Cloth Diaper Carnival VII: 2 cluess parents cloth diapering a newborn

The cloth diaper carnival is hosted by Kim at Dirty Diaper Laundry.

My first experience with cloth diapering a newborn was actually with my niece, Lily. My sister didn't have the money to spend on disposables. It was 5 years ago and their weren't as many options as their are today. Most of her diapers were cheap Gerber prefolds, pins and plastic pants.

She received 2 Sugar Pea shells and inserts as a shower gift. They look a little different than what they have on their website now. They were stored the old-fashioned way (or at least how my mom stored hers when we were growing up), in a plastic bucket with water and Dreft. Lily was only in cloth diapers for a few months, so when I quizzed my sister and my mom to help refresh me, our memories were all a little fuzzy!

When I got pregnant, family members would always bring up cloth diapering with me. I have always been an avid recycler and rode my bike to work whenever possible. I was on the fence about it, until I heard about g diapers. I watched the videos on their website and read as much as I could about them. I was super excited to use the g diapers. In my research, I found a new semi-local cloth diaper store that was a retailer for g diapers. I say semi-local because the Healthy Baby Boutique is actually located about 45 minutes from where I live.

One evening, my mom and I decided tp drive over after I got off work. I was so overwhelmed by everything and totally clueless! Once I decided I wanted to use the g diapers, I really didn't do any other research. My day care, better known as Mom/ Mimi, was willing to use cloth, but I knew my husband would not really be willing to do it. I was pushing my luck with the g diapers. The owner talked me in to 4 Mother-Ease one-size fitted diapers, 2 different Mother-Ease covers, 2 Imse Vimse covers, an Imse Vimse wet bag and Imse Vimse diaper liners. She said they were their best selling diaper and that my baby could wear if from infant to toddler. I decided it would be a good investment if they really lasted that long.

Even after the visit, I was still pretty clueless as to what cloth diapering entailed. I didn't think about how many I would go through a day or how often I would need to do laundry. I received more diapers at my baby shower: 6 Tiny Tush infant prefolds and a Bummis Super Whisper Wrap. That was my stash. I had no back up plan if something didn't work or went wrong. I suppose I just assumed that we would use "Earth-friendly" disposables.

That lack of planning backfired in multiple ways! For starters, my son had reactions to the chemicals in the diapers the hospital gave us. This was discovered after an incident that had my husband was drenched in urine that was not absorbed at all by the disposable. When we took the diaper off, it was dry and everything the diaper touched was red and swollen. My mom was the one that actually pointed it out to us and the possibility that he could be having a reaction. My husband went out and got a different brand of disposables. The results were the same.

We had tried the g diapers a few times with less than amazing results. If we didn't change the diaper as soon as he wet, he would leak everywhere. (Oh the joys of a heavy wetter!) I had been flushing the inserts as I had seen on the video. Little did we know that the drainage system in our bathroom couldn't handle it. The shower, sink and toilet pipes met in a "w" shape a little over 50 ft below the house and then made a sharp 90° turn. The water started backing up into the shower. My dad and my husband tried to use the snake to clear it out, but that turn made it difficult. We ended up having to call a professional.

After the other brand of disposables failed, we called my mom to come show us how to pin a prefold. Thankfully, she only lives 4 blocks away because we called her at 10:30 PM! From that day on, we have been a 100% cloth diaper family. I was a totally clueless first time mom! I didn't know anything about special covers or diapers to help with the cord stump. I either covered it with the cover or tried to keep the cover under it. My husband blamed the cloth diapers and me when it fell off sooner than the doctor said it would.

We were using the 6 prefolds, pins and covers the most often. I felt the Mother-ease were way too bulky and I had a hard time fitting them under the covers. I didn't like to use them very often. I was able to use the g inserts in the covers without any leaks. Every time we tried to use their system it ended with a terrible leak, even when we doubled up.We went back to Healthy Baby and got 12 more DSQ prefolds, plus extra pins, a second wet bag and a Snappi, which I ended up hating. When Tate was about a month old, received 3 fitted diapers and 2 covers (which I never used due to leak issues) from a local WAHM. My sister also managed to find the Sugar Peas she used on Lily.

Our newbon/ infant stash consisted of:

18 Chinese DSQ infant prefolds

7 fitted

4 g diapers

5 covers (plus the 2 I never used)
2 Sugar Pea shells and 4 inserts

2 wet bags

Here's a picture of part of the stash:

Since my son is such a heavy wetter, I have been using the infant prefolds as an extra booster in some of our pocket diapers. Also, since I still use the Mother-ease, none of them are picture because they were in the laundry too.

Now that I have done my research and I am an experienced cloth addict user, I am exited to try other types of diapers sooner. We pretty much stuck to this stash until about 5 months. By then, I had done some research and knew there were other options that were easier with a more active infant. In my research, I also found out I needed to be using special laundry soap. Since we dove in head first, I had no idea that a lot of people didn't use cloth at night or travel with them. We didn't experience night time leaks on a regular basis until a few months ago. Our first trip with cloth was 3 hours from home at 4 weeks, so my husband's family could meet our son. I guess sometimes clueless works out because by the end of the month, we will have 20 months of cloth diapering under our belts!

Be sure to check out other family's stories and share your own!