Why We Use Prefolds and Covers

I love cloth diapering. I love that there are no nasty chemicals touching my baby’s butt. I also love that he’s only had two instances of redness in the diaper area (not even a real rash). One of the best things about cloth diapering is you decide how much (or how little) you want to spend! The cheapest way to cloth diaper is by using prefolds and covers.

This post contains affiliate links.

Why Prefolds? Sizes and Types

I have only used Green Mountain Diaper (GMD) prefolds. There are two types of prefolds, Indian and Chinese. I have no idea what the difference is but GMD was recommended and we fell in love with their absorbency and durability after using them. There are multiple sizes. Most likely you can skip sizes and go to the next size up instead of buying every size. We went from Orange Edged (newborn) to Yellow Edged to Brown Edged. Most suggest either doing the Orange & Red combo OR the Yellow & Brown combo so I did it a bit different but I loved having the newborn size. We now use them as inserts for our pocket diapers.

Why Prefolds? Types of Folds

There are a few folds for a prefold. The most known are the angel wing fold, the jelly roll fold and the newspaper fold. For the longest time we would only use the angel wing fold but every time he pooed we’d have to get a new cover because the prefold leaked. So now we use the jelly roll fold exclusively (tutorial to follow in next post).

I use a Snappi to pin the diaper in place because frankly… diaper pins scare me. It’s not that I don’t think I can do it but I think of the pain I’d cause E if I screwed up. Just can’t do it… so I am sticking with the Snappi for now. I may change later on.

Why Prefolds? Covers

The great thing about prefolds is that it has a cover to keep everything IN. Our favorite diaper covers are the Thirsties brand covers. I don’t think we’ve ever had a blowout that went out of the Thirsties diaper covers we use. I’m sure that there could be some chance that it’d happen if the baby was positioned a certain way and had a large explosion but it’s very rare.

Another great thing about the Thirsties covers (and this goes along with prefolds in general) is that they aren’t as expensive as other cloth diapering options. And they hold up VERY well. We use our covers daily and they still look as good as they did when I first bought them.

The prefold is the workhorse of the diaper family. You can do just about anything to it and can’t screw it up. I’ve sometimes accidentally let one slip into the regular wash with my clothes (it was clean… just being used as a burp rag instead of a diaper) and it was still as absorbant as my others. And one final thing about prefolds… even my mother-in-law and husband know how to fold a prefold successfully. So if you’re thinking… oh, I couldn’t do that, think again! You can!