Cloth Diapering 101: What You'll Need
Now that you know the gist of the different types of diapers, the next question that usually comes up is:
"So what do I need?"
Again, I will be speaking from my own experience.
(1) DIAPERS.
The general rule of thumb is that you need to change a cloth diaper every 2-3 hours. When Annie was a newborn, we changed her after every feeding, which was every three hours - UNLESS we heard her poop. We always change a poopy diaper after we hear it (and are sure that she's finished). Now that she's three months old, she still eats every three hours during the day (and we just change her after she eats), but she goes longer stretches at night so we don't go through as many during this time.
So, to diaper a newborn lets just say you'll need 8-12 diapers per day.
For our three month old we use 7-10
Now, I have more diapers than I really truly NEED. It's nice to have extra because I can rotate and they dont get as much wear. As far as what you should purchase, it really depends on a few factors:
(2) Wipes
To clean that tiny baby tushy of course! Some people say "well, since I use cloth diapers I should use cloth wipes." And that may be true for some. For us however, we use throw away wipes. Why? Well, I'm not really sure. We just do. Annie is sensitive to a lot of wipes and the Pampers Sensitive are the ones that seem to work for her. I may eventually venture into the world of cloth wipes, but for now I haven't really done that. I'm sure there are lots of resources out there that cover cloth wipes. My recommendation: use what works for you!
(3) A Pail
This is the terminology used for "a place to put your dirty diapers." You can get fancy diaper pails (example here), use a bucket, a trash can, or any ol' thing you can find! I use a 13 gallon wal-mart "step on" trash can with a lid on it (you step on a pedal to raise the lid). I paid like $10 for it. (I'll talk more about how this works later)
(4) Pail Liner
You use a trash bag in a trash can right? You use it to hold the garbage to (1) keep your trash can clean and (2) make it easier for you to take the trash out. The same holds true for a pail liner. A pail liner is a cloth waterproof laundry bag that helps keep your pail clean (that way you're not having to wash out your pail every other day). Since it is waterproof, your pail won't get wet or stinky (the pail liner helps hold in the stink of diapers too. I keep ours in Annie's room and you cant tell that its full of dirty diapers! It's also extremely helpful for laundry day. I'll talk about this in another post, but when it comes time to launder your diapers, you just take the pail liner out, dump its contents (diapers) in the washer, and throw the bag in there too! You dont HAVE to have one of these... but I highly, highly recommend it. I use a Planet Wise Pail Liner (mine is solid brown, but they come in fun colors and prints). HERE are some other options too!
(5) A Wet Bag
When using disposable diapers, you just throw them away once you change your baby. BUT if you're using cloth... what do you do with the ones that are dirty? You can't just throw them in your diaper bag. That's gross. Since you will not be throwing your diapers away, you need somewhere to put them when you are out and about. A wet bag is a waterproof bag that holds wet contents. They can hold swimsuits, wet clothes, or... dirty diapers. (AND it holds smells in too!)
I use a Planet Wise Wet Bag - Medium size *owl print*. A medium wet bag can hold 8-9 dirty diapers. A small only holds 1-2. And then a large can hold 16 or so diapers. A medium sized bag is PERFECT for your diaper bag!
Next Up: Cloth Diapering 101: Day to Day (how everything works!)
"So what do I need?"
Again, I will be speaking from my own experience.
(1) DIAPERS.
The general rule of thumb is that you need to change a cloth diaper every 2-3 hours. When Annie was a newborn, we changed her after every feeding, which was every three hours - UNLESS we heard her poop. We always change a poopy diaper after we hear it (and are sure that she's finished). Now that she's three months old, she still eats every three hours during the day (and we just change her after she eats), but she goes longer stretches at night so we don't go through as many during this time.
So, to diaper a newborn lets just say you'll need 8-12 diapers per day.
For our three month old we use 7-10
Now, I have more diapers than I really truly NEED. It's nice to have extra because I can rotate and they dont get as much wear. As far as what you should purchase, it really depends on a few factors:
- How often will you launder your diapers? I'll discuss this process in another post, but you can choose to launder your diapers every day, every other day, or every three days. We launder our diapers every other day (sometimes every three, depending on what's going on). I recommend having at least enough diapers to get you through two days.
- What kind of diaper do you plan on using? If you do AIOs or Pockets, you'll need 16-24. If you do covers with inserts, I recommend 2 dozen inserts (for us we have 2 dozen flats and about 6 Flip Stay Dry inserts that I use at night time. This gets us through three days.) and about 10 covers. We have 17 covers but only go through 8-10 in a two or three day period of time.
(2) Wipes
To clean that tiny baby tushy of course! Some people say "well, since I use cloth diapers I should use cloth wipes." And that may be true for some. For us however, we use throw away wipes. Why? Well, I'm not really sure. We just do. Annie is sensitive to a lot of wipes and the Pampers Sensitive are the ones that seem to work for her. I may eventually venture into the world of cloth wipes, but for now I haven't really done that. I'm sure there are lots of resources out there that cover cloth wipes. My recommendation: use what works for you!
(3) A Pail
 |
| What I use for a diaper pail |
(4) Pail Liner
You use a trash bag in a trash can right? You use it to hold the garbage to (1) keep your trash can clean and (2) make it easier for you to take the trash out. The same holds true for a pail liner. A pail liner is a cloth waterproof laundry bag that helps keep your pail clean (that way you're not having to wash out your pail every other day). Since it is waterproof, your pail won't get wet or stinky (the pail liner helps hold in the stink of diapers too. I keep ours in Annie's room and you cant tell that its full of dirty diapers! It's also extremely helpful for laundry day. I'll talk about this in another post, but when it comes time to launder your diapers, you just take the pail liner out, dump its contents (diapers) in the washer, and throw the bag in there too! You dont HAVE to have one of these... but I highly, highly recommend it. I use a Planet Wise Pail Liner (mine is solid brown, but they come in fun colors and prints). HERE are some other options too!
(5) A Wet Bag
 |
| The wet bag we use! |
I use a Planet Wise Wet Bag - Medium size *owl print*. A medium wet bag can hold 8-9 dirty diapers. A small only holds 1-2. And then a large can hold 16 or so diapers. A medium sized bag is PERFECT for your diaper bag!
Next Up: Cloth Diapering 101: Day to Day (how everything works!)
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