**This post is for me to look back on later when we have another one or for someone to see how we have handled things these first three weeks.
Before we got pregnant, we had discussed using cloth diapers and did a lot of research into that. The advise I got while doing the research was to use disposables for the first couple of weeks until the meconium poop is out so that you aren’t trying to clean tarry poop off your cloth diapers while you are exhausted with a newborn. So when Edward was born, that is what we did. The midwife also recommended using olive oil or coconut oil on baby’s bum to help with the poop not sticking to his butt. We got a small container and put some olive oil in it and kept it by the diaper changing area so it wouldn’t get mixed up. The olive oil worked great and we only had to really work at getting meconium off of baby’s butt once when we forgot.
We used disposables for the first week. After that, we tried to put on the AIO’s (All-in-ones) that we got and they were to big for him. Because his umbilical cord hadn’t fallen off yet, we couldn’t get the diapers on under the stump so it would stay dry. Plus his legs weren’t chubby enough so we weren’t getting a good seal on his leg. Because of this, we ended up using some more disposables while we looked for another solution. We ended up just buying some small g-diaper covers (8-14 pounds) at the grocery store. We only bought one box of 2 covers to see if the liners from our AIO’s would work since the cloth liners for the g-diapers were so expensive and we had already bought diapers. Luckily the liners did work (mostly as they were a little on the big side) so we went ahead and bought another box of covers. We used those for about a week and exclusively went to those.
So he was in disposables for about 10 days and then was switched to cloth. Yesterday at just over 3 weeks, we went ahead and tried our AIO’s again as it seemed his legs were getting chubbier as the g-diapers were starting to get tight around his legs. The AIO’s fit, so was are transitioning him to those. We still use the g-diapers occasionally and only use disposables if it looks like he is getting a rash.
We ended up with 4 g-diaper covers, 25 AIO’s and 25 liners for the AIO’s. So far I am only doing laundry every other day. A lot of the laundry is baby stuff as we have a little spitter here. He spits up a lot so we go through burp rags and receiving blankets like they are going out of style. I have been surprised to only be doing laundry every other day. There are some days when he only fit in the g-diapers and he had a particularly spitty day when I would have to do a load of laundry a day so I could wash the covers since we only had 4 of them. Now that he fits in the bigger ones, I should be fine with only once every other day since the whole diaper goes in the wash instead of just the liner.
We have a routine where we change his diaper before every feeding, so we go through about 10 diapers a day. There are some days where it is more and some when it is less. I really like this stage where I don’t have to worry about cleaning out the diaper before throwing it in the wash. Once we get to solids, we shall see how I feel.
Our next big challenge is to see how we fare cloth diapering while traveling. We are going to Idaho for Darrell’s Grandma’s 80th birthday and we will be gone Friday-Sunday that weekend. I am a little nervous, but I think it will be fine. We are also going to go ahead and buy some cloth wipes and try that out. Right now we are using regular wipes but it would be nice to be able to just throw the wipes in with the diapers (especially when out and about). We are just taking things one small step at a time while we adjust to our schedules.
<- First cloth diaper (g-diaper) — First AIO diaper ->
