Newborn Cloth Diapering

I hear some moms come in to the shop and say "I want to cloth diaper.  But not at the beginning.  I will use disposables at first until baby is a couple months old and then switch to cloth."

I hear that quite a bit and I understand those sentiments.  A new baby is a big adjustment and sometimes the thought of adapting to yet another "new" thing can be overwhelming.  I mean, just how does poop get clean out of a diaper and how could cloth diapers POSSIBLY work better than disposable diapers?

When giving this a bit more thought, I actually think it should be reversed IF anything.  You SHOULD cloth diaper your newborn and then if you want to, switch to disposables after the baby is a year old and not exclusively breastfed (I don't recommend switching to disposables EVER but for the sake of this argument...let's just say).

Why should you cloth diaper a newborn?  Two words: breastfed poo.  Have you experienced this yet?  It's runny.  I mean, really really runny.  Couple that with some explosive gas and what do you get?  A blowout.  How many of you have experienced this?  I have.  It's nasty.  It goes up the back, out the legs and all over mommy's tummy and jeans.  This leads to a sponge bath for baby and a full change of clothes.  In fact, this happened not too long ago to one of my friends.  Her baby was wearing a disposable and right after he was breastfed, he had a blowout.  A customer of mine told a story of when she was flying across country after her daughter was a couple of months old, she thought she didn't want to "deal" with a cloth diaper on the airplane.  Guess what?  Yep, blowout on the plane in her disposable.  

These blowouts are part of having a newborn but honestly, they will happen less with cloth.  Why?  Cloth diapers, especially those designed for a newborn, are made with amazing elastic sewn in at the leg openings and at the back of the diaper.  These elastic gussets are made to contain that newborn poo.  I dare you to do a side-by-side comparison of a newborn cloth diaper vs. a disposable diaper.  The comparison is striking.

So if you're expecting, and you don't plan on cloth diapering, plan on washing your clothes and the baby's clothes more often because poo blowouts are part of having a newborn.  But I can assure you that they will happen far less frequently--if ever--in a cloth diaper.