Cloth diapering a preemie - what weight did you start diapering?

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jesuslover34

New member
My baby was born at 34 weeks and is a month old today (calendar age - her corrected gestational age is 38 and a half weeks, her due date is 8/14). She was a little thing at birth and is now just about 6.5 lbs. She’s just now fitting into newborn size clothes and newborn size disposable diapers (she’s obviously been in preemie sizes before now).

Have any other preemie parents made the switch from disposable to cloth? The brand I currently have is Simple Being and they definitely are way too big on her. I’m hesitant to buy newborn sizes as I’m not sure how long she’d stay in them, though if they can stay in newborn sizes for a while then it might be worth the investment. I hate how much trash we are generating right now and since a box of newborn diapers is like $40 it might be worth the investment in cloth. Any thoughts or suggestions on brands to look at?
 
@jesuslover34 As soon as my baby was out of the nicu and home we went straight to cloth. She weighed 4.2 when we came home. I use little river cloth diapers she runs her business out of her home.

Anyway my daughter was born may 30th came home June 11th. I bought little rivers cloth and used mens xl tshirts cut into flats. 8 covers lasted me 2 to 3 days . She still fits in them and she's almost 10 weeks old she weighs 8.2lbs. Is on the second rise setting and we used a flour sack towel to stuff now. I paid 40 for the 8 covers got them on earth day. But she sells 3packs of messups honestly don't see how they are messed up but anyway they are $15. So it would be 45 plus 22 for tshirt flats so $67ish.

Down side of using flats and covers would be being sleep deprived I would screw up the folds at night. So now I use newborn alva at night with one of the covers over to contain leaks
 
@jesuslover34 I clothed my first from 1.5 weeks and my daughter from birth. He was 6.5 lbs and she was 6.75 lbs. We used NB prefolds and covers for a good 3 months. I'd recommend Rumparooz because they have a higher weight range. We also used Thirsties size one and they fit my kids for 9 months or so. The NB prefolds were great because when they needed more absorbency, I doubled them up, then I used them as boosters when they needed more absorbency with the infant size. I finally stopped using them and resold my NB stash when my second was 12 months!
 
@jesuslover34 I also highly recommend the GMD newborn wrap with cloth-eez prefolds! It fit our full term but petite and narrow waisted baby until she was 11lbs. We actually couldn’t use our one size diapers for a while because she was so narrow hipped they were uncomfortable for her. If she wasn’t so long we’d still be using the GMD covers but the rise is too short for her now.

I definitely think this is the way to go, it’s pretty inexpensive even new and you can reuse the prefolds as burp cloths. We had 8 covers and 24 prefolds but we could have gotten away with probably 5 covers.
 
@jesuslover34 My full term baby was less than 6.5lbs at birth, dropped below 6lbs at one point. We started cloth on day 3 and at 6 weeks we're still very much in newborn covers with a set of rise snaps yet to go. 3+ months of diapers is much more expensive than a handful of cheap covers and flats that can be used as inserts later. I did have to buy more snappis, so I've spent maybe $80 CAD on my newborn stash.

I ordered happy flute covers through aliexpress and got some fsts and second hand flats. I'd look around for used if I were you. Newborn diapers get very little wear compared to the OS ones.
 
@jesuslover34 Agreed with a lot of the other posters here, our little girl was 5 lb. 3 oz at birth; we started with newborn cloth when she was about 6 lb. She stayed in them for several months and I would say it was totally worth it! Plus we plan to have another and we'll be able to use them again.

Nikki's diapers make some extremely affordable newborn AI2s that served us well!
 
@jesuslover34 Going against the grain here but we did disposable diapers until our baby fit into the OS. She was 6lbs at birth (dropped into the high 5 lb range after a few days) and had very slow growth at first so we didn’t start cloth until about 2.5 months. It was worth it to me because it was one less thing I had to worry about while trying to figure out how to keep this tiny being alive and keep my sanity. We ended up buying 3 big boxes of diapers from Sam’s club, it wasn’t that expensive overall. I’m glad I waited or I’m afraid I would have given up
 
@jesuslover34 Unpopular opinion but I think newborn diapers are totally worth it. You go through so many diapers those first 3-4 months. That’s at least 10-12 diapers a day for 90-120 days or 900-1,440 total diapers. Better fit prefolds and hook and loop covers were my favorite in those early days and they’re pretty economical. Kangacare has hook and loop one size covers that fit from 6-35 lb if you wanted something to last.
 
@wisdom08 Thanks for putting into perspective like that, it really is an insane amount of diapers. She has a tendency to pee while we’re changing her diaper too so sometimes we go through two per change. Thinking about how many diapers total that is over the months is kind of sickening!
 
@jesuslover34 My preemie was born at 33 wks weighing 4lbs. We started cloth around 6 lbs using exclusively nb cloth diapers. He was in them for 4.5 months before we switched to one Suze diapers
 
@jesuslover34 We had a stash of newborn bumgenius AIOs- we started cloth as soon as we brought baby home from hospital. She weighed about 6lbs 8oz at the time.

We started using LPO pockets around 2.5 months? She was closer to 10lbs then I think
 
@navdeep That’s about what my girl weighs now - I bought some another commenter recommended earlier and will see how they go before I order more. My girl was only 4 lbs 12 oz when she came home from the hospital so nothing I had here (clothes included) fit her. Thankfully she’s making up for lost time with the eating but still just the size of a newborn!
 
@jesuslover34 I didn't have a preemie but my full term baby was less than 6½ lbs at birth. Newborn diapers were totally worth it for us. OS started fitting at 3 months.

Stacey (owner of this shop) has a decent selection of preemie & newborn size diapers. She also makes customs

bubbybums.com
 
@jesuslover34 If you're willing to do flats/covers or prefolds/covers, your baby will probably fit into them for months!! GMD has great sizes for small babies. Also, everything I used in the nb phase except the covers is still getting daily use. I use the newborn prefolds for cleaning up change table messes, and the birdseye flats still fit him
 
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