Cloth Diapering: Baby Three

The newest chapter in our cloth diapering saga:

This guy.

(FYI we're still using the same cloth diapering system for the twins.  However, they have been showing signs and interest in potty training.  Cue sounds of excitement, terror, and a general sense of oh em gee.)

(And in case you really want to geek out over cloth diapering, you can read more about how we do here, here, and here.)

As far as Nolan goes, we started cloth diapering almost exclusively WAY earlier than with Caden and Brooklyn.  It was easier this time around, since:  A) we were basically zombies with the twins, so dealing with cloth was nowhere near a priority at the time B) Nolan's umbilical cord fell off in less than two weeks, making it easier to use all types of cloth diapers, whereas the twins' umbilical cords took over a month to fall off C) we more or less knew what we were doing this time and D) the twins are cloth diapered anyway, so what's one more to add to the rotation?

For young/small babies, I still love me some prefolds with wool covers.  Unfortunately, Nolan wets through them EXTREMELY quickly, and since he STRONGLY DISLIKES having a wet/messy diaper, there are times that I've had to change him every half hour.  This means I've gone back to our fitted newborn diapers, which I COULD NOT STAND with the twins, and now find (much to my surprise) indispensable.  They fit him SO much better, since he is closer to a "normal-sized" baby (aka we're dealing with legs that aren't quite so scrawny and chicken-like).  Of course, this now makes me regret selling about half of our fitted diapers as part of my "PURGE OR BURN IT ALL WE'RE FREAKING MOVING" frenzy before we left Madison.  However, I can summarize how the remaining stash of fitted newborn diapers fits thusly:

What doesn't work: literally the only fitted cloth diaper that did work for Caden and Brooklyn.

What does work: virtually every other fitted cloth diaper that we own that absolutely, positively, did NOT work no way never for Caden and Brooklyn.

GO FREAKING FIGURE.  Just one more way that Nolan is (surprise!) his own person.  While the twins have always been very similar in build, he's got a whole other thing going on.  I can't believe how I'm actually in love with our newborn stash of fitted cloth diapers this time, when with Caden and Brooklyn it was more like...meh.

I will say that prefolds are still a favorite (despite the quick wet-throughs) because you automatically wrap them snugly around those baby thighs each and every time.  It's just the nature of a prefold.  In contrast, the fitteds (at least the snap ones) need to be adjusted in the positioning of the snap closure fairly frequently, in dealing with the reality of a rapidly-growing infant.  I never have to second-guess myself when I fasten on a prefold, or on a fitted diaper with a velcro closure, and I still feel like I always question myself with the snaps. And then it leaks.  (BUT the velcro closure wears out way sooner.  It's a cloth diaper catch-22.)

In conclusion: cloth diapering is kind of a crapshoot.  What you buy/try/think you might like may not work for your baby, or the next baby, or the baby after that.  I cringed a little when I put a fitted diaper on Nolan for the first time based on my previous hatred, and now I love them so much I'm considering buying more.  I'm still so glad we hopped on this cloth diaper train.  One of the biggest reasons we did (besides saving the environment, blah, blah, hippie-pants) was to save money, and it blows my mind to think of just how much we've saved on diapers over the past couple of years.

And THIS is how you become a crazy, crunchy, cloth-diapering lady, with a cloth diaper stash large enough to cover the bottoms of half the children in the neighborhood.  At least I haven't started making my own.  Yet.