Diapers Q&A

How many cloth diapers should I stock up on?

I want to go the cloth diaper method and I want to know how many of each size I should get, such as newborn/small, medium and large. Please dont quote how many times a baby poops. I want to know from people who have cloth diapers and how many on average they use. Thank you in advance

Public Comments

1. I would get 50 in each size because that would give you 10 a day for 5 days and then you will always have extra on hand while some are in the laundry. Just in case. You can also use them as burp clothes. Never used them though.
2. Buy 24-36 small diapers. You will be doing laundry every 2-3 days with this many diapers (depending on how many dirty diapers your baby has each day --- mine had 15!). I would wait until you have worked with the small diapers before I bought more in other sizes. You may want to change to a different type of diaper then. I started out with pre-folds and AIOs and then switched to pocket diapers and fitted diapers later on. Also, I would definitely not buy any large size diapers as many babies never need a diaper this big --- most cloth diapered babies potty-train before 2 years old and their last diapers are usually size medium. Remember, your baby will get pretty chubby around 6 months old and you may think that they need huge diapers soon. However, they will get crawling and walking soon and will slim down a lot. So they usually don't end up needing a bigger diaper. Another option is to buy a few one-sized diapers. I like the Totsbots Bamoboozle one size diapers for nights and the Baby Kanga and bumGenius one-size pocket diapers for during the day. If you go this route you only have to buy one set of diaper to last up to potty-training. I have tried lots of cloth diapers and I am happy to answer questions, you can email me through my profile if you have more questions.
3. Depends how often you will be doing your washing - average 10 nappies a day. Also worth investigating nappy free - theres a brilliant book writen by Ingrid Bauer - Diaper Free, natural infant hygiene. Even if you dont do it all the time its worth doing. Both my youngest 2 were using the potty and toilet well before their 2nd birthdays. My 2 and a half year old takes herself to the toilet and doesnt need any help at all - shes been doing this for months. You may be able to get nappies from Freecycle.org - i passed mine on through them and have seen many others do it to. All you would need to do is wash them before you use them. (although i understand not everyone is comfortable with using 2nd hand nappies)
4. Wow I didn't know they could make cloth diapers so dang complicated! I went with flat ones and stocked up on 3dozen they worked till he was in training pants.