Diapering Olive

I had these great plans to use cloth diapers with Olive from Day 1 and never have to put her in a disposable. I had done a good amount of research and read about the experiences of other moms, and I thought I was prepared. I was definitely more prepared than with Penny where I only had one-size diapers that were way too big, but I still wasn't quite as prepared as I could have been.

I had x-small covers (Thirsties and a couple other randoms), preemie & newborn prefolds, and homemade hemp inserts that could be used like a newborn flip system. I also had a couple of newborn All-In-Ones (AIOs) and some small gdiapers.

Olive was so teeny tiny that every diaper I had for her was way too big. It was ridiculous! Even the teeny Bum Genius (BG) newborn diapers were giant on her and couldn't fit under her cord stump. The first night we tried out all of our different options, and then in the morning, I sent hubbie to Whole Foods for the "crunchiest" sposies he could find. The best laid plans. Ah well. We ended up using 2 packs of sposies. We probably could have gotten by with 1 if we'd known how quickly her cord would have fallen off...

The good news was that with the help of this powder called Goldenseal that my midwife had me get, Olive's cord fell off in 4 days. This stuff is awesome. She said that all of her babies' cords fall off within a week with this stuff. You just sprinkle a little on the cord at each diaper change. With Penny, we followed the hospital's recommendation to use alcohol on it, and it took 2 weeks to fall off. Score one more for the midwife! :)

Once Olive's cord fell off, we had a little better luck with our cloth diapers. The insert/covers worked fine, and I like that the inserts have an upper layer of suedecloth or microfleece, so they feel dry against Olive's skin. The prefolds have also been working well for us. I have decided that I am just not a fan of snappies. I can never get them to work well for me, so I just trifold the prefolds, fold down the front to get the right size, and then flare out the corners in the back to catch more poo. Olive's poos are usually small, so this seems to work well and keep the covers clean. But hands-down my favorite diapering option for Olive so far is using newborn AIOs. I only had 2 to start out with (a great gift–thanks Audrey!), so I quickly scoured craigslist and my local diaper boards/facebook and was able to gather a stash of 15 more for under $100. It ended up being just over $6 apiece, which included shipping for some of them, as I didn't want to drive an hour and a half to the other side of the greater Chicago area! Buying newborn diapers used is definitely the way to go, as they are usually in great shape having only been used for a couple of months. The AIOs are especially great for nighttime. I bought 6 Lil Joeys and 9 Grovia newborn AIOs. Newborn diapers are the freakin' cutest things ever. OMG they are precious. I think the Lil Joeys might even have fit under Olive's cord because they have a low rise and extra snap-down for the umbilical cord, so maybe my visions of cloth diapering from Day 1 could come true if we have a third. But they are all super cute and have adorable prints like bicycles and owls. Love it.

The newborn AIOs I bought are all good up to 12 pounds, so they should last a few months at least. I am hoping Penny is out of diapers by the time Olive grows out of these. Then I can switch Olive over to my great stash of BG Freetimes. But we will see. Penny is less than enthusiastic about using the potty right now, and we'll leave it at that.

So diapering my newborn summary:
Used sposies until her cord fell off (4 days)
Newborn-size AIOs for all nighttime changes and some days (I have 17 of these)
Prefolds/inserts with x-small covers (padfolded, no snappies!) to fill out the stash (I have 7 covers, about 12 preemie prefolds, 12 newborn prefolds, and probably 30 hemp/fleece small inserts)
This stash can get me through about 5-6 days between laundering, but I throw in a load whenever the pail is full. With two kids, it gets full every couple of days.