While I was in the throes of cloth diapering my newborn this time around, I realized I had forgotten how much babies pee. I think I must have blocked it out from the last few times, or maybe it is because I didn’t have it written in a blog somewhere. But now it will be saved forever for posterity.

Babies pee a lot. And they pee often. Newborns pee almost continually, I think, at least it seems that way sometimes!

But then with Lily there came a day, at around 3 months, when I realized that cloth diapering had just gotten much easier. All of the sudden she wasn’t peeing every 5 minutes, or pooping every five minutes either. And with great relief I knew with certainty that I had not been crazy to feel like chucking the diaper pail out the window some days, it was just that pesky newborn stage. (That newborn stage is full of loveliness as well, just not in terms of diapering.)

I didn’t need to change her in the night anymore. I hadn’t been changing her at night but now at least I didn’t need to either. And during the day her diaper would stay dry for an hour or two before she wet again. My mind was no longer preoccupied with whether she was wet or not or whether her pee would slip out by her skinny legs. I wasn’t worried anymore if 5 diapers was enough for a 4 hour outing.

But her legs aren’t skinny anymore, and her system is a little more used to this whole “outside the womb” thing and it all just got a little easier to deal with.

Other stages we have gone through:

3 months to Regular Solids – Until baby is eating solids more than once or twice a day, the poo stays mostly the same (at least for breastfed babies, which are my only experience) and doesn’t need to be rinsed off the diaper before washing. This is the easiest stage of all. As far as diapers go, you want something that will absorb FAST. Kissaluvs and prefolds fit the bill well. Pockets are nice to have at this time, but the real benefit of those comes later on.

Starting Solids – You just never know what you are going to get when you open a diaper after baby has started solids. For a while it may be normal breastmilk poo, then all the sudden WHAM! you get something totally different and then back to breastmilk poo again. It can be confusing! This is when having a slightly diversified stash will really pay off. But whatever you predict will come out in the diaper is totally different than what will come out in the diaper. Just have the nose plugs handy.

Toddler Peanut Butter Poo – Fully into solids now, regular meals and all that. Still have those nose plugs? You still need them! Toddlers don’t have to actually eat peanut butter to have peanut butter poo, that is just the exact consistency of it. It stinks, it’s hard to wipe off, and for a lot of children, it lasts until potty training. Some days you will wonder if your child will EVER have a formed poo that you can shake off into the toilet. Yes, someday. In the mean time, you will either be using lots of disposable wipes for clean-ups (yesterday I used 8 for one diaper, I kid you not!) or cloth with lots of moisture. (One wet but not dripping full sized wash cloth would have taken care of that 8-wipe diaper.) A benefit of using cloth wipes at this point is that you can clean off messy faces and hands too. Just do it BEFORE cleaning the bum. But then you knew that already.

Venturing into Potty Training Territory – Before you have even blinked an eye (or at least it seems like that once you get to that point, getting there seems to take a lot longer) you child’s behavior is starting to change a little and you know that it is time for potty training. But that is a whole other post.

Hang in there, each stage passes before you know it. Constant wetness is no longer our battle at four months old, now the battle is SLEEP.