Adventures in Cloth Diapering: Cloth Diapering a Newborn

[ Just a note before I begin this series- the cloth diaper lines that we have tried are Alva, bumGenius and Kawaii. Other than those brands, I can not answer any brand specific questions as I haven’t used them but I would love to answer any general cloth diapering questions! ]

Before Andrew and I even decided to have a baby, I did a lot of research. There were a lot of things I wanted to do. I wanted a natural labor and delivery, I wanted to breastfeed as long as possible, and I wanted to cloth diaper. Having researched the buh-jeebus out of cloth diapers I started purchasing and collecting cloth dipes. From the second we found out that Eisley was the girl I waited for sales, found ‘Chinese Cheapies’ and started working on our ‘stash’ (which I will delve deeper into in another post). I was excited as all the diapers we bought stated they would fit from newborn on BUT being the worrier I am, I got about 10 alva newborns with regular and bamboo inserts and got two xs bumGenius diapers on a seconds sale.

THANK GOD I DID.


Eisley’s first time in a cloth diaper. bumGenius OS XS Hook and Loop Dipe

When we first went home and tried on one of our Alva and Kawaii BABy AIO diapers, I breathed a huge sigh of relief that we had purchased the newborn diapers. THEY WERE HUGE. We tried every trick in the book to try and make the all in ones fit and it was NOT going to happen on our 7lb 4oz little miss. In fact, though they said they fit starting at 8 lbs not a SINGLE Alva OR Kawaii that we had fit Eisley until she was over 10lbs.

Our initial love was for the bumGenius all in ones. They fit snug, they were much trimmer than the alvas and they didn’t sit on her belly button stump (before it fell off which was 12 days). One thing I loved about these, and all the other bum geniuses that we currently own for that matter, is that the fabric on the tabs is stretchy. It allows for THEE most perfect fit when putting the diaper on a baby.

The Alva newborns were a little harder for us at first. We had a hard time finding the right fit that stayed snug on her stick legs and didn’t cause leaking at first. One of the downsides we have noticed with Alva diapers is that even within the same series it is VERY common to get diapers that are not the same size. Sometimes the crotch area is bigger or smaller or the tabs are slightly different. It’s like they were made from COMPLETELY different patterns. It’s quite odd.



We finally reached a point where were getting into the swing of things. Both the diapers were working great for us, we weren’t dealing with anymore leaks and we never had a single blow out. We were on a roll for a while.
 
BUT THEN, Apparently Eisley’s bladder became a little more than the bumgenius dipes could handle. The unfortunate thing abou the one size xs dipes was that the liner is sewn into the diaper. We did get away with adding bamboo inserts into the newborn diapers (NEVER put microfiber directly against a newborns skin) but eventually the compression of those inserts started causing leaking again and we had to retire them.

By this point, Eisley was getting bigger we only used the alvas exclusively for a few weeks before she finally started fitting into her bumGenius all in one diapers. Needless to say, if there were ever a time I wanted to give up on cloth diapering, it was after being peed on 42342 times thanks to ill fitting cheap diapers. Not to mention, even with my tiny hands, the newborn alva diapers were HELL to stuff. If I could go back, I would have only invested in bumGenius newborn diapers and gotten a few of the size smalls for the in between time when we were waiting for the AIO dipes to fit. And that means a lot coming from me. Because I’m a cheap ass. There. I said it.

So as far as newborn cloth diapering went:

bumGenius:1
Everything else: 0

♥ nicole