Product Review Friday

I have decided to use this blog not just to update people or give them insight into what a goth family does but also to give my honest opinion on products that affect us an eco-family. So, every Friday I will review one or two products that are relevant and will hopefully help you figure out if said product is for you and your family.

Today's review are cloth diapers. We just started Dacian on his fluffy butt stash. He is a still a bit too small and skinny so we have had some minor accidents but our trial the past 2 days have given us insight into what we do and do not like so far. I hope to rewrite this review as he gets older and bigger. For now, it is a review on these as he is a newborn.

Best Bottoms vs. Thirsties Covers:

I began my fluffy butt stash with Best Bottoms due to the recommendation of my BFF (she doesn't have kids yet but is a very crunchy researcher and knows exactly where to find great information). I loved the simplicity of them. I liked the idea that the covers can grow with your child and that they had organic cotton/hemp inserts that just snapped in. It was also very appealing that you can reuse the covers so long as they don't get dirty with poo. When wet, just wipe it down and snap in a new insert. 

They claim to be able to fit smaller babies sooner than other brands so this was appealing as well so I can cloth diaper right away.

The other day my BFF gave me 2 Thirsties one size covers (it states on the tag that it fits 6-18lbs), 6 Thirsties hemp soakers sz L, and 8 organic cotton Bummi's prefolds sz infant (7-20lbs). I already have the 31 Best Bottoms organic cotton/hemp inserts, and 8 Best Bottoms Covers

Top to Bottom: Best Bottoms Vanilla cover, Thirsties cover

Yesterday we started Dacian on his fluffy butt. We started off with the Best Bottoms cover with the Best Bottoms organic cotton/hemp insert.

It was still very large on his frame (4 days ago he was 7lb 7oz). It almost swallowed him. There is way too much bunching in the front. It leaked pretty quickly and with the poo it made a big mess.  So, at this point I would NOT recommend the Best Bottoms for newborns unless you have a baby over 8 lbs and is kind of chunky already.

Next we tried the Thirsties cover since it looks just a bit smaller than the Best Bottoms. We used the hemp soaker and folded it in the back rather than the front.

This did very well. I was worried about a lot of leaking (Dacian is a pretty heavy wetter). It help up quite nicely. My only complaint so far is that the Thirsties cover doesn't quite get small enough at the waist for my liking. I am sure if he was in it for much longer it would have leaked and out the back because of this. The cover is still quite large on him and looks like he is swimming in it. The soaker is not an insert but it did work well for right now because of it's thinness. It is a size L soaker so I would be interested to see how the size S for boys would work. I plan on getting some to test this out. *Side note: I like these soakers better than the microfiber ones from Best Bottoms*

Left to Right: Best Bottoms organic cotton/hemp insert, Thirsties hemp soaker, Bummi's organic cotton prefold

Since I only had so many of the soakers our next trial was the Best Bottoms covers with the Bummi's organic cotton prefolds . I folded the back just like I did with the Thirsties soakers so it wouldn't add so much bulk to the front of the diaper. The prefolds worked great with soaking up the pee and didn't do too bad with the poo. However, this was very very bulky and I would only use this right now for nighttime. He seemed to be consumed by the dipe. Also it just looked very uncomfortable for him. He couldn't move his legs like he likes to do. Because of the size there was a bit of leakage of poo onto the cover. It did not leak outside of the Best Bottoms cover but it did get on the leg gusset on the inside.  I would not recommend this either unless it is nighttime use only for now.

We are now trying the Best Bottoms again with the Best Bottoms organic cotton/hemp inserts. It is still awefully big on him (obviously. It has only been one day) but we are just having him hang out at home. Going out I wouldn't do it until he is bigger.

Because he isn't fully in fluffy butt stuff right now we wanted a disposable that doesn't have all that nasty chemical crap and is biodegradable. I was going to go with the Huggies Natural Care (which btw, we did for the NB size, reason explained later) but found out this is just great marketing and is not much better if at all then the other brands out there. In the hospital we were given Pamper's swaddlers which we did not want to use but did for the sake of the nurses checking his urine.

I was then going to go with 7th Generation and my BFF tells me no. She knows more about this than I do and it is scary lol. So she gets us Nature Babycare. I trust her on this.

The downside, the smallest size they have is 1. Not small enough for a newborn (even a 7lb 14oz newborn).  So we bought the Huggies Natural Care because they do come in newborn size. After a few days I had to use diaper cream on Dacian. Very discouraging and disappointing. At a week old we decide to give the Natural Babycare a shot (I did not want to buy another pack of Huggies simply because of the size issue). Even though they are slightly big (I say this only because of the umblical stump still being attached) they work pretty good. We have had some leak issues but I think that is only due to them being slightly large still. Since Dacian is a heavy wetter and quite the active pooper they seemed to hold up very well. Sometimes we would even forget we need to change them. So good job to Nature BabyCare!

So sum up the reviews on newborn (7lbs 7oz):

Best Bottoms w/ Best Bottoms organic cotton/hemp insert - Too big. Will wait till he is bigger
Best Bottoms w/ Bummi's organic cotton prefolds - Way too big and bulky. Only use at nighttime because of soakability
Thirsties cover w/ Thirsties hemp soaker (sz L) - Best option so far. Little too big in the waist and soaker works very well as an insert for newborns. Will want to try size s.
Nature Babycare: YES!!