Prepping Prefolds

I have been anxiously waiting for about six weeks for Green Mountain Diapers to restock their Unbleached prefolds. Finally! after much waiting and anticipating I was able to order a dozen of the red-edge unbleached prefolds for my son.

I love using prefolds at home as they are very easy to clean, quick and keeps the wear on my pockets and all-in-ones down to a minimum.

New prefolds, however, must be prepped.

When you get brand new prefolds they are almost comically huge.

I had to take a picture to represent just how big these things are when they are unprepped.

Prepping prefolds is as easy as doing laundry... again and again and again.

Bleached prefolds take about 3-4 washes to be fully prepped. Unbleached take about 6 washes to be useable but 10 + before they will reach their full absorbancy.

Brand new prefolds are large and very smooth (Sharpie is in the picture for size reference).


After prepping prefolds become very soft, fluffy and quilted, not to mention they skrink quite a bit.


To prep, I throw my prefolds in along with regular wash (if they will fit) and wash and dry, put them back in with the next load, wash and dry, wash and dry, etc, until the process has been repeated about six times. And that's it.

To recap on prefolds I will quote from one of my previous blogs: The Newbie's Guide to Being a Newbie.

A prefold is very simple a diaper. A diaper that replaced the flat, folded panels of yesteryear. Very simply they are made of absorbent material (usually cotton) pre-folded (hence the name) across itself for thickness and added absorption (with the thickest portion being in the center, where it is most needed) and stitched along the top and bottom.

Unbleached and Bleached prefolds.

As there are many brands of clothes and shoes, some better quality than others, there are many brands of prefolds, some of greater quality than others. If you go to the baby section of your local WalMart or Target you will likely find a pack of prefolds for pretty darned cheap. I know, I almost bought some, but luckily for me I did some research into what makes a good prefold. The big store brand prefolds are little better than taking a $1 cotton t-shirt, sewing it together and calling it a diaper. The cotton in those shirts has been stripped, bleached, dyed, processed and is usually so thin it will last you about 5 months (if you're careful) and won't absorb much more than you'd expect a cut up t-shirt would.

A quality prefold has cotton that is as unprocessed as possible. Unbleached is preferable as bleach (though it makes things nice and bright) breaks down the fibers and wears out the material faster. The prefolds I have heard about and read about as though they were sewn by the hand of God are Chinese made, commonly referred to as CPFs (Chinese PreFolds).

They run about $2-$3 a diaper depending on size and whether the diaper is bleached or unbleached but they are the foundation upon which the whole prefold, cloth diapering system is build so they must have good quality and can be used for life, even after the baby has potty-trained and moved on. They make great kitchen towels, cleaning rags, burp clothes, you name it. Anything you can think of needing an absorbent cloth for you can use them for. Best yet, the resale value is phenomenal! Used Chinese Prefolds on eBay still sell for about $1.50 if not higher and sell like hot cakes. So even if your baby outgrows his or her size of prefold and you can't think of a reason for keeping them around you can always sell them and get almost all your money back to either reinvest in the next size prefold, keep, or buy the next size covers for your baby.

And I also talk more about prefolds in Absorbancy Test .