CD newb! Prefold advice??

liebekeinkrieg · March 2013

Hey! So, I had been considering CDing pretty much right from the start, but I shied away from it for a bit because I was taken aback at the price of pockets which was what I was originally set on trying. I spoke to my mother a week or so ago, and discovered that she cloth diapered all four of her children including me, and she is a cloth diapering guru (albeit old-fashioned). I decided upon speaking to her about it in detail that I would try prefolds, and my interest has since skyrocketed. I am so excited to try CDing again, beginning with prefolds and possibly some simple fitteds and expanding from there as baby gets older.

I do have a question though- the diapers that my mother loved when my siblings and I were children are no longer produced and can only be found second-hand, and they are much more expensive than most prefolds nowadays since they are "vintage". My mother is hesitant to try any prefolds that she can't physically touch because these diapers worked so well and she doesn't want me spending a lot of money on prefolds that are crap, so I am trying to find viable alternatives for her to be comfortable with. I am really liking the looks of the Green Mountain Diapers brand prefolds, and I was wondering if anyone has had experience with them and how they like them. Also, in general what are your favorite prefolds and more importantly, why?

KatelynEA90 · March 2013

I love GMD prefolds. They are great. They are soft and super absorbent. You really can't go wrong with them.

princessyetz · March 2013

LOVE our GMD prefolds. That is all we use! Agree with PP, they are very soft and super absorbent. I use the unbleached kind. They also have a great fitted alternative if you wanted to try fitted later. Theirs are called Workhorse Organic diapers.

liebekeinkrieg · March 2013

I did really like the look of their Workhorse and I plan on trying a few of them to see how they work.

Danni7535 · March 2013

I love my GMD prefolds. They work really well. I too did my research before buying and found they were highly recommended. I really like the workhorse fitterds. We bought a few small fitteds with our prefolds, but sadly my ds outgrew them around 10 weeks old. I wanted to buy some medium fitteds, but I can't justify spending 10 bucks on a fitted. So, instead we bought 36 red edge size medium prefolds. I also want to add that we've never had a leak or a blowout with our GMD diapers, but we've accidents almost every time with disposables. We use disposables when we travel.

liebekeinkrieg · March 2013

Another question- my mom said that she had about 4 dozen prefolds, but they were all the same size back then and now they're sized so how much would you say I should get of each?

Danni7535 · March 2013

It sounds like your mom used flats. Flats come in one size and you fold them in different ways to customize their fit to the size of your baby. Flats are thin, so you have to fold them so that there are several layers to absorb pee and poo. they're very economical and they dry fast. Prefolds are already thicker in the middle, which means less folding! They're much quicker to put on than flats, but you do have to buy different sizes.

Well, in terms of numbers, I'm a new mom, so I'm not sure how many you'll need when they're in the large diapers, but I can tell you what I do know. We only bought 12 newborn orange edge prefolds, 24 small yellow edge prefolds, 5 yellow fitteds, 36 medium size red prefolds. At first, we were doing a load of laundry a day because we preferred the newborn diapers on him he was 7 lbs 12 oz. at birth. Now he's in the medium prefolds and we wash diapers every other day. Which is perfect because our large Planet Wise Wet bag is full at that point. GMD has a section called "new to cloth" that I found very helpful. It basically suggests how many to buy depending on your budget.

A37licia · March 2013

I like GMD as well and have used those for 4 years in four sizes. My mom complained that they aren't as soft as the prefolds she used on us, and I agree. But, not having that for comparison, I think they're quite soft and comfortable for my babies. I HAVE found that the unbleached prefolds from GMD are noticeably softer than the bleached. I bought some of their seconds and liked them quite well, that must have been the second dozen orange-edge newborn size that I got to add a dozen with my second.

I have 2 doz orange (newborn, fits to 10lbs), three doz yellow infant (fits 10lb through probably 6 months), 2 dozen brown edge (fits to 2years) and the big toddler green edge unbleached (fit my son from 2+ to 2 3/4 when he potty trained). I use the smaller ones as inserts for some occasional pockets or doubler for nighttime when they get too small to wear otherwise.Others recommend more of each, but I have always had enough. I like having 4-5 cover in each size. I did use XS Thirsties covers for a while before small wasn't too big (my babies were 8 & 9lb)

I'll say though, it took forever to prep the unbleached. Water continued to run off wash after wash after wash.

A37licia · March 2013

liebekeinkrieg:
I did really like the look of their Workhorse and I plan on trying a few of them to see how they work.

I just saw those and pinned them! I really want some for this next baby.

liebekeinkrieg · March 2013

About how many washes would you say it takes to prep the unbleached, and are there any tips for prepping them faster/better?

liebekeinkrieg · March 2013

Also, question about folding- pretty much every video I've watched explaining different folds for prefolds say how in addition to doing folds, you can trifold the prefold and tuck it into the cover- how efficient is this? I mean, does it work as well at preventing leaks or are leaks more prone to happen if you just trifold it and stuff it into a cover?

belladonna11307 · March 2013

liebekeinkrieg:
Also, question about folding- pretty much every video I've watched explaining different folds for prefolds say how in addition to doing folds, you can trifold the prefold and tuck it into the cover- how efficient is this? I mean, does it work as well at preventing leaks or are leaks more prone to happen if you just trifold it and stuff it into a cover?

I know a lot of ladies have a lot of success with a tri-fold laid in the diaper, it always bunched up and slid around. We never mastered that leading to using a new cover at every diaper change, so we got some Snappis. They're basically a Y-shaped piece of rubber with teeth that replace using diaper pins. There's a bunch of different folds for different needs. I stuck with the tri-fold for the longest time and then moved to the bikini twist to cut down on the bulk between the legs. I have an almost 2 year old and have pretty much exclusively used pre-folds (we have a handful of pockets we use for babysitters).

Lennongirl · March 2013

I have only used Imagine brand prefolds and I think they are great! They're certainly cheaper than GMD and they quilt up nicely and are pretty absorbent.

We started out trifolding because the snappi intimidated me. Yes poop got on the cover a lot, but we never had leaks or blowouts. With a squirmy baby and for dads or babysitters trifolding is also easy, especially since you can 'pre-load' a cover with a prefold in it.

ETA: You will need more covers if you choose to trifold during the ebf stage. We had 6 and it was the perfect amount.

Want a personalized experience?

CD newb! Prefold advice??

Re: CD newb! Prefold advice??

Choose Another Board

Search Boards