So now that we are expecting our first, I am starting my research into the big wide world of cloth diapering. There is tons of info out there but I seem to have gathered that the types of cd’s I would be interested in are fitteds, pockets, all in ones and all in twos. It’s a little overwhelming, especially because hubby is not on board yet.
What kinds of cloth diapers do you or people you know use? Is it a pain in the butt (no pun intended :-p) using a fitted or another kind that requires a cover? Any advice or tips for someone totally new at this?
Thanks all!!! 
I use pockets, I find them the best/easiest. Quick drying (no drier in my house) and easy to put on etc… I do think that having the one kind (fitted/pockets etc…) is easier, you can kind of switch off and not have to think to much. I’m on to baby number 3 with cloth nappies so selling in the cost savings to hubby would be my suggestion! Though I do still have 3 girls in disposables overnight. I find both sized and one size nappies ok, but probably prefer sized, but you do spend more buying different sizes (2 sizes probably ok depending on brand for approx 2 months to toilet trained). As far as brands go, I am in NZ so not sure of all you might have access to, but I like fuzzi bunz fitted and one size pockets.
Oh yeah, congrats too 
Congratulations on your pregnancy! The world of cloth diapering is very overwhelming! We have two daughters. With our first we exclusively used Fuzzibunz pocket diapers. They worked great and I loved them for our first daughter. Pros - easy to use, less bulky, and fast drying. Cons - More expensive. Also the inserts are made of microfiber and get build up after awhile. They will start to smell and can even start to give your child a diaper rash. So microfiber inserts will have to be stripped every once in awhile. Also, since we use a dryer, after two years the elastics went bad in the covers. Onto our second daughter, I wanted something more economical and less stink/laundry issues so I went with [name_u]Green[/name_u] Mountain diapers cotton prefolds (different sizes depending on if you’re cloth diapering from day 1) and have a few different brands of covers (newborn and one-size covers, I have Grovia, Rumparooz, Thirsties, and [name_u]Flip[/name_u] covers). Pros - No laundry/stink/build up issues! Less expensive. Easy to use. Cons - possibly more bulky and longer drying. I have never regretting doing prefolds this time around, and I will be able to use them for other children. I will say that a difference to be aware of between pocket diapers and a cotton prefold, is pockets have a fleece layer between the insert and your baby’s bottom, so it will act as a barrier when the baby is wet, whereas the prefold will be wet against the baby’s skin. So more frequent diaper checks and changes will help your baby’s skin if using prefolds. Regardless of which kind of diapers you go with, Grovia cloth diaper wipes are the best and if you’re already doing cloth diaper laundry you might as well use cloth wipes. I also really love Planet wise wet/dry bags for cloth diapering out of the house.
Ok so I know my opinion will be unpopular. But this was my experience.
My mother in law, as a baby shower gift, got us disposables for the first year. She gives us a Costco card every month and we use it to buy diapers and wipes. It’s been great.
I did a TON of research into cloth diapering, thinking that we could slowly build a stash so that by the time our son turns one (He’s 8 months), we could be totally in cloth, and have the stash for #2 also. I was SO excited. I went to a local cloth diaper store and got my first diapers. A rumparooz cover, a sweat pea cover, and 6 organic cotton prefolds. The laundry aspect I didn’t mind. I already change him every couple hours, so that wasn’t a big deal either. I didn’t even mind plopping the poop out.
Here’s what got me- the bulk. His pants barely fit over him. Its not like he is a tiny newborn in a One-size cover either. He is 8 months olds. His pants barely fit over him. We live somewhere cold, and trying to layer over cloth is difficult. I wanted so badly to love cloth. I tried flats. I tried G-diapers. Those were considered incredibly trim for cloth, but STILL seemed bulky. Plus he is a heavy wetter and I just felt bad for him, always feeling wet.
I think I just got used to disposables. They keep him feeling dry. All his clothes fit. No extra thought. I think we may try a more natural diaper (main reason I liked cloth is because I hate the chemicals in disposables). I’m sure if we had kept with it longer we could have found something we liked. But amidst moving, an upcoming vacation, and just the millions of every day parenting choices, we decided against it.
But I really do like the idea of cloth diapering in theory. So I really hope you find something that works for you
I’ve only been using them for 3 weeks, but so far I can say that I absolutely [name_u]LOVE[/name_u] cloth diapers! We use a combination of prefolds/covers (which worked amazingly when he was just born and couldn’t fit into his one size diapers) and one size BumGenius pocket diapers. I don’t use the microfiber inserts, though, as someone previously said that they can start to stink after a while. Instead, I stuff them with newborn size prefolds. It works great! We haven’t had a leak yet, though he doesn’t sleep for long stretches yet. Once he does, I have some hemp inserts to add in with the cotton prefolds for extra absorbency. As it is, the longest he sleeps is about 4 hours, so this isn’t an issue yet. I change him frequently, mostly because he is a huge drama llama and cries as soon as his diaper is wet (but he did that with disposables, too). [name_m]Even[/name_m] my husband loves using them, which is great! He pulled the prefolds out of the dryer one day and was like, “Wow! Look at all these diapers we would have thrown away!” And is constantly remarking during poopy diaper changes that if he had been in a disposable, poop would have gotten everywhere haha.
So, I DEFINITELY recommend cloth. There can be a learning curve for sure, but it’s so worth it for us. Before my son was born, I spent a lot of time on Youtube watching videos explaining everything (because there are a lot of terms you’ll encounter that had me going “huh?!”). I recommend checking out ObbsandLala’s cloth diaper videos! She explains everything in detail.
Also, these are the types of diapers I’ve used and I’d recommend every one of them to anyone else:
> BumGenius 4.0s
> [name_u]Green[/name_u] Mountain Diapers Prefolds
> [name_u]Green[/name_u] Mountain Diapers Workhorses (“fitteds”)
> Thirsties Duo Wrap Snap Covers
> [name_u]Flip[/name_u] Covers
Thanks for the input so far everyone!
Based on all the research I’ve done so far, prefolds seem to be very popular, especially during the newborn stage. Prefolds are the kind that require Snappi’s and a cover right? And from my understanding, they are already sewn together as a flat piece of material, then you form it around the baby with the Snappi? And someone here mentioned that an advantage of pockets is the baby stays dry. Prefolds and fitteds are just straight up cloth so the baby would be wet for a while before being changed, is that correct? Probably means you’d be checking and changing baby way more often…
Sorry, I know these are dumb questions, but I want to be totally educated on this before I present it to my husband, because he has laughed off cloth diapering since I mentioned it months ago. I told him we have to chose between spending more money or doing more laundry, which seem to be the biggest cons for disposables and cloth for me.
Congratulations on your pregnancy!
I don’t have kids, but I’ve done a lot of research on cloth diapers. I found this site to be a great resource for all the terminology, etc.:
http://www.pistachioproject.com/2012/01/cloth-diapers-101-schedule.html
Best of luck!
Thanks maggie! I just read that blog, it was great! The more I read about it, the less scary it sounds! Now just to get dh on board…
You can use snappi’s for prefolds, but we have always just trifolded them into the covers, it is easy and seems to work great with no leaks. Another huge pro for cloth diapers is less blowouts and leaks! Especially when they are newborns and have multiple blowouts per day, it saves on having to change outfits. I will say that cloth diapering from day 1 can be done, but you will have to invest in newborn sized diapers or covers. One-size diapers will not fit a newborn, unless you have big babies. We used [name_f]Earth[/name_f]'s Best or Honest Co. disposables until our daughter fit into her cloth diapers better (around 4 or 5 weeks). And it’s just [name_m]WAY[/name_m] more convenient in the early newborn days than bothering with cloth diaper laundry. If you’re fully committing to doing cloth from the beginning, that is great, but it is really nice to use disposables until you get into a routine with your baby.
My recommendation is pocket nappies in most cases. The exceptions are:
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newborn stage, where runny poo can sometimes “explode” from pockets. At this point I use either snap-in-ones or fitteds with covers. Or alternatively, use disposables for the newborn stage since its not that long anyway, then move to cloth once they’re a little older - you’ll save more on cloth once they’re past the newborn stage, because newborn nappies don’t fit for long. Plus, you may find you’re too busy at this point to deal with cloth. I used disposables for my first two during newborn stage, it wasn’t til my third that I went for cloth at this point.
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if you have a heavy wetter, you may find that pockets aren’t enough for overnight once they get a little older. With my girls, I just used a pocket with an extra insert overnight, but with my son I had to use a fitted and cover. The downside to these is fitted nappies take forever to dry! Cloth night nappies are for the “brave” cloth nappy users, and I know lots of people who just find it too hard and use cloth during the day and disposables overnight.
@babylove - I started off using traditional cloth nappies (with pins and origami folding) and I definitely struggled with the bulk issue with these. But I found the modern cloth nappies I switched to didn’t add much more bulk than a disposable, their clothes still fit. I agree it was a pain with the bigger nappies when none of the cute clothes they were given would go on over the nappy, they just don’t design clothes to go over big cloth bums these days - but with the right modern cloth nappy I found very few problems.
I don’t know about where you live, but where I’m from (NZ) cloth nappies are pretty readily available in shops these days, and have come down in price significantly from when they were first available several years ago. I discovered them when they were still in the expensive, hard to find phase so I started making them myself. Pocket nappies are super easy to make (as virtually all the stitching is hidden on the inside so no-one gets to see your bad sewing!) and are lots of fun. It became a bit of an addiction for me, making super-cute nappies in all colours and patterns! And they cost me about NZ$4 per nappy compared to $30-$40 to buy at that stage.
Oh, and “nappy” means “diaper” where I’m from, in case you’re wondering
I think there are some old threads in the mom forum that have a lot of information. For example…
and
and
Here is the gist of what I responded on those threads…
First I think it is really important to buy a few kinds and try them out before making the big commitment. Until you try it you have NO idea which will work well for your kid!
We use mainly BumGenius, but we also have a few FuzziBunz and Kawaii Babies (all one size pocket diapers). The BumGenius have pretty much worked well for us since day one which is why we decided to invest in more of them. My kids are about 23 lbs now and the FuzziBunz are starting to feel a bit small. When they were pretty young the Kawaii Babies (other than the particular newborn diapers) felt HUGE on them. [name_m]Even[/name_m] when they were about 12+ pounds we still found they leaked a lot. We put them away for a long time and recently have been trying them again in a pinch. They seem to be fine, but the definitely didn’t work for us before the boys were pretty sizable. (That said, the Kawaii [name_u]Baby[/name_u] newborn diapers we had worked great and the diaper that best fit my smaller boy for a while.)
Kawaii baby diapers are definitely cheaper but in my opinion that reduction in cost is evident also in the diaper itself- they feel much less sturdy. Our 20 BumGenius diapers have been washed every other day for over 8 months and are still in great shape. I don’t know if the Kawaii [name_u]Baby[/name_u] diapers would have held up as well. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you have to replace a cheaper diaper it might not actually end up being cheaper. Maybe someone else has some experience on this that they can share with you because I am only speculating based on my perception of our 4 Kawaii [name_u]Baby[/name_u] diapers. We have not put it to the test.
As for number of diapers, that really depends on how often you are able to do laundry. (I think they recommend a max of 2 or 3 days before washing them.) We run a diaper load every afternoon. It is a long cycle with a pre-wash and extra rinse and then they hang dry. Until recently for our two boys we had 20 BumGenius diapers, 2 Kawaii baby (non-newborn sizes) and 2 FuzziBunz although we rarely used the Kawaii [name_u]Baby[/name_u] and FuzziBunz. We recently purchased 10 more BumGenius diapers because we wanted a bit more of a laundry buffer for when they start preschool in the fall and we won’t be able to run a load of laundry and have them dry in time for the next day. (Not all brands can be dried in a dryer.)
Good luck with your decision!
(As an update, our kids used the bumgenius diapers for 3 years and they are still in great shape, ready to be used for their little sister who is due in 2 weeks!)