If you’re a parent who wants to swaddle your newborn baby in cloth as early as possible in life, and your baby will be born ina hospital, consider taking cloth diapers with you.

There are a few good options for just-born newborns. Preemie-size prefolds paired with newborn Bummis covers are a convenient, easy-to-pack, inexpensive option and is a great option for nearly every newborn. The new TiniFit All-in-One is a great fitting, no-thought-required diaper, so it’s especially easy to use when you may feel a little fuzzy after the labour of labour! There’s also the extra-small Fuzzi Bunz Pocket Eiaper – so cute and especially great for smaller babies, such as preemies and multiples.

We also recommend bringing a few fleece diaper liners or Bio-Soft Liners. Meconium, the tar-like poo of the first couple of days, is quite sticky and it’s just easier to deal with when it’s on a liner. Liners makes clean-up easy.  Meconium will likely stain, just so you know, but the green-ish undertone of the inside of your diapers will disappear with an afternoon in the sun.

You won’t need many wipes, but bring along a few for the small messes you may encounter, maybe a dozen or so. Beyond that, you’ll just need a wetbag to transport the dirties home.

Oh, and one more thing to keep in mind. For the sake of being sanitary, all supplies provided to a patient must be used or disposed of. This applies to the disposable diapers some hospitals provide as well. It may seem odd to espouse disposables as the best environmentally-friendly option, but if the disposable diapers are going to end up in the landfill either way, it seems more practical to USE them first. And if you just can’t stand the thought of a disposable on your baby’s bum, consider taking them home to give them as gifts to someone else or passing them onto a service that provides supplies for families in need.

(As a side note, St. Paul’s in downtown Vancouver provides prefolds for in-hospital use to all maternity ward patients. Talk to your doctor or midwife to see if there’s anything special you need to bring.)

We wish you a safe, healthy delivery and many blessings on your journey with your new babe in arms!

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Babies in Cloth, Chatter, Cloth Diaper Tips, Newborns, Special Situations, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.