Let's chat about newborn dipes

I have about 6 weeks until baby #3 arrives, and I’m starting to think about what kind of cloth diapers I am going to use. When BW was born, he was 9 lbs. and 23 in. Big boy! And I didn’t start cloth diapering him until he was a month old. We didn’t have a baby shower for him until then, and that is when I was gifted with my first cloth diapers. With this baby, I’m not planning on using newborn diapers for very long, but I do want to use them to have experience with them. Newborn diapers are the only thing I do not have personal experience using. While I take great pride in insuring that Green Baby Elephant sells high quality diapers that have been tested on my boys, my sister took over and cloth diapered her newborn boy. She did a great job using different diapers on my nephew, and you can read about her experiences in the archives{May 2011}. My sister also had to put up with me asking her a billion questions so that I could make sure that Green Baby Elephant carries great newborn diapers. And now that it’s my turn to try out newborn diapers, I have lots of ideas of what I’m going to try. Thanks to my sister and her baby, the following brands are all carried  and highly recommended in the Green Baby Elephant shop.

• Thirsties size 1: Duo Wraps, Hemp Prefolds, Stay Dry Inserts, Fab Fitteds, Duo All-In-Ones, & Duo Diapers
• GroVia Newborn All-In-Ones: the new style with hemp & stay dry liners
• BabyKicks OneSize Basic
• FuzziBunz X-Small
• bumGenius Newborn All-In-Ones
• Knickernappies Infant Prefolds {with Snappis & Thirsties Duo Wraps}

And I should also mention that I do feel that newborn diapers have their place. Not everyone makes big babies, and most one size diapers really don’t start to fit until 10 lbs. Even once one size diapers begin to fit, they are rather large and bulky on newborns. Size/bulk is the biggest complaint I get from parents that cloth diaper their newborns with one size diapers. The next most common complaint is leaking from the legs. Often newborns have the skinniest little chicken legs, and it’s difficult to get a good fit with a one size diaper on chicken legged babes. To get a nice trim fit, a newborn diaper is great. They also allow for all of those cute onesies to be worn by your baby, which is nice to not have to go out and get new clothes.

My little chicken legged nephew wearing a GroVia Newborn AIO. <3 him to bits.

If you are concerned about spending money on newborn diapers in addition to a one size stash, I should mention from personal experience that you go through many, many, many diapers that are aren’t even used. My boys were notorious for peeing on diapers before they were even worn. And I can’t even count the number of times a fresh diaper was poo’ed in before even leaving the changing table. Now that I look back, we went through many bags of newborn and size 1 disposable diapers that weren’t worn for more than 2 minutes. And 2 minutes may be an exaggeration. It was probably more like 45 seconds. So, so wasteful on my part {and theirs as well! Little stinkers!}. Because newborn diapers are used for a limited time, the wear and tear on them are minimal. This means that they’ll be in great condition for multiple babies, either your own, nephews, nieces, cousins or to sell to other families.

Tell me what other brands do you think I should try? What brands have you used successfully? Since I may only have a short window of time to use a newborn diaper, I’m looking for suggestions now. I do a lot of research before adding products to Green Baby Elephant, and now is the time for and updated look at different newborn diapers that are available. Let me know either here on the blog or on the Facebook page what you think I should try that could be potentially added to the shop or what brands Green Baby Elephant already carries that you are anxious for me to try. I’ll do my best to accommodate requests, and answer any questions you may have. And be sure to let your expecting friends know about Green Baby Elephant. This is going to be a great time to learn about newborn diapers as I’ll be blogging and documenting my experiences.

BW's 1st CD. It was a one-size GroBaby. He was also a little over 1 month. No chicken legs here! When CW looked at this pic, he told me that BW looks so little with a BIG orange diaper. :)