Tag Archives: cloth diaper

Newborn Diaper Rental

You may have noticed I said in a previous post that one-size (OS) diapers start to fit at 8-10 lbs and wondered what we did before then. Using cloth on a newborn is a whole different ballgame. They’re just so itty bitty! There are pretty much three options- use disposables for a month or two, buy a stash of diapers that are the newborn size, or do a rental. Remembering that we’re admittedly cheap, we basically approached it from a financial perspective, and our initial plan was to use disposables until she fit in OS. I’ve heard that you can do a pretty cheap newborn stash using covers and prefolds or flats, but since we were new to cloth, we weren’t quite ready to start with that level of effort.

MARK SAYS: “We’re cheap and lazy”

But that was when I discovered the rental option. A bunch of cloth diaper stores do them, but we found one for a steal from Itsy Bitsy Bums (IBB in the rest of this post). I looked at a lot of sites’ rental programs, and no one else really comes close on cost, though IBB only has one option for the type of diapers. You could either choose to rent brand new diapers for $295 or used diapers for $195, and keep them for 3 months. Once returned, you either get a $125 refund or $155 store credit for those OS diapers you’d need later. So $40 plus return shipping would diaper our daughter for 3 months. When I looked online, I found you could get a package of 234 Pampers for $47, so as long as we used at least that many changes, we’d break even. I talked to Mark about the change in plans, and ordered the rental when I was about 37 weeks… a little past the 4 weeks in advance they ask for. Then Emily came early, and we of course hadn’t received the rental yet. The customer service at IBB was great, though, and it shipped within a few days of me emailing.

The rental includes 4 Thirsties Duo Wrap covers (with velcro) and 25 Kissaluvs cotton fitteds (snaps). The amount worked pretty well for doing laundry every other day- you alternate between covers unless they get dirty, and just change the fitted inside. The system is pretty friendly for those new to cloth. No need to learn how to do an origami fold or deal with Snappies at 3 am. They fit well when we first got them, but we discovered the problem with snap closures is that sometimes the baby is between snaps. We solved that by occasionally using a Snappi to close the fitted, which looked a little funny, but worked ok. It took a little while to get used to the fact that the fitted would get completely soaked, front and back, inside and outside, but the cover is waterproof so as long as we put it on snugly, we didn’t get leaks. Fitteds were also great at containing runny newborn poop.

Unfortunately, Emily is turning out to be a tall and skinny little girl, and started to outgrow the rise in the fitteds pretty quickly. By 7 weeks, they barely fit, and she was soaking them fast enough that I tried not to leave them on for more than an hour and a half. (Thanks to my baby tracking app, I know we’d gone through over 275 changes, so we did make it past the break even point.) Since we’ll probably have the same issue with any younger siblings, doing a rental next time is TBD. It was certainly worthwhile for a parent with a newborn who has never used cloth, though. The Thirsties covers at least still worked, and we had purchased a few OS diapers that were supposed to fit earlier by that point which helped tide us over.

We did have a few snags ordering our OS replacements. After doing more research and deciding what to spend our credit on, I placed an order in the middle of December, assuming we’d have them by Christmas. We had an assortment of snafus- my sleep-deprived brain ordered the wrong size on the one sized diaper cover I was going to try (luckily I caught it before the order shipped), then they were out of the print I wanted, plus my back up, for the correct size, and the USPS 2 day delivery turned into 4, on top of all of the non-business days for the holidays. While I was frustrated and impatient by the time the diapers arrived on Jan 2 (impatient to get diapers- who’d have thought?), I can’t really fault IBB. Holidays are pretty crazy for retail, and since my earlier experience with them was positive, I’d still shop with them again for brands that aren’t carried by our local store.

The Argument for Cloth

Emily modeling her math-y diaper (Flip diaper in Albert print)

Emily modeling her math-y diaper (Flip diaper in Albert print)

Why on earth would anyone want to use cloth diapers?!

Having grown up in a town where almost every family seemed to have someone who worked at one of Procter & Gamble’s diaper plants (including my own), I’m sure it was a bit of a surprise to hear Mark & I had decided to use cloth diapers. I expect we’ll have a number of posts about our adventures along the way, but we’re about six weeks in now, and still pretty happy with our decision. So why’d we do it? Well, there are a bunch of reasons people will quote when you ask that question, but to be honest, we’re cheap. The idea of spending hundreds of dollars on mountains of diapers really bothered me. So now when Emily poops just as I finish putting on a clean outfit, I may sigh about redoing the task, but at least I’m not annoyed about wasting money. We also don’t ever have to worry about running out and having to make a midnight trip to the store.

Along the way, we’ve found that using cloth really isn’t a big deal, and there seem to be a lot of misconceptions floating around from people who haven’t tried it:

  • More laundry- Actually, we might be doing less. Yeah, I know that’s confusing. You know how babies manage to have blow outs and get poop all over their clothes? Doesn’t happen. The only blowouts we’ve had have been times we put her in disposables for one reason or another (like the first week before the cord fell off, or when the power went out and we packed up and headed to Mark’s parents… we now even travel with cloth). Personally, I’d rather just wash the diapers, which I expect to get poop on, and not have to change her clothes 700x a day. Plus, I now don’t worry about stains on her clothes.
  • Pre-rinsing- Our diaper sprayer is awesome. Think of your kitchen sink sprayer and hook it up to the toilet. I don’t touch poop any more than moms of kids in disposables. Plus, if you actually look at that package of Pampers, you’re supposed to be dumping that poop, too, not just tossing it in your diaper genie.
  • Having to change more often- It’s true that disposable diapers absorb an ungodly amount, but it’s not like she’s peeing more. You really should be changing just as often either way. The big difference seems to be that you can push it a little more with disposables when you have to, but I don’t want her sitting in a dirty diaper anyway. That’s how you wind up with rashes.
    • Speaking of rashes, we have yet to see a bad one. Really, we’ve only gotten a little red once.
  • Dealing with pins- If you haven’t seen modern cloth diapers, you should take a look. Pins are no longer required, even if you choose to use traditional cloth diapers (“flats” or “prefolds”). There’s this wonderful thing called a Snappi, which is much easier to deal with when the baby wants to roll off the changing table. It’s kind of like the little metal clasp on an Ace bandage, but Y shaped and plastic. Even those aren’t required, though, because you could just use “all-in-one” or “pocket” diapers, which go on like disposables, with either snaps or velcro built into the diaper. Most of our diapers are “all-in-twos”, which have the cloth part that gets washed separate from the waterproof cover, which you can reuse.

I will say cloth is a much larger initial investment, but it pays for itself quickly, especially if you use one-size diapers. They typically fit starting at 8-10 lbs (though they can be pretty bulky at first), and work all the way up until potty training. That’s pretty awesome on its own, but think about if you have two in diapers at the same time! No worries about grabbing the wrong size. It does hurt a little to spend over $20 on one diaper, but- fun fact- you can easily resell your used diapers when you’re finished with them, and get some of that money back.

So what’s the downside? So far, the only one I’ve found is that we have more stuff in our diaper bag. Unless you count wanting to buy more diapers. (I did say they’re adorable.)