Best cloth diaper covers: Common questions & different options
As long as a cloth diaper cover is water-resistant in some way it is a good cover that can be made to work, however that does not make it the best cover for you.
The best cloth diaper cover for you should
- Be water-resistant
- Fit your baby relatively well
- Be within your budget
- Be something you can actually see yourself using
- Only require a level of care you can commit to
Do you need a cover for cloth diapers?
If you don’t want pee on literally everything your baby touches than yes, you need a cloth diaper cover of some sort.
There are also some forms of cloth diaper absorbency that need a cover just to stay attached to baby.
However, if baby has a rash, it is nice to let baby run around without a cover on so their rash can be dried out by the air circulation.
Typically, when I want to air out a rash, I put my kids in fitted cloth diapers the type of fitteds that I use have snaps on them so they can hold themselves in place without a cloth diaper cover.
However, most fitted cloth diapers will need cloth diaper cover to be water resistant and keep pee from getting on clothes and such.
How many cloth diaper covers do you need?
You will need roughly 4-6 cloth diaper covers per day, assuming you don’t have a newborn.
You may be wondering how it is possible do fully cloth diaper your baby with such a small number of covers?
Well cloth diaper covers can be used for several diaper changes in a row!
As long as a cloth diaper cover doesn’t have poop on it and hasn’t been soaked through with pee, the cover can be reused.
You just need to change out the dirty insert (flat, prefold or sewn insert) for a clean one and you’re good to go.
Though most people tend to go ahead and wash a cover after it’s been used 3 times.
If you do have a newborn, they tend to poop a lot more than an older baby and while covers can be reused with a new set of absorbency if it’s a pee diaper, newborns usually have very explosive poop that is a lot more likely to get on the cover.
So, in the case of a newborn you would probably want more like 6-8 cloth diaper covers (remember that newborn cloth diapers are not the same as one-size cloth diapers).
If you want to know how many cloth diapers you need when using other cloth diaper systems check out my article “How many cloth diapers do you need”
Which fabric is best for cloth diaper cover?
Cloth diaper covers are typically made out of either PUL (polyurethane laminate) or TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) which are both a polyester fabric that is then laminated on one side to add water resistance.
Cloth diaper covers can also be made of wool, either from being knit/crocheted straight into a cloth diaper cover or some people have made them out of old wool sweaters.
Woolen cloth diaper covers are typically made from sheep’s wool (mostly merino) but there are also woolen cloth diaper covers made from cashmere (Which is the hair of a Kashmir goat) and alpaca wool!
The different types of wool and how they were processed into diaper covers varies greatly so do your research since some wool covers can be washed in a washing machine while others CAN NOT BE WASHED IN A WASHING MACHINE.
AND NEVER PUT YOUR WOOL COVERS IN THE DRYER!!
But the super awesome thing about wool cloth diaper covers is that they have a natural ability to self-clean for a few weeks unless they get poop on them.
Basically, if the wool cover smells like pee when it’s dry it needs washed, if it smells like wool then your good.
Cloth diaper covers can also be made of synthetic fleece like polar fleece, the fleece children’s pajamas are made out of.
Polar fleece can be purchased at a fabric store, or you can repurpose fleece blankets and (if they’re big enough) old fleece jammies.
So, if you want something that you can just through it the washing machine that will dry really quickly PUL/TPU is probably something you would like.
If you want to go the more natural route, with less washing but perhaps some handwashing and waiting longer for the covers to dry, then you might love wool cloth diaper covers.
If you want an easy, cheap DIY cover that will probably take getting used to since it would have to be kinda folded on, then maybe fleece covers are your thing.
Personally, I really enjoy kinda thin, pliable PUL/TPU, like Thirsties covers and Cloth-eez wraps.
Best newborn cloth diaper covers
While most cloth diaper covers say that they will fit from birth to potty-training most do not.
The average newborn born in the United States weighs approximately 7 pounds 7ounces (3.49 kilograms) and most cloth diaper covers don’t start fitting until around 10 pounds (4.53 kilograms).
Helpful features on newborn cloth diaper covers
The 1# feature I would recommend newborn covers have is double gussets.
Newborns are terrifying all by themselves, now add extra runny, extra frequent poop!
And what could possibly save us from this horror? That’s right double gussets.
Now while I love double gussets, I do have to admit that they do not stop all blowouts (when poop literally blows out of the diaper 🙁 ) but it can greatly reduce them.
The #2 thing I would recommend you look for in a newborn cloth diaper cover is either a front elastic or umbilical snap down.
Umbilical snap downs are much more common in newborn all-in-ones but I do know that the Cloth-eez wrap size Zero does in fact have an umbilical snap down.
The #3 feature I would recommend is snap closure instead of hook & loop (Velcro).
It is true that hook & loop closure is pretty much the same as the closure for a disposable diaper, so it is very easy to understand.
However, if you are trying to change a baby that is half asleep hook & loop is probably not the best thing to use because hook & loop is very loud.
I have never had a baby wake up from snapping or unsnapping a cloth diaper, but I have had them startle awake when I started to peal hook & loop off.
Now that doesn’t mean that I think hook & loop cloth diapers are bad, I just don’t really care for them on a sleepy baby.
My personal favorite cloth diaper covers for newborns are the Thirsties duo wrap size 1 and the Rumparooz newborn cover.
Both have double gussets, and both have very pliable PUL/TPU, especially the Rumparooz cover, even though the PUL is thicker than the Thirsties it is super soft and pliable.
I also like their fit range, the Rumparooz fits extremely small babies and can still fit well until baby is ready for one-size cloth diaper.
While the Thirsties does fit most average size babies and will fit for about 9 months depending on baby’s growth.
Neither of them has umbilical snap downs and instead have elastics in the front that make the cover dip under the cord.
If you would like to learn more about newborn cloth diapering check out my articles “Best newborn cloth diapers: Top 3, my experience & pictures” and ” Are newborn cloth diapers worth it? Cost & cheaper options”
Resources
Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning I receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) from qualifying purchases made through those links. * Indicates an affiliate link
Link to my favorite covers, the Thirsties cloth diaper covers on clothdiaper.com*
Link to Rumparooz newborn cover at Kangacare.com
Link to Cloth-eez workhorse fitted cloth diapers on greenmountaindiapers.com
Link to wool cloth diaper covers on bumbywool.com
Link to Babee Greens cashmere diaper cover on babeegreens.com
Link to alpaca diaper cover on Lunapaca.com
