What to use for EC- particularly 'diapers'

[checkyourbrakes]

I've gotta give her bottom some sort of cover... I'm living with my parents for a bit while we look for a house- EC won't really go over without much ado, so I want to EC quietly, lol- well at least without messes. I wish I could find a simple training pant in a newborn size- the new CDs are absorbent and have waterproof covers. This makes them great if you want to be a traditional diaperist and also leave them to stew a while... this is the opposite of what an EC'er wants. What sort of cloths work best and are there simple contours or CDs that are more like a training pant? or more like thick underwear? What should we use to protect our bed?

[juliebrave]

I just use cloth diapers and take her when either she signals or I feel like it's time. We catch a lot and miss a lot. Maybe 50/50. She used to signal more, but seems to be not interested right now. I use Goodmamas and wool.

[poopstermomma]

If you want to know the minute she pees, just use prefolds, then. They aren't messy if you catch the miss immediately. if you need more coverage, than plan to use reg. cloth diapers, and go with more of a "timing" strategy, where you offer potty every so often, and let it go in between. I used mainly timing with my first and it worked great- pretty quickly she was holding it (around 7 months for us) and waiting for her potty-tunity... and if she couldn't wait, there was no mess and no busy-bodies knew the difference!
Good luck and good for you attempting it with disapproving relatives lurking. When they get their first catch, they'll be hooked!

[poopstermomma]

If you want to know the minute she pees, just use prefolds, then. They aren't messy if you catch the miss immediately. if you need more coverage, than plan to use reg. cloth diapers, and go with more of a "timing" strategy, where you offer potty every so often, and let it go in between. I used mainly timing with my first and it worked great- pretty quickly she was holding it (around 7 months for us) and waiting for her potty-tunity... and if she couldn't wait, there was no mess and no busy-bodies knew the difference!
Good luck and good for you attempting it with disapproving relatives lurking. When they get their first catch, they'll be hooked!

[NooneeWilga]

There are newborn sized training pants - you need to check out the EC online stores. :-)
However, even though I make them, I would recommend that you combine them with prefolds. Prefolds are perfect for EC, especially when teamed with a prefold belt. They are easy to whip off for a potty op, easy to wash and quick to dry.

[smilingjessica]

I sewed cotton fitteds that closed with velcro or snaps. You can buy just cotton fitteds too and then use a regular cover like thirsties or something. We did the cotton fitted at home and then put a cover on when we went out, but you could use the cover all the time if need be. Sakari on here, I believe used bumgenius AIO's because that's what she had (correct me if I'm wrong :-).

Truely you could use disposable diapers and EC too, it's all in how you make things work. Just change them as soon as they pee, don't let them sit in the wet diaper and "fill" it up.

I didn't find training pants worked best until DS was having lots of catches, it just didn't work for me.

At night, I still used a cotton fitted with no cover if DS was doing well, or a wool cover when he was wetting his diaper to protect the bed. You can also put a wool or fleece blanket down under baby to protect the bed too.

[arcadedweller]

My son wears disposables sometimes, and HATES being wet! (Any brand.) Even though they aren't wet against his skin. Maybe it's the extra weight. He doesn't seem to be nearly as uncomfortable in a wet cloth diaper. But maybe he's just odd.

[MrsS]

Just my 2 cents. My ds as a newbie was a super soaker. He'd soak through a prefold in seconds flat and we tried a training pants style thing and well we got soaked a lot. He also peed every 15 minutes day and night it seemed. I was CONSTANTLY changing his diaper. I caught a few pees but with a two year old I found just keeping him dry to be doing good. I started really focusing on catching and not using a diaper at 4 months and the success went way up. But the main point...training undies on newborns just didn't work at all for us.

[beebs]

we used g-diapers when we wanted more protection. pretty easy to tell when those get wet...and still waterproof cover.

we protected the bed with a woolen fleece, but i also like the mattress protectors from Ikea. not the crunchy-sounding allergy covers, those are real loud!

[jane gun]

i would skip training pants and just use pre-folds (+ snappi) so that you can change the instant you see wetness. it's so much cheaper. esp with a newborn who doesn't pee very much. as for protecting bed, use a wool mattress protector...