Newborn prefolds and covers

The "trimmed" newborn prefolds I made worked out really well for Q's first few weeks. They didn't fit for long -- definitely not worth it to pay a lot for them if you're expecting a >8 lb baby -- but when they did fit, they just fit so perfectly! This is at about 6 weeks old/11 lbs, which is about when she outgrew them Snappi'd. (I do still use them as inserts in some of her pocket diapers!)

Remember the teeny tiny Witteybums cover I sewed a while back? I was shocked that it actually did fit Q! It worked perfectly with a trifolded newborn prefold inside. So easy to just tuck the prefold under the flaps and fasten it on. This was at 4 days old/right around 9 lbs:

Unfortunately, I found that this combo didn't do a great job of containing breastfed baby poo, so I stopped using it after a couple of blowouts. I did use the cover as a swim diaper -- it can be tough to find swim diapers for really little ones, so this was a great option.

I found the snaps on the Witteybums to be tough to fasten on a bigger baby, so I sewed up an In A Snap cover in size newborn as well, with a velcro closure. The outer is a polyester knit and the inner is PUL. I believe this is over a Snappi'd newborn prefold. You can see the serging of the prefold peeking out through the umbilical scoop -- the scoop isn't really deep enough to make a big difference in keeping the cover off the cord stump, but it's just deep enough to make it tough to fit a prefold under it :( Aside from that, I liked this cover a lot, although again, it was so small that it was quickly outgrown and used as a swim diaper instead. She's about 2 weeks old/10 lbs here:

This is the newborn In A Snap cover that I sewed for another friend. Her baby ended up being almost 10.5 lbs at birth, so I figured there was no way this cover would fit. I had already sewed her an identical one in size small... but miraculously, she was able to get some use out of the newborn size cover, too. She was a few weeks old in this picture, not sure on weight, but obviously over 10 lbs :)

This is an In A Snap cover in size small, at about 3.5 months/14 lbs. I like the fit of this cover a lot. It is trim, but with enough coverage that I can easily get a standard infant (green edge) prefold stuffed underneath it. This one also has a polyester knit outer/PUL inner:

More baby gifts

Seriously, there will be a lot of these this year. Two of my close friends have already had babies, and there are three more due between now and September. Plus myself, of course!

One of the remaining three had her baby shower yesterday. She is the daughter of a good friend of ours, the kids' regular babysitter, and just an all-around awesome young lady, so I wanted to do something really nice for her. She decided to cloth diaper as well (seriously, I don't proselytize cloth diapering, but it's really cool that so many of my friends are coming to it on their own) and that made it easy! And since she's expecting a girl, this gave me a great excuse to use up a ton of girly PUL that I got on clearance from Fabric.com a while back. (If Q is a girl, I'm really going to have some fun :)

Top row:
Rocket Bottoms In A Snap cover, size NB. Outer is Soft 'n Comfy fabric from Joann's. Inner is PUL from Fabric.com.
Rocket Bottoms pocket, step 1 (NB/small). Outer is PUL from Fabric.com. Inner is alova suedecloth from Joann's.

Bottom row:
Witteybums cover, size small. All PUL, purchased directly from another sewing mama.
Rainy Days fitted, step 1 (NB/small). Outer is french terry, hidden layer of bamboo fleece, inner layer of bamboo velour, soaker of bamboo fleece topped with bamboo velour. All purchased directly from other sewing mamas.

Behind: Wetbag, made with PUL from Fabric.com. I usually sew the zipper on top of these, but decided to try it on the side, like this video tutorial from Wazoodle shows. I love how it turned out!

How did they turn out? Well, I think the In A Snap cover is really tiny. It may fit for the first few weeks, but I'll likely make another one in size small. On the flip side, the Rainy Days fitted seems quite large. I made it with Lastin elastic -- it's a little trickier to work with than regular polybraid, because if you stretch it as tight as it will go, it will be way too tight. But I may not have stretched it enough on this diaper. I'll have to keep experimenting, because the nice thing about Lastin (as the name implies) is that it lasts a lot longer, rather than getting all stretched out like polybraid does over time. Anyway, that diaper should work fine, it may just be more of a small/medium than a newborn/small. The other two patterns, I already sewed up for one of my other friends, and they turned out well this time around, too.

Close-up of the "handmade" tag on the In A Snap cover. I really like these for adding a bit of a professional touch. They're also a handy spot to put size tags -- I don't always put size tags on stuff I sew for my kids, because I can remember what size things are, but for gifts for other people, I figure it might be helpful.