Pros and Cons of Cloth Diapering a Newborn

Alright, I have been at cloth diapering a newborn for a few days now and I thought I would let you know the pros and cons of cloth diapering.  I used only disposables with my first son and disposables while we were in the hospital but decided to start cloth diapering as soon as we got home.  Here is what I have found.

Pros

• Obviously the environment factor and the money factor
• Cloth diapers seem to be more absorbent then the disposables and also seem to hold the messes in better
• Cloth diapers are way cuter lol
• Better for baby and better for mommy.  Let me explain this one a bit better though.  As some of you know, my first son (Lucas) is allergic to disposable diapers.  In the hospital I brought this up to the new baby's (Daniel) doctor.  The doctor then checked Daniel's bottom and sure enough, he believes that Daniel is also allergic to the disposable diapers.  He had a diaper rash at one day old...poor thing.  They said it definitely was not me leaving him in a wet diaper very long (I went through so many bags of diapers there because I didn't want him getting a rash).  So...better for mommy too.

Cons

• Laundry out my butt!!!!  When you are trying to recover, the last thing you really want is more laundry, especially seeing that we do not have a washer and drier right now.  However, this is not THAT big of a deal to me...I would rather see my children happy.
• Hard to snap diaper to fit good because they are so squirmy for diaper changes at this age.
• If you have a boy and have him circumcised you need to remember to use liners.  Using the liners is kind of hard when they are so squirmy.  The liner moves around when you are trying to get the diaper snapped so you have to kind of reach in there to make sure it is at least catching where the pee pee area is.
• Harder to tell when your son is wet.  Obviously this is easy to fix by keeping track of diaper changes. Maybe cloth diapers should come with a simple line that changes colors too?  lol.  But because they do not pee all that much when they do go, it is a bit harder to know just by touching the diaper.

I hope this list helps you decide which way to go with your newborn.  Me, I will stick with my cloth diapers any day over the disposables.  Even though there seems to be more cons than pros, you have to weigh what is more important and to me it is my son's health and then the Earth's health...and maybe my pocket also lol.