Our second child was our first baby to be cloth diapered. The decision to cloth diaper was a bit of an evolution of thought for me. I discovered not only now economical cloth diapering your baby is, but also what a large amount of waste I could keep out of landfills simply by putting my baby in cloth diapers.
Despite knowing for several weeks before he was born that I wanted to cloth diaper Little Brother, we didn’t start til he was about 6 weeks old. His diapers were simply too big and would leak around his skinny legs. That was before I knew about newborn cloth diapers.
As I interacted with other cloth diapering mommies online I learned about different kinds of newborn cloth diapers. I also learned how expensive it can be to buy a complete stash of newborn diapers.
I began hearing about and checking out newborn diaper rental programs, but most of them offered a majority of prefolds and, try as I might, I’m just not a lover of prefolds for daytime use. Not to mention the fact that a lot of these rental programs were still what I’d consider a bit pricey.
Then about 8 months back. Earthy Crunchy Mama posted on their Facebook page that they were going to start offering a newborn cloth diaper rental program. Jenn (the lovely mom behind Earthy Crunchy Mama) outlined the program, and I was in! I had never seen a newborn diaper rental program that offers the variety of diapers, at the low price Earthy Crunchy Mama charges–just $20 per month!
Because I already wrote an entire post outlining Earthy Crunchy Mama’s Newborn Cloth diaper rental program, I won’t go into it all again. For a full description of the program itself see the post I wrote about it a few months ago. For this post I’m going to focus on my experience with the program.
The first step in the program was signing up and ordering the diapers. Jenn encouraged me to try all of the diapers she currently has available to rent. I’m really glad she did because I ended up really liking some of the diapers that I’d never have chosen on my own. I’d actually encourage every parent to order a variety of diapers because you never know what is going to fit your baby best, and you just may be surprised at which diapers you end up loving.
During the order process I had a few questions, and Jenn was always very responsive and helpful when I’d email her my questions.
Here is what I ended up ordering:
The Lil’ Joey’s aren’t pictured; I had already packed them in my hospital bag. 🙂
- 3 bumGenius AIOs
- 3 FuzziBunz Pockets
- 3 Kissaluvs AIOs
- 4 Lil’ Joey AIOs
- 3 MiniMaestro Pockets
- 2 KissaLuvs Hemp Fitteds
- 4 Hemp Prefolds
- 2 Punkin’ Butt Inserts – size Small
- 2 Bummis Newborn Covers
Making 24 diapers in all.
In addition to these the program also includes:
- 3 Punkin’ Butt Inserts – size X-Small to use as doublers
- Wet Bag
- Pail Liner
- 12 Cloth Wipes (you keep)
- 1 Pack disposable liners (you keep)
- 1 CJ’s Baby Butt Balm (you keep)
- Eco Sprout laundry detergent (you keep)
- Water Test Strip
Let me just state that I am so glad that we decided to do newborn cloth diapers! My husband was a little concerned that it would be a hassle to use cloth while we were both so exhausted from a new baby. But we ended up loving it. Because I am breastfeeding all we had to do was throw the wet or dirty diapers in the wetbag and then dump them in the washing machine on wash day–no spraying or dunking required.
The diapers we loved…and didn’t love:
The husband and I were a little surprised by a few of the diapers we loved and some of the diapers we just didn’t love. Before receiving these diapers I’d never used a fitted diaper before. We absolutely loved the KissaLuvs fitteds! They were perfect for nighttime use or for when we were going out (cause sometimes when you’re on the go you just can’t change baby as often as you should).
We also loved the MiniMastros! I’d heard of these diapers before, but never known anyone who had used them. They were very absorbent, trim, and fit our skinny legged baby from birth.
Our absolute favorite diaper were the Lil’ Joeys. Like I just mentioned, our guy was skinny, and he stayed that way for the entire time he was in his newborn diapers. The Lil’ Joeys were super absorbent, had an umbilical cord snap down (which was very appreciated), and had a great fit for my son’s skinny legs and belly.
Our baby was a supper pee-er so we loved the BabyKicks hemp prefolds for overnight.
Surprisingly, our least favorite diapers for our skinny baby were the FuzziBunz. The leg holes were huge on our 7 lb 3 oz (8 lbs at birth), 21 inch baby. These diapers are supposed to fit babies starting at just 4 lbs., but there was an entire finger space of room between the leg opening and my son’s leg. The waist was also too big for him until he was a few weeks old. The legs didn’t fit him until he was 7 weeks–just one week before we returned the diapers.
Returning the diapers was soo easy! At the end of 2 months our son began to outgrow the absorbency of the newborn diapers so I contacted Jenn. She emailed me a return shipping label, I packed up all the diapers, attached the label to the box, and put the box on the front porch for the mailman to pick up. So nice not to have to cart all my kids to the post office!!!
All in all, I’d have to say that using Earthy Crunchy Mama’s newborn cloth diaper rental program has been one of the best cloth diaper decisions I’ve made! Click here to visit Earthy Crunchy Mama’s newborn cloth diaper rental page.
Disclosure: I received a discount on my diaper rental in exchange for an honest review.
About Amy @ Oh So Savvy Mom
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