Your first two months of diapering will be difficult with any diapering system you use. Disposables don’t work any better than cloth! But some people choose to use disposables until the mother has recovered enough to take on the extra laundry (up to 6-8 weeks). This would be about 500 disposable diapers (yeah, in six weeks, you’d use on average over 500 diapers). The baby will be wetting quite frequently and need to be changed at least every 2 hours. So disposable, or cloth, you’ll be handling a lot of diapers. At $.34 a diaper (average) that comes up to $170 extra. Which is about as much as you’d spend on a dozen or so disposables that last 30 years! What I would suggest is to use this time to try out several different types of diapers to see what your baby fits into well and which ones you enjoy using. Some people use this time to convince themselves that cloth diapering is way too hard and they should give up and pay the extra few thousand dollars on disposables. But that doesn’t need to be the case, all the cloth diapers can be used to fit most any size child. You just have to find the kind that works for you.

Flats and Prefolds for Newborns: Newborn cloth diapers aren’t actually that hard to come by. You can find several brands of newborn prefolds and flats. These are just a little bit smaller than the size-one diapers so most people abandon that and just head straight to the size one flats and prefolds. The newborn sizes of course generally fit better, but with as quickly as babies tend to outgrow that “newborn” phase, some people seem them as just not worth the effort.

Sized Diapers for Newborns: If you’ve chosen to use a type/brand of fitted diaper that comes in sizes, you may be hard-pressed to find “newborn” sizes. They generally come in sizes based on numbers. In this case, get the smallest diaper. If you find that the diaper doesn’t quite fit, you can add a folded flat or prefold to help with the snug-ness of the diaper. This normally works pretty well until your baby has grown into the size one diapers.

One Size (OS) Diapers: One size diapers seem to be the kind that give people the most trouble when attempting to cloth diaper a newborn. Adjust them down to their smallest size and then fit onto your child. If it is still too big, try adding a folded flat or prefold and using the OS diaper as a cover. Most people say it works like a charm and some even abandon the use of a liner or doubler for the first few months with this method because they’ve found they don’t need it. Of course, this may make the diaper more bulky because of the extra cloth, but as quickly as most babies grow, it wont be a problem for long.

OH, if you’re chosing to use a size that’s too big for the baby and supplementing with a flat or prefold, be sure that all of the extra diaper is contained inside the outer diaper…. If you don’t the flat or prefold will wick moisture to the outside of the diaper and you’ll end up with a soggy baby and wet bedsheets, shirts, pants…. Or anything else it comes in contact with.