Prefold cloth diapers: Pros, Cons & Top 4 brands

When I first started cloth diapering back in October 2018, I bought a 6-pack of Alva baby pocket diapers off Amazon, and realized I wasn’t a big fan of their microfiber inserts.

So, I did some research and decided to buy 1 dozen Cloth-eez “Novice” size prefolds, and that was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Prefold cloth diapers are very absorbent, affordable, easy to clean and durable, they are also very versatile, prefolds can be folded and wrapped around baby or folded and stuffed into pocket cloth diapers.

Pros and Cons of prefolds

In my opinion, prefolds are pretty awesome, but everything has it’s pros and it’s cons.

PROS

• Most prefolds are 100% organic cotton or some other natural fiber
• Prefolds are easy to wash and dry
• Prefolds are extremely durable
• Prefolds are very easy to customize/ add absorbency to
• Prefolds are also very absorbent by themselves
• Prefolds are inexpensive

CONS

• You have to fold prefolds
• Prefolds are not water-resistant on their own and require a cloth diaper cover
• You have to by bigger sizes as baby grows
• Prefolds are not stay-dry on their own
• Prefolds are typically not babysitter friendly

While these are not all the possible pros and cons that come with using prefolds, these are the main ones that I feel are the most relevant.

How to use prefold cloth diapers

Using prefolds can be as simple or as hard as you what it to be, that’s one of the reasons I really like prefolds is they are very versatile and customizable.

So, if you wanna do all kinds of super spiffy folding and wrap the prefold around your baby, you can do that too.

Or if you would rather pad-fold your prefolds and stuff them into pocket cloth diapers, you can do that too.

There is also no reason you can’t pad-fold a prefold and then just lay it in a cloth diaper cover.

The reason that you need a water-resistant cover of some sort is that since prefolds are typically made of a natural fiber they are not waterproof on their own.

Another factor that you have to take into consideration when using prefolds is that you do have to buy different sizes as your baby grows.

Typically, 5-6 sizes in increments of around 10 pounds, starting from preemie and going all the way up to 40 pounds.

Are Walmart prefolds any good?

So, you walk into your local Walmart, go to the baby isle and, OMG they have cloth diapers! This is so awesome!

Yeah, I’d hold off on the excitement for a minute there dude.

While some Walmart’s do carry a Bumgenius cloth diaper starter kit, though most do not.

What they do carry is Gerber flats, prefolds and plastic pants, now while I have totally heard of people using the Gerber stuff and it working out just fine, I’ve never heard them say it wasn’t a pain in the neck.

I do own some Gerber flats, that I do in fact use almost on a daily basis, but as boosters not as the actual main absorbency.

I personally don’t think that Gerber flats, prefolds and plastic pants are really worth your time and money.

I did the math, and the amount you would have to buy have enough absorbency makes them more expensive than some better options, like Cloth-eez products or even Alva baby cloth diapers.

If you want to know more about Gerber cloth diapers, I do have a whole article on them ” Gerber cloth diapers: Readily available, but are they any good?”

Which prefolds are best?

My 2 favorite brands of prefolds are Cloth-eez and Grovia.

Cloth-eez prefolds

Cloth-eez prefolds are 100% organic cotton, very affordable, at about $4.00 each and very durable.

You can buy them individually or in packs of 1 dozen for $43.95, which is a slight discount.

$43.95 divided buy 12 = $3.66, so you save $0.33 on each prefold.

And $0.33 x 12 prefolds = $3.96 that you save by buying the dozen

I have 1 dozen of the “Novice” size prefolds and 1 dozen of the ” Newborn” size prefolds.

They are super absorbent and I use the novice size prefolds on a daily basis.

Being made with 100% organic cotton they are one of the quickest cloth diapers to prep since cotton doesn’t have as many natural oils in it as hemp.

Prepping is when you wash and dry brand-new cloth diapers over and over a few times before using them to remove the natural oils, the more natural oils that are in the cloth diaper the less room there is for pee.

Natural oils can also coat the fibers of your cloth diapers and make the pee just run right off instead of absorbing in.

Cotton is also the fastest absorbing natural fiber, and once prefolds are fully prepped they have a quilted texture and that quilting helps prefolds catch and absorb pee even faster.

Since cotton is the fastest absorber, it is also the fastest dryer.

With most fibers, materials and fabrics.

The faster the wetness can go in, the faster the wetness will come out.

Grovia prefolds

Grovia prefolds are a 55% rayon from bamboo and 45% organic cotton and are a little more expensive that the Cloth-eez prefolds coming in at about $5.31 each.

However, Grovia prefolds are only sold in packs of 3, so you would actually have to spend $15.95 unless you are getting them used where the seller may be willing to sell them individually.

Now, because Grovia prefolds are a little over half bamboo, they are extremely absorbent and very soft.

One of the downsides of fabrics that have a high percentage of bamboo is that bamboo is known to shrink, and keep shrinking and warping, especially if you are washing and drying your cloth diapers on hot.

I personally don’t wash my cloth diapers with hot water on a regular basis, but I do dry my cloth diaper inserts/ absorbency on high heat in the dryer and I have had my Grovia prefolds shrink quite a bit over time.

Geffen baby prefolds

Geffen prefolds are made of 60% hemp and 40% organic cotton fleece whereas most prefolds would be just a regular twill (flannel) material.

Fleece is denser and fluffier, and that fluff has all sorts of little pockets for pee to hang out in until it’s washed out.

The biggest downside to the Geffen prefolds is that they are about $14.00 each.

However, they are known for being super absorbent, with the XS claiming to absorb 9-10ozs, all the way up to the XL that says it can absorb 23-24ozs.

Geffen baby 95% of their products in the USA, these products include their prefolds, flats and absorbers.

Osocozy prefolds

Another brand that I have heard good things about is Osocozy.

Osocozy prefolds are made out of 100% cotton and are probably the cheapest prefolds on this list, coming in at $3.16 each.

Osocozy also has organic cotton fair trade prefolds as well as bamboo prefolds however these seem much harder to find than the regular cotton prefolds.

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 Cloth-eez prefolds on greenmountaindiapers.com

Link to Grovia prefolds on grovia.com *

Link to Geffen baby prefolds on geffenbaby.com

Link to Osocozy cotton prefolds on clothdiaper.com *

Link to Osocozy organic cotton prefolds on clothdiaper.com *

Link to Osocozy bamboo prefolds on clothdiaper.com *

Link to Nickis prefolds on nickisdiapers.com

Link to Gerber cloth diapers on walmart.com

Link to Alva baby cloth diapers on alvababy.com