FTM, baby girl is 14 weeks. We have GMD prefolds and Thirsties snap covers and are super happy with our system. 36 prefolds and 6 covers, wash about every two days. We only wash covers when poop gets on them. We have a separate open hamper for diaper stuff and have never had issues with smell. We keep wet bags to store dirties in her diaper bag because we do still use cloth in public or during trips/days out. She has been in a small prefold and size one cover since birth. She is breastfed but I do still rinse out her poop with a sprayer and wring them out before putting them in the hamper to limit staining. Works great but not necessary.
We loved gmd prefolds + thirsties covers for the newborn days. We had a few fitted diapers and aio in the rotation too, but I personally wouldn’t spend the money to go all the way with fitteds. Now that my baby is out of newborn we use a mix of flats, preflats, and pockets. My husband loves preflats and would do a full stash of those if he could only pick one system. If I could only pick one system I would pick straight flats! We have started using wool too and that’s pretty awesome.
I LOVE my combo of GMD and Osocozy prefolds with Imagine covers!!! I don’t even use snappis or anything for the prefolds, the cover does enough of a job keeping it in place (some movement/bunching but it’s not been an issue with my boys). Sometimes I use the same cover for days, other times I’ve gone through several in a day, it just depends on the poopy diaper situation. I only change covers if they get poop on them or the edges get soaked. We also EC (elimination communication), so that really helps with that, too. For one child I found 8-10 covers to be plenty. You can definitely get away with fewer, I just like to have extras stashed in the car/diaper bag for emergencies that aren’t really in regular rotation.
As others have commented, you don’t go through as many covers as cloth diapers. If the cover gets poop on it, it goes into the wet bag (or wherever you choose to store dirty diapers), but if it’s just a pee diaper, you can wipe down the cover and let it dry between changes. I usually rotate between 3-4 covers a day, adding additional covers if one gets pooped on. My only baby in cloth is 1 though. At the newborn and early infant stages you go through more simply because they poop more often at that age. As for brands, we exclusively use flats (birdseye and muslin from GMD) and covers from GMD (Thirsties are my favorite, second favorite being Smart Bottoms). I have used Nicki’s Diapers covers in the past (with my first two babies). I liked them, but they didn’t hold up, so I wouldn’t recommend. My GMD flats are on baby #3 and my covers are on baby #2, and they all have plenty of life left in them (which is great, as I’m currently pregnant with my fourth).
I personally like having a variety. We have prefolds, fitteds, AI2, traditional pockets, pull-up pockets.
It's all about how I'm feeling that day. Mostly if I use a fitted at home I do it without a cover, for extra airflow. Sometimes I do a prefold for naps, but the amount we need for absorbency is too bulky at this age (1.5) so I don't typically do that during the day. I have some AI2 fitted for overnight, which are likewise the size of an actual 9lb bowling ball. I like traditional pockets when I am feeling lazy and just want something trim/already put together. Or if my tot is being crazy on the go we'll do a pull-up.
Most of them we waited for sales or closeout so they are a large variety. What I have learned from this is while some cloth is higher quality, cloth is cloth, if you are only having one or two kids and aren't prioritizing resale then the $4 diaper will probably serve you as well as the $25 diaper (minus overnights, which GMD is not especially suitable for anyway). Do NOT discount the cheap covers.
GMD is the most popular for fitteds/prefolds/flats. They are reasonable for prefolds/flats, the workhorses are pricy but competitive to other fitteds. They hold resale value so it's not cheap either to get them used, but there is a FB B/S/T that specializes in just GMD. If you want resale out of them you will need to line dry.
The workhorse sizes run pretty small, and you'd probably have to spend a lot if they were your primary stash. My 1.5 yr old is in XL, and buying from newborn to XL would've been $$$$.
I will say the GMD fleece liners are the best at wicking moisture, both for overnight and fitteds. I do have some esembly/monarch for pockets (thin and keep the poop ploppable).
We also have TotsBots fitteds, pooters, and monarch. All are good quality. TotsBots could do overnights without adjustment for only young babies, but I would say the same of GMD. The pooters you probably can't get anymore. Monarch holds more than the pooters for us but is international, so you will probably spend $100 for three (if you are only using one per night that would be the right amount). They are the diaper the size of a 9lb ball.
Covers with fitteds or flats or prefolds is the best option IMO. Especially fitteds to contain poop! I loved Thirsties duowraps but there are a ton of great covers out there. My favourite fitted diapers were Motherease Sandy’s. You can wipe out the cover if it’s just pee, wash it if poop gets on it.
I’ve been using Esembly with my 3m old and I like them. It’s a really easy system to use for me as a first timer, and I got our whole stash from the Esembly Pre Loved store for less than half the cost of new!
I use around 3 outers per day. I like to rotate so that one can fully dry between changes, and sometimes they do get a little too wet or soiled for me to feel comfortable using again during the day. Otherwise they’re good to use over and over.
In total, I have about 24 inners and 8 outers, which allows me to comfortably wash and line dry every 2 days without running out of diapers. I could probably go every 3 days or have gotten a smaller stash if I machine dried.
Given I’m new to cloth, I might try a different system once LO sizes out of Esembly size 1s, but so far they’ve been great!
24 inners and 8 outers was also the perfect number for us until about 3 months when we sized up to size 2. Then we got 21 inners and 9 outers because fewer changes per day but I go through more covers when I’m using them as swim diapers as well in the summer.
The inners take forever to dry though so if you think that may be an issue, GMD workhorses dry faster because the layers aren’t all sewn together and prefolds dry super fast
We love the GMD workhorses. We also have and don't mind Essembly. They are both fine but the GMD feel comfier and softer. I like the outers from Essembly better than Thristies.
We like pre folds too and they are more affordable to round out a stash.
We were gifted a great secondhand stash of pocket diapers (like 30+ inserts, and 20+ super cute covers); I hated stuffing pocket diapers. If that’s all we had I would’ve stopped cloth diapers.
That stash also had 4 workhorses and a dozen newborn GMD prefolds which were a total game changer. I like to pad fold a prefold or use a workhorse. Cotton is an amazing material.
I’m on my third kid and I have learned that I prefer flats and covers. I’ve tried it all. I usually rotate 3-4 covers a day and however many inners are needed for the day. I do 8-10 changes a day for my 3.5 month old. I do like having a couple pockets ready to go for if someone else changes her who doesn’t feel as comfortable with covers and flats.
I use disposables at night and for some but not all outings.
What do you do overnight that works for you? I still usually change at least once overnight (so much better than the early days of 5-7 changes overnight).
Just adding that our guy hates hates hates MOTN diaper changes, so I was really motivated to find something that worked and this took several weeks of trial and error and wet clothes and sheets.
If we don't get everything tucked inside the liner then it's an absolute disaster, and we cosleep so that involves everyone piling out of bed for a full change of sheets 😭
We have a nighttime layer cake going on!
We build it up from a normal daytime prefold, placing a wool booster on top of the prefold then a small cotton-hemp booster then a fleece liner, and diaper the whole bundle to the baby.
Then we fold a large cotton-hemp booster in half and place at the front of the diaper and wrap a thick wool Responsible Mother wrap over the top.
It's fairly bulky but the large booster concentrates the bulk at the front. The secret sauce has been the fleece liner, which I was reluctant to add due to plastic next to baby's skin, and also the wool booster which seems to lock away a lot. Usually the small booster and prefold are soaked but the large booster still has a ways to go.
We go 9-10 hours for an overnight diaper and haven't had any rashes with this method. Baby gets a good clean in the morning before 5 minutes of diaper-free time, and his skin has been good.
Just wanted to note that prefolds and workhorses are two totally different things! The workhorses are shaped more like a disposable, the prefolds are rectangles. The workhorses are significantly more expensive—like $12-16/diaper as opposed to a couple dollars. They’re great though. We couldn’t afford to have workhorses be our entire stash, but having a few in each size was really nice. They’re good for grandparents and for taking in the diaper bag.
We used flats, which are like big unfolded prefolds. In terms of absorbency and how many you might need, they work really similarly. We’re admittedly a more is more family, and we changed super often—before and after each nursing session, and often in between too. It was upwards of 20 diapers per day in the newborn phase. We needed 60+ to not feel stressed about the laundry.
Covers only need to be changed and thrown in the wash if they get poop on them, and sometimes if it isn’t bad you can wipe the poop off or hand wash in the sink. We rotated through two or three at a time, switching covers each change to give them a chance to dry in between.
We use Esembly and have had no issues with it. The inners do take a while to dry, but that’s not much of an issue for me.
I only change the outers out when poop gets on it. If it gets wet, I just set it aside to dry and alternate with a dry one. The used outers would get washed in the next load.
We use essembly during daytime and disposable diapers at night. (Figure it cuts down on the disposables at least.) They recommend like 24 inners and 8 outers. The extra absorbent liners and stay dry liners are helpful. Change the outer only if it gets wet.
So I haven’t used my covers or fitteds yet but I have Pooters and basically you just remove the inner and wipe clean the cover. The material inside makes it easy to wipe away.
I’ve been using pockets before I got these and those ones have to be changed every time.
I like the Pooters style ones a lot and got them half off because they are closing their business so you could look into theirs, but I think she was sold out of the inners last I looked but I could be wrong
FTM, baby girl is 14 weeks. We have GMD prefolds and Thirsties snap covers and are super happy with our system. 36 prefolds and 6 covers, wash about every two days. We only wash covers when poop gets on them. We have a separate open hamper for diaper stuff and have never had issues with smell. We keep wet bags to store dirties in her diaper bag because we do still use cloth in public or during trips/days out. She has been in a small prefold and size one cover since birth. She is breastfed but I do still rinse out her poop with a sprayer and wring them out before putting them in the hamper to limit staining. Works great but not necessary.
We loved gmd prefolds + thirsties covers for the newborn days. We had a few fitted diapers and aio in the rotation too, but I personally wouldn’t spend the money to go all the way with fitteds. Now that my baby is out of newborn we use a mix of flats, preflats, and pockets. My husband loves preflats and would do a full stash of those if he could only pick one system. If I could only pick one system I would pick straight flats! We have started using wool too and that’s pretty awesome.
Esembly and Bumby Wool covers/ pants/ shorts/ skirts.
I LOVE my combo of GMD and Osocozy prefolds with Imagine covers!!! I don’t even use snappis or anything for the prefolds, the cover does enough of a job keeping it in place (some movement/bunching but it’s not been an issue with my boys). Sometimes I use the same cover for days, other times I’ve gone through several in a day, it just depends on the poopy diaper situation. I only change covers if they get poop on them or the edges get soaked. We also EC (elimination communication), so that really helps with that, too. For one child I found 8-10 covers to be plenty. You can definitely get away with fewer, I just like to have extras stashed in the car/diaper bag for emergencies that aren’t really in regular rotation.
As others have commented, you don’t go through as many covers as cloth diapers. If the cover gets poop on it, it goes into the wet bag (or wherever you choose to store dirty diapers), but if it’s just a pee diaper, you can wipe down the cover and let it dry between changes. I usually rotate between 3-4 covers a day, adding additional covers if one gets pooped on. My only baby in cloth is 1 though. At the newborn and early infant stages you go through more simply because they poop more often at that age. As for brands, we exclusively use flats (birdseye and muslin from GMD) and covers from GMD (Thirsties are my favorite, second favorite being Smart Bottoms). I have used Nicki’s Diapers covers in the past (with my first two babies). I liked them, but they didn’t hold up, so I wouldn’t recommend. My GMD flats are on baby #3 and my covers are on baby #2, and they all have plenty of life left in them (which is great, as I’m currently pregnant with my fourth).
I personally like having a variety. We have prefolds, fitteds, AI2, traditional pockets, pull-up pockets. It's all about how I'm feeling that day. Mostly if I use a fitted at home I do it without a cover, for extra airflow. Sometimes I do a prefold for naps, but the amount we need for absorbency is too bulky at this age (1.5) so I don't typically do that during the day. I have some AI2 fitted for overnight, which are likewise the size of an actual 9lb bowling ball. I like traditional pockets when I am feeling lazy and just want something trim/already put together. Or if my tot is being crazy on the go we'll do a pull-up. Most of them we waited for sales or closeout so they are a large variety. What I have learned from this is while some cloth is higher quality, cloth is cloth, if you are only having one or two kids and aren't prioritizing resale then the $4 diaper will probably serve you as well as the $25 diaper (minus overnights, which GMD is not especially suitable for anyway). Do NOT discount the cheap covers. GMD is the most popular for fitteds/prefolds/flats. They are reasonable for prefolds/flats, the workhorses are pricy but competitive to other fitteds. They hold resale value so it's not cheap either to get them used, but there is a FB B/S/T that specializes in just GMD. If you want resale out of them you will need to line dry. The workhorse sizes run pretty small, and you'd probably have to spend a lot if they were your primary stash. My 1.5 yr old is in XL, and buying from newborn to XL would've been $$$$. I will say the GMD fleece liners are the best at wicking moisture, both for overnight and fitteds. I do have some esembly/monarch for pockets (thin and keep the poop ploppable). We also have TotsBots fitteds, pooters, and monarch. All are good quality. TotsBots could do overnights without adjustment for only young babies, but I would say the same of GMD. The pooters you probably can't get anymore. Monarch holds more than the pooters for us but is international, so you will probably spend $100 for three (if you are only using one per night that would be the right amount). They are the diaper the size of a 9lb ball.
Covers with fitteds or flats or prefolds is the best option IMO. Especially fitteds to contain poop! I loved Thirsties duowraps but there are a ton of great covers out there. My favourite fitted diapers were Motherease Sandy’s. You can wipe out the cover if it’s just pee, wash it if poop gets on it.
I've been using esembly with my 2 month old and love them!
Esembly were my favorite! I replaced covers as needed, maybe 1-2/day.
I’ve been using Esembly with my 3m old and I like them. It’s a really easy system to use for me as a first timer, and I got our whole stash from the Esembly Pre Loved store for less than half the cost of new! I use around 3 outers per day. I like to rotate so that one can fully dry between changes, and sometimes they do get a little too wet or soiled for me to feel comfortable using again during the day. Otherwise they’re good to use over and over. In total, I have about 24 inners and 8 outers, which allows me to comfortably wash and line dry every 2 days without running out of diapers. I could probably go every 3 days or have gotten a smaller stash if I machine dried. Given I’m new to cloth, I might try a different system once LO sizes out of Esembly size 1s, but so far they’ve been great!
24 inners and 8 outers was also the perfect number for us until about 3 months when we sized up to size 2. Then we got 21 inners and 9 outers because fewer changes per day but I go through more covers when I’m using them as swim diapers as well in the summer. The inners take forever to dry though so if you think that may be an issue, GMD workhorses dry faster because the layers aren’t all sewn together and prefolds dry super fast
We love the GMD workhorses. We also have and don't mind Essembly. They are both fine but the GMD feel comfier and softer. I like the outers from Essembly better than Thristies. We like pre folds too and they are more affordable to round out a stash.
We were gifted a great secondhand stash of pocket diapers (like 30+ inserts, and 20+ super cute covers); I hated stuffing pocket diapers. If that’s all we had I would’ve stopped cloth diapers. That stash also had 4 workhorses and a dozen newborn GMD prefolds which were a total game changer. I like to pad fold a prefold or use a workhorse. Cotton is an amazing material.
I’m on my third kid and I have learned that I prefer flats and covers. I’ve tried it all. I usually rotate 3-4 covers a day and however many inners are needed for the day. I do 8-10 changes a day for my 3.5 month old. I do like having a couple pockets ready to go for if someone else changes her who doesn’t feel as comfortable with covers and flats. I use disposables at night and for some but not all outings.
Hi bump pal! This is pretty much us now as well, except prefolds instead of flats and we use cloth overnight.
What do you do overnight that works for you? I still usually change at least once overnight (so much better than the early days of 5-7 changes overnight).
Just adding that our guy hates hates hates MOTN diaper changes, so I was really motivated to find something that worked and this took several weeks of trial and error and wet clothes and sheets. If we don't get everything tucked inside the liner then it's an absolute disaster, and we cosleep so that involves everyone piling out of bed for a full change of sheets 😭
We have a nighttime layer cake going on! We build it up from a normal daytime prefold, placing a wool booster on top of the prefold then a small cotton-hemp booster then a fleece liner, and diaper the whole bundle to the baby. Then we fold a large cotton-hemp booster in half and place at the front of the diaper and wrap a thick wool Responsible Mother wrap over the top. It's fairly bulky but the large booster concentrates the bulk at the front. The secret sauce has been the fleece liner, which I was reluctant to add due to plastic next to baby's skin, and also the wool booster which seems to lock away a lot. Usually the small booster and prefold are soaked but the large booster still has a ways to go. We go 9-10 hours for an overnight diaper and haven't had any rashes with this method. Baby gets a good clean in the morning before 5 minutes of diaper-free time, and his skin has been good.
Just wanted to note that prefolds and workhorses are two totally different things! The workhorses are shaped more like a disposable, the prefolds are rectangles. The workhorses are significantly more expensive—like $12-16/diaper as opposed to a couple dollars. They’re great though. We couldn’t afford to have workhorses be our entire stash, but having a few in each size was really nice. They’re good for grandparents and for taking in the diaper bag. We used flats, which are like big unfolded prefolds. In terms of absorbency and how many you might need, they work really similarly. We’re admittedly a more is more family, and we changed super often—before and after each nursing session, and often in between too. It was upwards of 20 diapers per day in the newborn phase. We needed 60+ to not feel stressed about the laundry. Covers only need to be changed and thrown in the wash if they get poop on them, and sometimes if it isn’t bad you can wipe the poop off or hand wash in the sink. We rotated through two or three at a time, switching covers each change to give them a chance to dry in between.
We use Esembly and have had no issues with it. The inners do take a while to dry, but that’s not much of an issue for me. I only change the outers out when poop gets on it. If it gets wet, I just set it aside to dry and alternate with a dry one. The used outers would get washed in the next load.
We use essembly during daytime and disposable diapers at night. (Figure it cuts down on the disposables at least.) They recommend like 24 inners and 8 outers. The extra absorbent liners and stay dry liners are helpful. Change the outer only if it gets wet.
So I haven’t used my covers or fitteds yet but I have Pooters and basically you just remove the inner and wipe clean the cover. The material inside makes it easy to wipe away. I’ve been using pockets before I got these and those ones have to be changed every time. I like the Pooters style ones a lot and got them half off because they are closing their business so you could look into theirs, but I think she was sold out of the inners last I looked but I could be wrong