Cloth Diapers, Part 2: Our Experience with Cloth

Being a 4 lb preemie, R wore the tiniest little disposables while in the NICU. They sent some home with us and I'm saving the ones she didn't use for posterity, because they're just so darn cute!

Tiny diaper on a tiny baby.


The disposables were fine in the hospital, but as we soon as we brought her home we stuck her in prefolds and Bummis waterproof covers. As new parents, we had no idea how often R's diaper should be changed. We only changed it once before a feeding in the NICU, but those were disposable diapers. Time has since taught us to change the diaper after a feeding as well. So we got leaks with this method, mostly because we weren't changing often enough: the prefolds were always soaked through.



At the same time we also used bumGenius XS All-in-Ones (AIO). "All-in-One" means that the absorbent liner is sewn into the waterproof cover. I liked how the absorbent insert retained the moisture in the middle of the diaper, instead of dispersing it all around her thighs like the prefolds did. We ended up buying 18 of these bumGenius AIO's before she grew out of them because they worked so much better than prefolds. A downside to the AIO diaper is that they take FOREVER to dry, due to the insert being sewn in. It wasn't until after R grew out of them that I read about some moms ripping seams on them to get better drying time. Toward the end of them fitting on her, leaks happened more often, even though she was still within the listed weight limit.



Our bumGenius stash.


Then it was on to FuzziBunz One Size! FuzziBunz are the creme-de-la-creme of cloth diapering, I tell you what. These diapers were our ultimate goal, we just used the other ones until she grew into them. They are "one size," and infinitely adjustable, but it's really too much fabric and padding on a 6 lb baby. They adjust with a button and elastic system around both legs and the waist. FuzziBunz are a pocket diaper, meaning that the absorbent insert gets stuffed into a pocket in the waterproof cover. I admit that they were hard to stuff when the elastics were on the smaller settings: I felt like my hand was always getting stuck on the folds created by so much excess fabric. But now that R has grown into the larger settings the inserts go in like a breeze. We've only had one leak so far and that's because the diaper was set too big for her. I've seen poops that would have been blowouts had they been in disposable diapers, but the FuzziBunz kept the mess perfectly contained.

Here you can see the pocket and 4-layer micro-terry insert.


I think she was about 9 or 10 lbs in this pic. The FuzziBunz looks huge on her here, but she has since grown into all of that fabric.


Our FuzziBunz stash.


Oh yeah, you can see in the pic above that we use flannel wipes, too. No running out to the store to buy more diapers or wipes for us! Thanks to new innovations in cloth diapering, and the magic of washers and dryers, we always have diapers and wipes on hand. Yay!!