Fluff Review: GroVia Bamboo Prefolds

Many of you may have seen the announcement during the start of the ABC Kid's Expo about GroVias new products that will be released in the next few months.  I had the pleasure of being a tester for their brand new Bamboo Gauze Prefolds that will be released for sale next month.  It has been very hard to keep my mouth shut, but now that I can talk - here's my thoughts on this new product.

GMD vs GroVia (GMD on top)

Let me start out by saying I am not a big prefold user.  In fact, unless you count Flip Organics as prefolds, I only have 4 in my stash - 3 GMD yellow edge (older style) and the new GroVia Bamboo Prefold - infant sized.  The GroVia prefold is much trimmer and much softer.  I got the GMD prefolds used, but even after just a few weeks of use, the GroVia has a lot more pilling.  Doesn't bother me, since no one is looking at it, but I know some people care about these things.

As a tester, I tried my prefold in as many ways as I could think of.  It folds narrow enough that you can actually stuff it into a Fuzzibunz Elite. I tried it at night and at nap-time.  It worked amazingly for naps.  By itself at night, we had leaks, but when paired with a doubler, we had no leaks at all. 

Compared to the GroVia soakers, I was quite impressed by how trim these prefolds were.  I can barely tell the difference between the soakers and the prefolds when used under the GroVia shells.  My model was being a tad bit difficult in posing for pictures, so I apologize that these are not perfect.

GroVia Bamboo Prefold

The only complaint that I made to GroVia was that the prefold was too narrow when trifolded into a Bum Genius 4.0.  Of course we now know that there are four different sizes for the prefolds.  I only wish that the larger sizes had more layers,  so I could use them without a doubler at night, but that's okay.  I have enough doublers laying around.  Of course, you also can't use the shell as long, because there is no TPU backing, but for those on a budget, they are more cost effective than the soakers.

GroVia Stay Dry Soaker

These are amazingly soft and I am excited to buy more when they are released in November.  And I saw this morning that my favorite cloth diaper store, Kissed by the Moon, will be carrying them.  According to GroVia's website, they will retail for $8-16 for a pack of three.  This week only, you can enter to win these or any of the other new GroVia products in their giveaway.

If you buy these next month, let me know your thoughts!  Hope you'll love them like I do!

Wordless Wednesday: Epic Pout

This one speaks for itself.  Today was a very crabby day and while this wasn't taken today, it is very fitting for Addie's mood today.

All About Fleece

Okay so a lot of people in the cloth diapering community rave about wool.  I don't blame them, it's pretty awesome.  But it's also pretty expensive, especially if you're buying mainstream stuff.  There is an alternative that you can use and while not quite as effective as wool, it works well and still lets your baby's bum breathe - fleece.

Addie's Packer Outfit

A while back I won a pair of fleece longies in a lotto.  I finally started using them because they fit now and it's getting cooler out.  I recently made my daughter a Green Bay Packer outfit and wanted to make her some pom poms to go with, so I bought some Green & Gold fleece.  Well, needless to say, I have a ton of dark green fleece left.  So I'm setting out to making some soakers.

It turns out they're pretty easy to make.  I used the Katrina's Sew Quick Soaker pattern.  The only goof I made was accidentally sewing a leg on inside out.  Oops!  Well that didn't take too long to fix.  A yard of blizzard fleece, on sale, is about $5.  You can easily make 5 or more soakers out of that yard of fleece!  Five wool soakers would run you a couple hundred dollars, so there is immediate savings right there!

Another benefit of fleece over wool?  Laundry is so much easier!  You wash it like any other laundry.  And to help it be more water resistant you just throw in a dryer sheet.  You don't have to worry about lanolizing and the wool taking forever to dry - just throw it in the dryer!  And if you're washing cloth diapers, you're doing it every few days anyway, so no extra laundry to be done.

My first soaker - not bad, huh?

Yes, there are a few downsides to fleece.  The main two are that you can't reuse them over and over like you can with wool.  Once they get peed on, you have to wash them.  The other is that they are not absorbent like wool, rather they repel the pee, hopefully sending it back into the diaper and preventing wet sheets.

Don't get me wrong, I love wool.  I have one soaker that I won from a WAHM and I really love it.  But it's getting too small and I wool isn't in my budget.  Hopefully once winter gets closer I can find some wool sweaters at GoodWill and make some upcycled soakers, but for now, I enjoy my fleece.  Just a warning though, I've heard from many mamas that if you start loving your fleece, you will eventually move on to wool!

I haven't been using my fleece long, and would love to hear from mamas who use it regularly.  What do you love about fleece?  What do you dislike about it?

If there's anyone out there who can't sew that would like some fleece soakers or longies just send me a message!  I enjoy sewing and would love to make some for you for a decent price.  I am not an official WAHM but would love to be someday.