GroBaby/Grovia - Should I wait?

[jdg]

I'm due to have my first baby in about a month and had settled on buying the GroBaby diapers. Then they decided to rebrand and overhaul the line and the new Grovia diapers are coming out next week. So now I'm trying to figure out if I should buy the older (current) style GroBaby diapers while they are on sale locally, or if the new features make it worth waiting and paying full price in a couple of weeks.

As far as I can tell, the new features are:
- More of the shell colors come in the option of snap closure instead of aplix.
- The soaker pads now have leg gussets so that they should fit better and prevent leaks better.
- The soaker pads now have a waterproof backing so should soak through to the shell less often (less changing of the shell needed).
- There are built in "laundry tabs" to help keep the aplix in good shape on the shells that use it.

So my question is, are the new features things that you more experienced cloth diaper-ers would advise me to wait/pay for? Or should I grab the cheaper GroBaby diapers while I can?

[Ola_]

Are you planning to use them for a newborn? I've heard that because of the runny newborn poo you pretty much end up changing the cover each time anyway.

I don't know much about the changes that they are putting in though. I wonder if they will have any special pricing at the beginning, sometimes they do that with new versions...

[rightkindofme]

My experience is that the Grobabies suck. When the kid is small you have to change the whole thing every time they poop (which depending on your kid can be 3 million times a day) defeating the purpose of the separate pieces.

And the rise is really low, meaning that my kid has plumbers crack. Not a great look. And the velcro was substandard and she has to wear tight pants to hold them on. Ugh!

I'm sorry but in my opinion you'd be better off buying just about ANY other brand. If you are cool with the two in one option prefolds are super cheap and can be trifolded inside a cover to give you the same experience.

[Blueone]

I used gro baby and they didn't fit until my son was well over a month and then they were really bulky. On top of that he hated feeling wet so in the end I switched entirely over to Flip stay dry because that was the cheapest but nicest option. I prefer those any day over gro baby and have actually passed the gro baby to my brother in law who are expecting hoping they might like them more.

Otherwise my son was already on the unsnapped rise at 7 months, were as with Flip he's still on the 2nd rise at 10 months. Flip are much more trim and much more affordable. I wish they had been available when I was pregnant and looking for cloth options.

That said, Grovia does look nice, but really I don't recommend them.

[RunningMama]

I'll be cd'ing my third child this fall, and what I have learned from experience is not to put all your eggs in one basket, so to say.

My first son was huge. He was chubby, had a long rise, the biggest thighs you could imagine and ran well above the 95th percentile his whole life into his first year of school. My second son is the skinniest littlest thing you could imagine. I kept all my diaper from my first, but still have yet to be able to get my second to fit into one.

My point being, your baby may not fit into GroBaby's at all. I know that they may have fit my first for a few months only, but they did not work for my second at all. I did not have them for my first,but I did try them for Jack, and I immediately sold them, the fit was horrible for his body type.

From experience, I would not invest in one type of system till you are able to try a few different things on your baby to see what actually works.

For my new baby OTW, I have about two dozen orange edge newborn size refolds left over from Jack that in purchases from Green Mountain Diapers. I also have a variety of newborn fitted diapers to use. I have a couple kissaluvs size 0's, three bum genius bamboo in xs, two muttiquin bay nb diapers, six sustainable babyish xs diapers, two nb scuttlebutts, and two xs fuzzibunz. I also have some nb bummis covers, preemie and nb imsemvimse covers, and a lot of wool covers. Personally, I like using refolds and wool for newborns and infants, and when they start to move and wiggle, I like to switch over to fitted diapers with wool. I like using wool as clothing since I always struggled with finding clothing that would fit over diapers used with PUL type covers.

I do like some AIO's, my favorites are bottomstoppers for Jack. They are really trim for an AIO.

Anyway, I hope that this does not make you more confused, but I hate to see someone go into cloth diapering with high hopes and only using one type of diaper, with it only to fail or add aggravation because the system they chose is not right for their babies body type.

Good luck! I hope that you end up loving cloth as much as I have for all my kiddos.

[bodhitree]

Originally Posted by RunningMama

Anyway, I hope that this does not make you more confused, but I hate to see someone go into cloth diapering with high hopes and only using one type of diaper, with it only to fail or add aggravation because the system they chose is not right for their babies body type.

We assumed we would be using prefolds with covers for our DD. For a variety of reasons, that system did not work well for us. In the haze of recovering from a c/s and parenting a newborn with some medical issues, we ended up switching to sposies and are just now starting to get back into trying different types of cloth. I wish we'd done something like the Jillian's Drawers trial program to try out a bunch of different kinds instead of making a decision before DD was even born.

[sunflower.mama]

I am tempted by the grobaby product too, but I am going to use fitteds and prefolds for the first couple of months. It doesn't make sense that something that would fit on a one year old would not be too bulky for a newborn. I figure I can do a diaper trial at our local CD store and see what works....I'd wait instead of investing in what's being clearanced and winding up hating it.

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

Based on my less than stellar experience with GB (wicking tabs, leaks, poo not being contained on the soaker at all, red marks on legs ) I'd say don't get the GBs, and wait for reviews on the Grovias.

Fitteds/prefolds are working far better here. Yes a one-size diaper stash is cheaper than sized diapers, but if you then end up having to buy more anyway b/s they don't fit... well you're no further ahead!!

[MsVyky]

I bought the GroBaby stuff on Babysteals a few weeks back, and TBH, I actually really like it. I have a lanky, tall baby, and I fond the covers on the 2nd snap setting to be wonderfully trim on her (I'm using a fitted underneath). I'm saving the 3 cases of sposie liners for vacation time (Why I bought it in the first place), but as a cover, I do actually really like them. :S

[lizsky]

Originally Posted by bodhitree

: I wish we'd done something like the Jillian's Drawers trial program to try out a bunch of different kinds instead of making a decision before DD was even born.

I did this trial program and I'm glad I did. It doesn't include every type of system out there, but it definitely helped. We did the trial and we also bought a couple other diapers and played around with all of them for a while and after about 6 or 7 weeks we finally had a sense of what we liked best and invested in some more. I'm still taking it slow though, because I feel like our preferences might change as my daughter grows. Good luck to you and congratulations!

[MEcatlady17]

I have been wondering what the changes were going to be, thanks for posting!

I am planning to try GroVia for use when out of the house for long periods of time, traveling, etc. I debated on getting GroBaby while on sale, but think I will wait for the updated version since they updated based on feedback on grobaby. I am really impressed by their company mission and standards.

We have a pretty good stash of prefolds, pockets, and recently added 2 fitteds and 2 different AIOs. I agree with the previous posters about not settling on one kind of diaper for your whole stash. We've been CDing DD since birth (only 4 months) and already my preferences have changed several times as she grows and changes. I am very happy I went with sampling 2-3 packs of different diapers. What I like for going out is not the same as my preferred night time diaper or diaper for the babysitter, etc. Also, while pregnant I didn't consider who much the size and build of your baby will determine fit and function.

[jdg]

Originally Posted by bodhitree

I wish we'd done something like the Jillian's Drawers trial program to try out a bunch of different kinds instead of making a decision before DD was even born.

I hadn't heard of this program before! All of the "trials" that I'd seen were really just prepackaged variety sets of different diapers and crazy expensive. Their newborn trial doesn't have the variety that their regular trial does, so I have a new plan: bumgenius x-small AIOs until babe is about 12 lbs - if I buy in bulk, they're $12 each and they're selling used on ebay used for about $11 each, so I consider this essentially a small rental fee to get me through the newborn stage. If I end up not liking them, I only mean them for fairly short term use, and again, I expect they'll resell well.

Once babe hits about 12 lbs, I'll do the Jillians Drawers trial package, then make longer-term choices at the end of that.

[Skinjob]

We are ECing and use Gro Vias as back up, part-time in-between diapers and they are totally amazing. We're getting pretty good at being able to read her signals so we have the occasional "miss" but for the most part our three month old is going pee and poo in the toilet or potty. I even take her once or twice a night to eliminate and her nighttime "squirming" is no longer a problem for this family bed family. We also use the bio soakers from time to time when we're on the road and don't want to bring the cloth soakers home in a wet bag.

Put simply: diligent elimination communication + gro via cloth diapers = one dry baby. But the best way to keep the baby dry is to pay attention to her and make sure we potty her as often as possible. If you are really good at it, you don't even need diapers. As a back up, gro via is great.

[jdg]

Francesca is now nearly 3 months old. We used the XS BumGenius AIOs for her first several weeks. Then I bought myself a variety of diapers to try out - BG Elemental AIO, BG OS pockets, SmartiPants, Flip, FuzziBunz, GroVia - and tried them all out for a few weeks. Oddly enough, the GroVia is the one that was the best match for us and our daughter, so we stocked up on them and resold the rest on ebay. We've been using the GroVias exclusively for about a month now and they have been fantastic for us!