PF/Fitted users: how many covers?

[skolbut]

DH is on board with cheap... which means we are going with pf's and some fitteds... now we need covers.

How many did you find helpful, and how many times did you reuse them?

I'm thinking 2-3 covers per day (we are not going with wool, PUL for now and fleece shorties when the weather warms up) should do it. So if I do laundry on the 3rd day, 9 covers?? Am I even on the right track here?

[Hollin]

imho:
8-10 for newborn
6-8 for small
6 for medium

It kind of depends on the baby though. My first had explosive poos as a newborn and poo'd on the cover every time. We had 6 covers and it wasn't near enough. My second has a million tiny poops a day and it never gets on the cover. 6 would have been plenty for him.

[Biscuits & Gravy]

DS is 11 wks old and I use 2 covers per day, washing every other day. I think I have 6 covers which is definitely enough for me. I don't use them at night though, I use BG at night.

[Ruthie's momma]

*6 covers for a young babe

*4 covers for an older babe or toddler

[michelle123]

2-3 covers per day between washings sounds good, although I'd start with just 2 per day plus one extra and just add more later if you need to. That way you won't end up with too many.

[skolbut]

Both of my boys will wear size Med (ds1 is darn near out of dipes anyway). I think the baby at 5+ months is getting pretty close to "older baby" status... at least he will be when we're finally in cd full time. Although he is what I would consider a "heavy wetter" especially at night time. I just picked up a couple (or 6) stuffable aio's to bulk him up for the overnights.

I have 13 fitteds and 24 pf's.

I have 2 covers in size L that ds1 can wear, too. (in an emergency... he's in gdipes with a prefold)

I just bought 4 covers for the baby.

Soooo it looks like I only need 2 or so more?? Awesome!

[Smirkin]

DD is almost 4 months old, and we currently have 24-ish prefolds, 0 fitteds, 4 PUL-type covers, 2 wool soakers, and 1 wool longie.

I have some AIOs and pockets but I use those mainly for outings.

I use the wool stuff at night and the PUL covers during the day and I think if I had 1 or 2 more PUL covers that would be perfect. Most times 4 is just fine between washings (same as you, every 2-3 days), but there have been times when I've run out due to not getting a chance to wash the soiled ones soon enough, having her soil a few more, and suddenly there are no more covers.

So I think you're on the right track to be thinking of getting at least 6 PUL covers, especially if you'll be doing pockets at night. Just a word on the nighttime, the reason I like the wool soakers (and fleece would be the same I think) at night is b/c anything with elastic on the legs tends to leave little red marks on my LOs legs after sitting on her for so many hours at night. I find that a soaker doesn't leave marks. You'll use your stuffable AIOs no matter what when you go out, so they're certainly good to have around, but if it were me I'd be planning on using the soakers (fleece or wool) for nighttime.

Have fun! I'm just starting to get into the swing of CDing (I'm a first-timer with DD) and the learning curve seems steep at first but once you climb up there and learn, it's so worth it IMO Much more fun and "good" feeling than those gross plastic things.

[lashon20]

I have 5 PUL covers and 1 fleece cover for nighttime.

[*Karen*]

5-7 plus one for nighttime.

[Ifluffedthree]

Originally Posted by Ruthie's momma

*6 covers for a young babe

*4 covers for an older babe or toddler

This would be my answer too.

[syd'smom]

hmmmm...I'm the odd gal out here, but we only had 3 covers, from newborn until potty-learned. The first ones were those terrible rubber pants from the diaper service - they leaked at the legs and waist something fierce.

Then we switched to pul covers over fitteds (motherease), and had 3 smalls. We didn't wash the covers at every change; when it was wet, we let it air dry and put a new one on. If there was ever some escaping poo (very rare) we were usually able to clean by hand and let air dry. Then we washed 2-3 covers every few days depending how many dipes we used (we did part-time ec from about 7mos on).

[3daughters]

I only have 3 covers and I manage just fine. I do a lot of laundry and wash them with my regular laundry so they can be rotated fairly quickly.

[Marlet]

We use wool but for a newborn I wouldn't do less than 6 (pul or not). I ended up making 2 pairs really fast after she was born because even though I was washing with a buffer there were a couple times I had at least 3 covers in the wash at once.

Currently we only rotate out three longies. We have a couple soakers for wash days but I don't need many at this point (DD2 is 18 months).

[Justmee]

I have 4 in each size (extra small, small, med) but I also snappy and don't have many blowouts. Plus they are thirsties and easy to handwash. I don't wash the covers with the diapers, they go in whatever wash is being washed next.

[russsk]

We had 5 or 6 at the newborn stage, and 6 or 7 now (but that's mostly due to my obsession with wool). I've always had more than I need. DS is 1, and I think 3 covers would be plenty for him.

[skolbut]

Thanks for all the replies!! I think we have a good start to our 'stash'... I think covers with fitteds are for sure going to be the easiest way to go....

although right now I am finding I'm washing covers nightly... dh has had somewhat of a learning curve getting into these!

[Galatea]

I have 3 day covers and it is not enough b/c I end up washing them every day. You'd think with a diaper store I'd have enough, but I am too cheap!