Newborn Cloth Diaper Stash Review

Once my husband and I had decided to start trying to conceive our second child I almost immediately started buying cloth diapers. We didn't start cloth diapering our son until pretty late, when he was around 18 months. So cloth diapering a newborn was going to be all new to me. I knew I was going to want a variety since I made the big mistake of buying an entire stash of one type of diaper for our son and then didn't like them. So I researched, a TON. I watched vlogs and read blogs til my brain was buzzing. This is what I ended up with:

• 2 GroVia in the old style organic cotton
• 1 GroVia in the new stay dry hemp
• 2 Itti bitti d'lish size small SIO
• 1 Itti bitti d'lish size small AIO
• 1 XS Charlie Banana
• 2 XS Bumgenius
• 2 Size 1 Applecheeks
• 1 mircofiber Bitty Bee from The Little Bee Co
• 4 Thirsties Duo Wrap size 1 with snaps
• 1 XS Thirsties aplix cover
• 12 Bummis newborn prefolds
• 1 Lil Joey
• 1 Swaddlebees Newborn Simplex
• 1 Ecoposh fitted
• 1 WAHM fitted

 I ended up with about 29 potential diaper changes from my entire stash so I planned on having to do laundry every other day. However we ended up doing laundry everyday because if we tried to wait we would get dangerously low during laundry time. Newborns poop A LOT!

Her first diaper was a Lil Joey.

It fit her great and we never had a blow out or leak. But the inner gussets always left red marks on her tiny tush and washing it was a nightmare. It had so many little cracks and seams for newborn poop to get stuck. I would snap it sort of "inside out" so that the mircofiber part would be exposed but that still left poop stuck in the inner gussets seams. So I pretty much just gave up and it was one of the last grabbed for in my stash.

Another diaper that fit her the really great in the beginning was the GroVia in the older organic cotton style. For reason the older ones shrink up smaller then the new style ones. When I had first finished prepping the GroVias they shrank up so small I remember thinking there in no way she will fit in these and I was so wrong because they fit her perfect. They did wick a bit at the legs and we had a similar problem to the Lil Joey that poop wouldn't wash out of the seams all the way. The first week the new style one was too big and would rub on her umbilical stump so we had to wait to use it. Both styles took a bit long to dry. 

The Bitty Bee microfiber fit awesome. Probably the best fitting out of the whole stash in the first week. And I was in love with the pattern. I grabbed for it just for the cuteness factor. We had a  little trouble at times getting the poop out, but it dried quickly. It contained poop like a champ, but for some reason it pretty much always leaked pee, like every. single. time. I'm talking the pee pretty much just ran right out of the diaper, almost like it was repelling. It was fully prepped before the first use and I never could figure out way it did that. I just kept giving it chance after chance because it was just so darn cute I wanted to love it, but it never did get better.

The XS Bumgenius and XS Thirsties cover were not my favorites just for the simple fact that I am not a fan of aplix (or hook and loop, however you want to call it). They fit decent and we didn't really have any issues they just never felt secure because of the aplix. 

The thirsties duo wraps with snaps were great to fill out our stash. They worked great the fit well. I was pretty happy with them and we still use them now size up a little. I wouldn't have a whole stash of them just because they lack the convince of an AIO, but over all I would buy them again.

With the Thirsties duo wraps we used the Bummis newborn prefolds. We tried folded them and laid them in the cover because even at her smallest there wasn't a chance in heck they were going to snappy on her.  These also made great inserts for the other pocket diapers we had in our stash. Overall we had kind of a lot of these, so I don't think I would get so many next time. 

The Itti Bitti D'lish diapers never fit. Like at all. The waist was fine but the legs always had huge gaps. It made me so sad because I really wanted to love these diapers, but they just didn't work for her even at 5 weeks when we started to incorporate some one-size diapers into our rotation. Luckily I have been MUCH more impressed by their one-size version, the Tutto. I LOVE THEM...

The fitteds I liked to use going coverless, but personally find using fitted for a newborn to be a bit of a pain in the booty. A two step system when going through so many diapers was just too much. I am keeping the WAHM fitted for her new shadow box because it was so stinking cute. Both fitteds had the newborn snap down so they were nice the first week before she really started peeing a lot, but not a must have.

I really enjoyed the Swaddlebees Newborn Simplex. I bought it before the price went up at the beginning of the year, and I wish I had got more. I am a huge fan of natural fiber so that fact that this diaper is organic cotton on the inside scores big points for me. It fit her really well from the beginning first days until we stopped using it. Occasionally the two snap system would slip us up a little since all the other newborn AIOs we had only had one snap, but its wasn't to big a deal.  Even though I think their new price point is a little outrageous for a newborn diaper, I would still totally consider buying more of these keeping in mind their resale value  And I am keeping the one we have for the possibility of future children. It was a definite favorite. 

Here she is at 1 month old in her XS Charlie Banana

As far as pockets go we had the XS Charlie Banana and Applecheeks size 1. The Charlie Banana was another keeper. It did take a week for her legs to fill out enough for it to fit without gaps, but otherwise it was a great diaper. Very good quality and I love the color range that it comes in. 

Finally the Applecheeks! By far my favorite! And they are still my favorite as she is closing in on 10 weeks old. I started out with two and have since bought four more. They fit great the first week even with the umbilical cord stump and they still fit great. I love them. This is coming for a person who was not previously a pocket diaper fan. I have one size 2 Applecheeks for my son (a Lake Echo that I LOVE), but it didn't blow me away because for him I preferred AI2s. However for a newborn these were awesome. They washed easily and dried quickly. Never leak or blow out. Just all around a winner!

All in all, even though I didn't keep or like some of the diapers I am very happy with the variety I had. Whoa! That ended up being a crazy long blog. If you are still with me, I hope it was helpful.