking to stuff pockets, I went through an anti-pocket phase, but I then got over it, so even your preferences on that sort of thing won't necessarily stay the same.

tjkdlhb

We use liners when we are out and about (so we can flush the poop easily) or when DD has a rash and needs a stronger diaper cream.  They really add to the cost of the diapers at about 10 cents each.  They are good as a way to ease him into the idea though.

Before they start solids, they just go into the wash (rinse, hot wash, extra rinse)  The first rinse is to get the pee/poop off so that you aren't washing in pee water.  The extra rinse at the end is to get rid of any extra detergent.

I used disposables and cloth at first.  I laugh at my pre-baby self because I decided to try cloth on a whim and was afraid that cloth wouldn't work as well as disposables.

I gave up on the disposables after a particularly messy blowout in a carseat when I wasn't near home.  The worst that ever happened in cloth is that it got on the diaper cover.

Diapers are much easier to wash than carseats or swings.  And the elastic on those things can hold in some pretty crazy poop.  I always cringe a little when I see someone complaining of a blowout that I know could have been avoided in cloth.  I've commented before - it's like the difference between a paper plate and a real one.  They both work... but a real one is designed to be stronger and last longer.

FWIW, DH was skeptical too...He calls me a crazy hippie lady for all sorts of things. But, now  he admits that this is one of the best parenting decisions we've made.  He doesn't understand why everyone doesn't use cloth.  He had pictured flats and pins.  I think he also likes not having to run to the store last minute to buy more diapers - and the fact that we don't have to buy any diapers or wipes for this new baby - with two babies we'll have saved about $3000.

Ditto the recommendation for Kawaii P&Ns.  We started using them at about 6 lbs.  They didn't fit DD well right away, but they really worked well from about 7 lbs - 20 lbs (18 months).

I'd also recommend some prefolds/covers.  They are great!

TJ1979

One other thing is that you actually have a head start here... If YH has never changed a sposie, then he has nothing to compare it too. He can't tell you that prefolds are harder than sposies bc he doesn't know. Whatever you start out using will be all he knows. So don't worry about it!

raean127

Thanks everyone for the info! You gave me a lot of info to look into. I love the idea of having a stash of a variety of kinds. It seems like a simple idea, but I had not considered it. I'm going to start looking into some of the recommendations.