This post may contain affiliate links. All diapers were purchased by me for my own personal use and thus reflect my honest opinion. 

I still have several weeks until my littlest arrival joins us earth side. In preparation, I’ve been collecting, and buying newborn cloth diapers for her *hopefully* tiny tush. With my first, we used Bummi’s infant sized prefolds & covers. This time around, I have a new fascination: newborn cloth diapers.

I have my fingers crossed that we will even be able to use this beautiful stash of diapers. If my little arrives early as my midwife suggested, we might luck out. However, my first was a good sized chunk at 8lbs 5 oz. He quickly doubled his birth weight be three months. I used newborn diaper covers for a week before ditching those for OS covers. 

While I can’t write reviews of my newborn stash because my little isn’t here to try them yet, I can try to test them out in a few other ways. Today, I bring to you my absorbency findings of my newborn cloth diapers

Absorbency Method: Unscientific Reasonings

As with my previous post on absorbency testing, I continue to use my very unscientific means of testing out their capacity for holding liquids. At very best, I figure if I consistently test my diapers the same way each time it gives me a relative scale to reflect on. Do I really need to know how many exact ounces a diaper holds? No. Is it helpful to know that cloth diaper A is holds twice as much liquid as cloth diaper B? Yes. This helps me when I make a purchasing decision, I’m less inclined to purchase cloth diaper B knowing it might not meet the needs of my child.

I like to keep it simple – I’ll be filling my liquid measuring cup with slightly tepid water and pouring it onto the diaper until it reaches maximum absorbency – I like to hit that point just before it begins to drip if I was to hold it up. If you were to actually hit this level of maximum absorbency with your diapers you *might* experience the beginning signs of leaking – especially with microfibre diapers and compression. 

Naturally, product manufacturers will remind you that a variety of factors play into the overall role of absorbency not limited to water quality and type, diaper age, etcetera. 

Newborn Cloth Diapers

So my readers, today we have the following newborn cloth diapers up for absorbency review. I figured we could get some of the science things out of the way before my little makes her debut. 

Check out the reviews on the links below. 

• Blueberry Newborn Simplex
• BumGenius Littles
• Easy Peasies Little Squish
• GroVia Newborn AIO (Both old* & new )
• Nuggles! Bittee
• Smart Bottoms Born Smart
• Sweet Pea Newborn AIO
• Thirsties Newborn AIO
• Thirsties Newborn Natural AIO

*old style GroVia is no longer available for purchase thru retailers. But I scored some on the BST for dirt cheap, and figured hey, why not. 

Absorbency Results & Commentary

Keep in mind these are my numbers for my wash experience with my water. It’s very possible that in another part of the country you could get different numbers. Actually I know its possible. These numbers are purely to represent a scale…

Most Absorbent Newborn Cloth Diaper: Nuggles Bittee! 

Least Absorbent Newborn Cloth Diaper: BumGenius Littles. 

• Blueberry Newborn Simplex: ~7oz
• BumGenius Littles: ~4-5 oz
• Easy Peasies Little Squish: ~7 oz
  Easy Peasies also sells an additional newborn hemp insert for further boosting
• GroVia Newborn AIO
  • Old Style: ~5 oz
  • New Style:~ 7 oz.
    This diaper needed to be washed a half dozen times to become fully absorbent. 
• Nuggles! Bittee: ~8oz
• Smart Bottoms Born Smart: ~7-8 oz
  These took forever to prep, 4oz for the diaper, 4 oz for the snap in booster.
• Sweet Pea Newborn AIO: ~6oz
• Thirsties Newborn AIO: ~6 oz
• Thirsties Newborn Natural AIO: ~5-6oz

I wonder how these results will hold up in real life, that will come in the New Year. In the meanwhile, if these lab results mean anything, I should be loving the Smartbottoms, Easy Peasies and Nuggles. I’ve already been warned the BumGenius Little will let me down, and definitely disappointed in the Thirsties newborn NAIO (especially since the full size one is AMAZING).

Are you surprised by the results?
Is there a newborn cloth diaper my stash is missing? Let me know what it is and where to purchase it. I’d love to round out the stash and get to know everything in cloth diaper world.