Getting Started

There are a million decisions to make when you’re expecting a new baby, and how to diaper them is no exception. Many natural mamas see the appeal of cloth diapering, but just don’t know where to start. Other parents may not have even considered cloth diapering, or don’t know anyone who has done it other than their grandma. Well, the good news is that cloth diapering is probably easier to do thank you may think. And today’s cloth diapers are a lot easier to use than your grandma’s 

Here’s everything you need to know to get started.

How many diapers will I need?

We recommend starting with at least a dozen cloth diapers. Doing a load of laundry with fewer than that can be wasteful in terms of water and energy used. Having about 20 cloth diapers is ideal.

Really, it depends on how often you’ll be able to do laundry. You will want to wash diapers every 3 or 4 days. Some mamas wash them every day, although we’ve gone up to a week between washes and our diapers came out fine.

Newborns, on average, use 10-12 diapers per day, infants use 8-10, and older babies and toddler use 6-8 diapers each day

Here is some guide how much cloth diapers that you need for your baby

Newborn to 4 months (3 – 5 kg) : 20 to 30 diapers

Infant 4 to 10 months ( 6 – 12 kg) : 20 to 25 diapers

Toddler over 10 months (13 – 17 kg) : 15 to 20 diapers

Preparing New Cloth Diapers

All diapers should be washed at least once before wear to remove any impurities, dirt, or even chemicals, that might be lingering from the fabric manufacturing and sewing process. Even cloth diapers that are made by work-at-home-moms (WAHMs) may have been exposed to pet hair, allergens, and dust! So when you are preparing your new cloth diapers, it just makes sense to give them (and all clothes!) a quick wash before use!

But, we always recommend that prewashing new cloth diapers at least 3 TIMES before started to increase absorbency. However, bamboo and hemp fabric should be prewash more than that as they have natural oil inside to be removed. 

Be sure to use a laundry detergent intended for cloth diapers to avoid residue build-up and other issues later on.

How to store your dirty cloth diapers?

• All you need is a diaper pail or wet bag or a combination

• Simply dump any solid poop into toilet and flush away the residual. 

• Squirt some soap power on the dirty poop area (optional)

• Rinse off the soap after a while.

• Store dirty diaper in a wet pail filled with water or dry pail (without water)

• Wait till the end of the day and dump all the diaper & inserts into the washing machine

• For breastfeed baby, you don’t need to brush the suede. It will come off after you wash it in the machine

Diaper Pail Liner

Washing your Cloth Diaper (CD)

1. Shake solid poop into the toilet and then spray off any remaining solids with water.  If using a pocket, take out the insert and put everything in the diaper pail.  Once prepped, all your diapers can be washed together.

2. Wash your diapers at least every three days, preferably every two days.  Start with a cold prewash.  If you don't have prewash, just do a short wash and skip the rinse.  The idea of the cold prewash is to remove urine and any solids so that the main wash can do its job most effectively, and to prevent staining. Use as much water as possible; if using a front loader, you can trick it into adding more water by using the delicate cycle.    

Your diaper detergent needs to be free of enzymes, optical brighteners, dyes, stain guards, and essential oils.  We also recommend avoiding fragrances as they can mask other laundry issues.  All of these ingredients can cause problems for your diapers or your baby's skin, and they are not always listed in the ingredient list on the back of the detergent.  You can call the manufacturer to ask, but here is a short list of approved detergents:

What are the approved detergents?

Using the Right Detergent

A simple guide to choose a perfect DETERGENT for your CD, make sure : 

• NO enzymes
• NO Whitener
• NO Bleach
• NO Softener
• NO Anti-Bacterial properties
• NO Oils

Detergents that is formulated for cloth diaper or best use for cloth diaper (Available locally in Malaysia)

• Autumnz - Baby Safe Laundry Detergent
• BumGenius Diaper Detergent
• Charlie's Soap (powder)
• LunaCare Detergent
• Pureen HAD (liquid)
• Rockin' Green Detergent

Other detergents that is NOT formulated for cloth diaper BUT is said to be safe for cloth diaper

(Have been tried/ tested by others)

• BabyOrganix Kids Wear Liquid Cleanser
• Baby Organix Powder detergent
• Cosway Ecomax
• Fab
• Might Detergent
• Trojan
• Kuat Harimau
•  

Detergents that is not suppose to use for cloth diaper (And yet there is still people using it to wash cloth diaper)

• Pureen Kiddiwash
• Pureen ABD
• Kao Attack
• Nappikleen
• Top Detergent
• Biozip
• Dynamo

3. Then wash normal long cycle. For a load of 15-20 diapers, 1 Tablespoon in a top loader and 1/2 Tablespoon in a front loader.

4. Do a double rinse.  Most washers will only do cold rinses, but if your washer will do them, warm or hot rinses are more effective.  Your diapers should smell like nothing when coming out of the washer.  If they smell, it was likely not enough detergent.  In this case, wash them again with more detergent than you used the first time.

5. You can dry almost everything on medium heat, but hang any shells or covers that have Velcro/Aplix closures.  If you have a stain, lay it to dry in direct sunlight to bleach out the stain. Sunlight is natural bleach!

The best way to hanging dry your cloth diapers

Cloth Diaper Size

Cloth diaper comes in sized or one size and newborn. Here are the different between these two:

1. One Size Diaper (OS) 

Made to fit most babies from birth to potty training (Estimated from new born to 2 ½ yrs of age)

It usually has a snap button that allow you to adjust the size of the diaper as baby grows

Snaps or Velcro closure

Most of one size diapers are All-In-One (AIO) /Pocket Diapers.

It has a waterproof shell, a pocket and often come with one or two inserts.

It can be worn during day or night

How to adjust cloth diaper's size

2. Sized Diaper

Available in size S, M, L & XL ~ but it’s also depends on your baby’s growth.

Each seize can be used up to 2 or 3 months. ~ again, it’s depends on your baby’s growth as each baby are unique.

3. Newborn Cloth Diaper

Newborn cloth diaper basically fit from 1.8kg until 5.5kg or 6kgs. Available in pocket style, cover and aio. The most preferable cloth diaper for newborn is cover style and aio. Some newborn cloth diaper has a button in the middle at the waist to avoid umbilical cord.

Comparison between one size and newborn cloth diaper

Cloth diapers also need a maintenance to ensure they are work optimally and keep absorbent. If you noticed your cloth diaper is always leak after 1-2 hours but it not fully soaked, urine smell is so strong or insert is hard, it means that there are detergent build up in your cloth diapers.

If this thing happened, you have to do stripwash. What is stripwash? Read here

Cloth Diapers In Day Care and Out and About

The main problem of cloth diapers during outing and day care is how to keep your soiled cloth diapers. If you send your babies to nursery, kindly supply them a wetbag to keep your soiled cloth diapers. Ask them to keep all the dirty cloth diapers including with poop into the wetbag. This is the way to avoid them to feel that cloth diapers is complicated. With wetbag, they can do the same practice as disposable diapers but the different is disposable diapers store in dustbin and cloth diapers in wetbag!

Wet bag to out and about and daycare