Cloth Diapers – Prefolds

Hello again, and welcome to the second review in our Cloth Diapering series. Today, we are going to talk about prefolds.

Prewhats? Prefolds. When you think about cloth diapers, this is probably the first thing that comes to mind. It’s a large rectangle of thick fabric that folds into thirds. The diaper can then be placed into a wrap, pinned with the diaper pins we all remember, or secured with a snappi.

This is the part of cloth diapering that felt the most overwhelming to me, so lets see how it works?

What It Came With

I ordered prefolds from two different shops, Cotton Babies of BumGenius 3.0 fame, and Green Mountain Diapers, because they had a wide variety. I also ordered some covers, and a snappi, but those will both be covered in a different review.

Prefolds come as large, stiff pieces of fabric that don’t feel thick or absorbent. The Cotton Babies unbleached prefolds arrived loose, while the Green Mountain red-edge bleached came in a shrink wrapped bundle. Both require prep-work before they can actually be used

My Expectations

I expected these to be more complicated that the BumGenius 3.0, and to require snappis or pins to work.

The Results

I prepped both diapers according to the advice I found online. I washed the bleached pre-folds through 5 hot wash cycles in my machine. They started off stiff and huge. They shrunk down and quilted up just as advertised, which really does seem like magic.

The unbleached diapers require more prep because they have more oils still in the cotton. I didn’t want to run my washer 10 times on hot though, so I boiled ‘em.

Yeah, you read that right. My husband thought I was insane when he walked into the kitchen to find 3 large pots of boiling diapers on the stove, but it worked! In 10 minutes, I had fluffy quilty super-absorbent diapers. All I did was bring the water to a boil, put a few diapers into each pot, and after ten minutes I took them out with tongs, dropped them into a colander in the sink to cool, and then ran them through the dryer. Much faster prep than multi-washing.

Then we started using the diapers!

Pre-folds can be as easy, or as complicated as you want. I know, that sounds crazy, but it’s true. Me, I like easy. I fold a diaper in thirds, pop it into a cover/wrap, and just velcro the whole thing over the baby’s backside.

It really is that easy.

When the diaper gets wet, I swap out the prefold inside the cover for a new one. When there is mess, I change the cover too because we still have the breastfed baby blow-outs.

If I wanted to learn complicated folds, I suppose I could, but the covers and folded diapers work so easily, I don’t see the point at this stage of the game.

So, for those of you who like numbers: 10 is best, 1 is worst.

Prep Required: 6 — Prefolds require a great deal or prep, the most out of any diaper aside from sewing your own. But, the prep isn’t difficult, just time consuming.

Clarity: 7 — The prefold isn’t exactly pre-folded, you do have to fold it yourself, but the way the diaper is designed it tells you exactly where to fold for inserting into a wrap. If you want to do more complicated folds, google is your friend.

Clean-up: 10 — cleanup is super easy! We’ve had no staining at all, and these look bright and clean. I even enjoy folding them up for storage!

Ease: 10 — Like I said, these can be super-easy with the purchase of a few wraps, or very very complicated if you want to go with fancy origami style folds and pins. They are they “choose your own adventure” of the diapering world.

Cost: 10 — Absolutely the cheapest route, you can get a dozen prefolds for the cost of one One-Size All-in-One diaper.

Overall Grade: 43/50 — 86% B

Conclusion

If cost is a concern, or you don’t mind spending some time on prep, Prefolds are a fantastic route to take. If you need super easy, or have caregivers who are completely opposed to cloth diapering, then you may want to stick with the more “disposable style” all in ones or pocket diapers.

Prefolds are what we are using 90% of the time at this point.