Newborn Cloth Diapering and Diaper Reviews

When Destructo was born, I could not wait to see his little fluffy butt in his first cloth diaper.  We decided to wait until his umbilical cord had fallen off as most of my diapers were too tall and would have went over top of it.  Plus I was exhausted and overwhelmed after my marathon labor.  (You can read Kai's birth story here.)

He was nine days old when we put him in his first cloth diaper.  I had decided that it would be a Lil Joey fire truck diaper..  These diapers fit very well (better than any other newborn diaper) and actually had a button so that you could button them below the umbilical cord.  They were adorable and all in ones which was nice.  But they leaked 95% of the time he wore them.  I think it was a combination of his chicken scrawny legs and also the fact that he was a very fast pee er and they just couldn't absorb fast enough.  The other downfall was that they took a very long time to dry (like a full 24 hours.)

The next diaper I tried was the Grovia All in One Newborn diaper.  This diaper was never a good fit for Destructo.  The tightest setting still had gapping around his legs.  They were very absorbent and did a good job even with the fit never being right.  I would say they only leaked maybe half the time and most of these leaks were leg leaks.  I think they would have worked better as he got bigger.  I loved that these diapers were organic cotton inserts.  I struggled as first with the soaker and finally made a taco like shape with it and this seemed to work well.  These dried faster than the Lil Joey since even though they were an all in one, you could flip the inner out and let the two parts dry separately.  These diapers were also super cute which is very important in my book, but due to the leg leaks they don't get the highest ranking.  Glad I didn't discard this company totally after using the newborn diapers.  I love their one size hybrid diapers (see this post here.)

You can see the gapping around the legs in this Grovia newborn diaper.  But the owls are adorable.

The third type of diaper that I tried were Fuzzibunz hook and loop and X-small in snaps.  I had very few leaks with the hook and loop kind, but since I got them in size small they were a little big on Destructo at first.  They absorbed well, but the aplix was crappy and by the third washing it was starting to roll up on the corners and not stick as well.  The few leaks I had with these were because they just came undone.  The snaps diapers worked well and I had these in extra small so they fit very well.  The only downfall to these were that for some reason Destructo got red marks on his legs and stomach.  Oh and that I discovered that for diapering a newborn, I much preferred velcro to snaps.  It enabled me to easily get a perfect fit every time.  I would say that overall these diapers only leaked maybe 10% of the time.  A huge pro to this brand was that they were actual pocket diapers so you could customize the absorbency and they dried extremely quickly.

 Finally, the diaper that I wish I had bought exclusively for use during the newborn stage was the Bumgenius X-Small newborn diaper.  They were an all in one, but absorbed a lot and dried fairly quickly in half a day max.  They were all in aplix so getting a proper fit was easy.  These fit Destructo basically from birth on and even did justice on his chicken little legs.  I nearly never had leaks until he got closer to ten pounds and needed to move to the one size diapers.  There were next to no cons to these diapers except for the fact that they only come in boring colors.  No cute owls or fire truck designs for these diapers.

Look at that little baby foot and goodness was he a baldie

Some tips I advise for newborn cloth diapering are:  1)  You don't have to spray them at all.  Formula and breast milk are water soluble. 
2)  When you think you got the diaper on tight enough, get it tighter.  The red marks will not hurt the baby and quickly fade away.
3)  Check the legs for gapping.  This was the number one cause of leaks when he was an itty bitty.
4)  Don't assume that the diapers you love or hate in the newborn diapers will hold true for one size diapers.  I didn't care that much for the Grovia newborns and love the one size Grovia hybrids.
5)  Figure out a washing routine that works for you.  I have always tried to wash every 2-3 days.  I did have to supplement with disposables when he was in newborn diapers because although I had 16 newborn size diapers, only about half of those actually worked for Destructo.
6)  Be ready for a number of leaks.  Cloth diapering is a learning curve and I had to figure it out as I went.
7)  If you have a boy, point his "peepee" down.  Just trust me on this one.
8)  Personally I think you need about 18 diapers minimum to cloth diaper full time and this would be with washing nearly every day.

We also tried a few other diapers during the newborn to one size transition and I will eventually get around to doing full reviews on them. They were Bottombumpers size small and Thirsties duo diaper size one.
When and if Destructo version 2.0 ever makes an appearance in our lives, I will buy more newborn Bumgenius diapers to make sure I have 18 total.  I might also try fitted and covers or prefolds and covers.  I have heard great things about cloth diapering itty bittys in both of these diapering systems.

Feel free to shoot me an email or leave me a comment with any questions you might have.  I am not a pro by any means, but am happy to try to help.

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