Reasons Why We Chose to use Wool over PUL
Our favorite things about using wool with fitteds summarized:
- No more leak issues (more sleep for everyone)
- No more thigh rashes
- Wool is a natural material; further reducing use of plastics
- Wool breathes (increases comfort and reduces rashes); good for warm and cold weather
- Wool is hypoallergenic (skin reactions to wool are incredibly rare)
- Fitted diapers work really well for both day- and night-time (super absorbent options that aren't insanely bulky)
- Wool is a natural fire retardant that wont melt to baby's skin in the event of a fire
- Wool is naturally antimicrobial
- Doesn't require washing with each use. Only requires washing when soiled or when it starts to smell
- Wool covers/pants are so soft and cute!
I'll start by saying that cloth diapering in general has come a really long way since I was a baby. My Mom was shocked when she first saw the PUL diapers that we were using for Max when he was a newb. In her day, cloth diapering was dominated by people using what she called "rubbery plastic pants." My Grandma still confuses the diapers for fashionable clothing.
We started our cloth diapering journey with mostly GroVia newborn AIOs (we also tried a handful of others). These diapers were great looking and we were just happy we weren't adding piles of disposables into local landfills but in all honesty we had a lot of leaks. We didn't realize that this wasn't normal until we switched to fitteds with wool. Immediately after the switch my husband and I were hooked.
The initial reason for switching was due to the red rash rings around Max's thighs. It didn't matter how many times we rinsed the PUL diapers or what type of detergent we used. The secondary reason was because we were getting frustrated about having to change the baby's clothing, swaddle blankets, and crib sheets every time he went to the bathroom; as you can imagine or may have experienced for yourself, this is especially frustrating in the middle of the night.
If not for the rash issue we probably would have stuck out the issues with leaking since we were telling ourselves that this was par for the course with cloth (rookie mistake!). I realize that some PUL diapers just aren't a good fit and maybe after trying several brands and sizes we may have reduced leaks. I'm not here to discourage PUL cloth diapering (I know many people are successful at it and love it) but rather I'd like to encourage people to try fitteds with wool.
