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My family and I are so excited about our third baby (a girl <3) arriving mid-summer 2020! I’m retiring some of my older, worn-out diapers and replacing them with some high-quality new ones that I’ve always wanted to try.

I’ve completed my newborn stash and I’m so excited to show you all what I’ve picked out. I truly believe that “third time’s a charm!” will ring true here. 😉

My Past Mistakes

Cloth diapering during the newborn days has been a challenge for me in the past. I was trying to spend as little as possible building my stash, especially since I was only going to use newborn size diapers for a short amount of time. One of my main goals of using cloth diapers was saving money.

However, I definitely dealt with the consequences of building a cheap stash. At least… building a cheap stash in terms of “easy” diapers. My husband didn’t want to learn how to use snappis or otherwise fasten flats or prefolds, so I tried buying some newborn pockets and other random things that seemed cheap.

Here are the mistakes I made with my first two kids in the newborn cloth diaper department:

Mistake #1: Buying a bunch of newborn pockets.

I discovered I HATED newborn pockets. They are my least favorite diapers I’ve ever tried.

I do NOT have cute, petite hands. Neither does my husband. Trying to stuff these was a nightmare and I ended up tossing them aside and never using them.

I do know some people have success with newborn pockets. My guess is they have slender hands or a special trick. I don’t know, but we never had much luck with them. They’re tempting because you can find some pretty cheap ones out there, but they just did not work well for us.

Mistake #2: Not buying enough.

You have to be careful here (especially if you want to save money) because they are only in newborn diapers for so long, so you don’t want to spend a ton on them. But buying a low-quantity of cloth diapers makes it very difficult to get into a routine maintaining them.

Most washing machines nowadays are HE, and HE machines depend on good load sizes to achieve proper agitation. If you have 10 newborn diapers, it’s difficult to get enough laundry to properly bulk your machine. Of course, you can always add baby clothes and other small items to create a full load. But you can easily go through 10 diapers in 1 day, and generating enough baby laundry for a full load in 1 day is hard for a lot of people.

I would want a minimum of 24 diaper changes if you want to attempt cloth diapering full time in the newborn days. For my own family’s goals, I feel like 36 changes are a good amount, but in the end, I ended up with more than that.

Mistake #3: Not Diversifying My Stash Enough

With the selection of newborn diapers I had for my first two kids, my most successful diapers were the all-in-ones. However, my babies nursed, and they nursed CONSTANTLY. Which means they peed constantly. The all-in-ones reached a point where they could not keep up even with frequent changing, but my kids still weren’t big enough for one-size diapers. So we had this awkward period of transition time where none of our diapers were working well for us.

Third Time’s A Charm – My Newborn Stash for #3

For baby #3, I bought all of the things I really should have bought for my first. It would have been awesome to get to more use out of these with each newborn, but alas… hindsight is 20/20.

Without further ado, here is what I have purchased to create a newborn stash that will work both for me and my husband because at the end of the day we both have different preferences. 🙂

newborn cloth diapers prefolds1. Prefolds

Thanks to a generous gift from Green Mountain Diapers, I was able to get some organic unbleached cotton prefolds in Newborn and Newbie size.

Both of my boys were born 6 lbs, so unless my daughter puts them both to shame in the size department (and she already measures smaller than my boys did via ultrasound, so I doubt it) I have a good feeling I’m due for another 6 lb baby.

Having plenty of newborn sized prefolds should ensure we get through these newborn days sufficiently!

2. Flatsnewborn-cloth-diaper-flats

I picked up a 6-pack of small bamboo flats from Nicki’s Diapers. Excited to try out some different folds! But once again, my husband won’t use these. 😉

Flats have several folds that you can use. This can be intimidating for many people. But the perks of flats are that you get a customized fit, better absorbency, and they wash and dry well.

Some good folds for flats are kite fold, origami fold, and jelly-roll fold. Or you can just pad-fold it (rectangle) and lay it in a cover. That’s the easiest and it absorbs well but doesn’t always contain poop as great.

3. Workhorses

newborn-cloth-diaper-workhorsesAnother treat from Green Mountain Diapers! I’ve always wanted to try workhorses, but just never have because I haven’t been one to use a lot of diapers that require covers in the past. I fell into a rut of pockets and all-in-ones for a lot of my stash.

That is definitely changing, though! I have a great appreciation for diapers that are separate pieces now.

Anyway, the workhorses are diapers I am so excited to use, but diapers my husband also feels comfortable with. He just has no desire to use a Snappi or pins, hah!

4. Coversnewborn-cloth-diaper-covers

With prefolds, flats, & workhorses, you need some covers! I chose a variety for my newborn stash:

  • 1 Disana wool cover
  • 2 Thirsties Duo Wraps size 1
  • 2 Cloth-eez Newborn Wraps
  • 1 Imagine Newborn Diaper Cover
  • 1 Wink Tiny Diaper Cover (click that link to visit Wink Diapers and use promo code ROCKINGTHECLOTH for 30{9994046f29331ee04cc0b5e07eb28364315ea03ccc2f01b5a43e8b85b372d1e9} off!)
  • 1 Nicki’s Newborn Diaper Cover

I also have two Rumparooz newborn covers that I received in a bag of hand-me-downs several years ago and are still in great condition!

I wanted to vary the brands I bought because without baby being here, I’m unsure how well these covers will fit her body shape. Looking at the covers, it’s clear that the sizing varies widely! Some of these might not work right away, but I’m sure she will grow into all of them at some point.

5. All-in-Onesnewborn-cloth-diaper-all-in-ones

Although we struggled with our babies out-peeing all in ones, they still worked better for us than newborn pockets or one-size newborn “hacks.”

Even though they weren’t my favorite overall, my husband just really loves all-in-ones. So these purchases were mainly for him, though I’m hoping I find a few AiO gems.

We got:

We still have 6 bumGenius newborn diapers (4 pictured as the other 2 are temporarily misplaced) and Thirsties size 1 all-in-one that we used with our boys and will use again.

We’re Ready to Go!

It’s so exciting to get my newborn cloth diaper stash prepped and ready to go! I promise full reviews on individual products when the time comes. Let’s all cross our fingers that I get a baby that will nap this time. 😉 That will make maintaining Rocking the Cloth much easier those first few months.

What are your favorite newborn diapers? Let me know in the comments!