A friend asked me about newborn cloth diapers, so I thought I'd just post this info here for the good of all people. :)
Even though I have six children, I only cloth diapered two of them from birth. I started when Natalie was a toddler, and we used disposable diapers from about birth to 4 weeks with the twins. I had every intention of using cloth diapers on them, but all aspects of life with twins was more than I could handle. :)
Just about all my favorite newborn cloth diapering things can be found from the fabulous Green Mountain Diapers. They have a section all about newborns and a section about cloth diapering for beginners, both with lots of great info. I will be linking to that site from this post, though I'm not affiliated in any way nor have they ever compensated me for my fabulous opinion. :)
Also, on each product page they give manufactures recommended weight ranges along with what they have found to be the actual ranges, since that may be different.
For newborns, my favorite "system" is to use a prefold or fitted cotton diaper under a waterproof cover. You can reuse the cover possibly all day or through several changes as long as it doesn't get poop on it. (I often rotate through two in a day, swapping them out to air out while the other is on.) In my experience, this system holds in all kinds of explosive newborn poo situations far better than any disposable.
"Big Baby," as the twins affectionately call her, was my model for this quick photo session. Margaret outgrew many of her newborn diapers in the womb. (I'm basically kidding, but seriously…)
This is a cloth-eeze newborn sized prefold (orange edge) pinned on. I almost never use pins, but they are functional. I tend to keep some around just in case I want to put a diaper on without a cover (for airflow maybe).
More often, I use a Snappi, which is super easy, but needs a cover over it. It's little grippers are sharp.
One favorite product is like a prefold but a little easier to use. They're also more expensive. It's called a Workhorse fitted diaper, also by Cloth-eeze. (Sometimes these are referred to as GMD workhorses and the prefolds as GMD prefolds, since Green Mountain Diapers are the only ones that make/carry them.)
Big Baby is wearing an orange edge newborn size. Margaret, even at 10lbs could fit into these, but not for terribly long. She moved quickly to the yellow edge small size. These come in a snap version as well as a no-closure version, which can be fastened with a snappi/pins or left unfastened under the cover. I only ordered snaps, but if I'd had a small (or regular sized) newborn, I can see how the no-closure version might have been more functional. The snaps sure were easy though.
These are all the covers I had (I had multiples of some). Margaret basically did not wear the top three pictured because she was too big. But I used them with newborn James (who was born 8lbs 13oz), and they worked great. They would have worked well for the twins as well but we didn't really end up using cloth for the beginning few weeks.
This is a Thirsties brand sized diaper. This one is x-small, and I was just looking and saw that they do make one smaller. Margaret was able to wear this size for a while, but I can remember them not fitting James well in the very beginning. You can see in the above picture it's rather larger than the others.
Thirsties also makes a Duo wrap, which is an adjustable cover that comes in two sizes (1 and 2). Margaret at about 18lbs has just outgrown size 1; all my littles can wear size two right now. They're a little more trim than the sized version, which isn't always helpful, especially if you have something bulky underneath. They fit for much longer than any other newborn sized covers.
This is a Bummis Super Brite in NB size. Loved using this one on James. (Just a reminder that if you click the product descriptions of any of these diapers over on Green Mountain Diapers site, they'll have lots more information, which I've found to be reliable.)
I LOVE these pull-on diapers, also by Bummis. This is NB size. They are super easy to fit over any kind of diaper, but the diaper underneath must close. This one won't keep anything closed. My three boys still use this style of diaper overnight over their fitteds (in a much larger size of course). I wouldn't want to just have this style of diapers, but I had two of these and really liked using them.
This is a super economical Pro-Wrap classic. I don't think GMD carries them anymore, but I remember finding them online somewhere while I was pregnant with Margaret. I didn't actually order any, which is good since Margaret couldn't wear it long. I really really liked it with James though.
This is the Bummis super whisper wrap, which I can't remember much about. I think they fit about the same as the Super Brite but the materials are a bit different. Margaret didn't wear this one, but I used it for James.
I'm pretty sure all the above covers are also available in snap versions. I tend to like aplix for the newborn age since it's a little more adjustable.
Another diaper I liked having are these Bum Genius all-in-one newborn sized. They are very cute and super easy to use BUT in my experience don't last long, absorbency wise. My kiddos could still fit into them at a few weeks old but would pee too much for this to hold, leading to frequent leaks. I would say I used them in the very beginning overnight when doing two steps was just too much. :) I also liked tucking them in my diaper bag. I wouldn't pay full price for them, but I'd happily accecpt them as a gift, buy them used, or buy them as seconds quality for cheap.
Other notes:
If you are exclusively breast-feeding, all newborn poo is water soluable and can go directly into the machine without being rinsed. This even includes those gnarly meconium tar poos.
You can almost always ignore washing instructions from diaper manufacturers/retailers. For whatever crazy reason, they tend to recommend very weak detergents in small amounts. I like original Tide powder myself. The very best washing instructions in all the land can be found from Fluff Love and CD Science. They have a web page, called Fluff Love University, as well as a Facebook group. I recommend joing the group and perusing the files. You can find a wash routine that works well for your machine, water hardness level, and detergent budget/preference.
I was washing about every 1.5 days when Margaret was born since I have three in cloth and my machine got full, so I can't say exactly how many of everything you might need for only washing every 2-3 days. It's also possible to do smaller loads more frequently by bulking them up with small rags or baby clothes that need washed anyway. That to say that you don't need a huge stash to make it work. I ordered 2 dozen orange edge prefolds and 1 dozen yellow (small) edge prefolds for newborn James. I would probably recommend switching those numbers. The yellow size is a lot more functional and longer lasting than the orange. Orange fit the itty bitties so so well though. I still use the yellow edge size to padfold and lay in Margaret's covers or stuff pockets with. With Margaret I added in the workhorse diapers. I had a half dozen each of orange and yellow. I think I counted about 8 nb or x-small sized covers. They didn't all fit at the same time, but that was a pretty good number to have. When the smaller covers were outgrown, the larger ones were fitting better.
I could not figure out how to turn on the spell check for this post, so I didn't see any red squggley lines like I am so accustomed to seeing. I apologize for any misspellings that may have resulted from my reliance on spell check. :)
