What I learned ~ All about Cloth

I knew that I was going to have a big baby, my husband was 10lb 10 oz and I was 8lb 8 oz at birth, I fully expected to be having a baby that was around 9 pounds.  Lots of blogs and things I read said that newborn diapers were pointless only fit for a week or two, and not to bother with them and just get xs covers that would last a lot longer. It seemed like good advice. I really really wish I hadn't listened.  C was 8lb11oz, he was a big boy and we probably would have been OK with ill fitting covers had he gained weight after birth, he lost a pound and took a month and a half to get back to his birth weight. We managed with small overs and prefold after a week or so of doing disposables (we went ended up using nearly three packages of newborn diapers there are maybe 6 or so left in the last package that I plan to use for the 1st day or so for the next baby so we don't have to deal with cloth and the brand new baby poop.)

Lesson one: is get a few newborn covers, buy them used,they last forever since they are only lightly used and, they have a few advantages such as the cut out for the umbilical cord and since they really do only wear them for a little while they last for ever. Lots of cloth moms pass the newborn stash of diapers around the neighborhood, so if you have friends that use cloth ask if you can borrow the newborn sizes.

Lesson two:You really do want a snappi, When we started we just couldn't see why we really needed a snappi, sure it was a littler harder to get the prefold in the cover with out one but we managed until C started rolling and I gave in and bough a snappi, Seriously wish I had done it sooner it makes prefolds so much easier. We ended up getting three one that lived in the diaper bag one that stayed on the baby and one at home on the changing table. On really messy diapers they sometimes get yucky or when changing wiggle worms its nice to be able to finish the change and wash the snappi later to get the yuck off.

Lesson three: Try a little of everything. Starting out I said we only need a few covers and prefolds, all the pockets, fitted, all in one, insert business seems unnecessary and so much more expensive. We rocked prefolds and a few brands of covers as well as a combination of snaps and apex. Starting out we loved the apex covers, I had compleatly been converted to snaps, they don't come unstuck in the wash and attack everything in the machine. We started using a combination of fitted diapers and prefolds until we out grew out current sized prefolds and all our friends were raving over one size pocket diapers so we switched and have completely fazed out our prefold usage.

Lesson four:  Start buying diapers early. I knew what I wanted and still was so overwhelmed by the choices of kinds of covers and types of prefolds. I was so worried I was going to make a mistake and I didn't want to "waste" my diaper budget buying the wrong thing.That I just couldn't bring myself to buy anything. I know now that buying something that's not right for you or your baby happens, its easy to resell your stash if you need to and having a back up of stuff you don't love is better than having no back up at all.Trust yourself really you can't go wrong. If your not sure buy one of a few different kinds of diapers and once your little one can wear them you can sell the ones you don't like and buy more of the ones you do.