It's review time again! I'm giving Alva another shot with their new diaper covers. These have a ton of features for a very reasonable price. At less than $5 each I couldn't resist.
So, what do these covers have to offer?
• Great prints
• Double gussets
• Front and back flaps for tucking
• Front snap for inserts
• Snap-down rise
• Overlap snaps for extra skinny babies
Above is the teal blue chevron print. The color on the website wasn't appealing to me, but once I saw it I was sad I only got the one.
Here you can see the front and back flaps for tucking your insert under. This is really the only beef I have with this diaper- the front flap comes down awfully far for little boys. I don't even have it snapped down all the way, and my son is nearly peeing on the cover itself. If I'm not careful to reach in and scrunch that panel up, I get wicking all the way up to the top and around the front. My four month old still sleeps on his back, so I really wonder how this will work with a butt-in-the-air belly sleeper?
The other problem that doesn't bother me a ton but may affect you- the snaps have a lining of suedecloth over them, presumably to stop leaks. However if this gets wet you can't just wipe down the inside and reuse the cover. I mean, you can, but I'm picky and don't.
Here it is stuffed with a charcoal bamboo insert and a hemp/cotton doubler behind.
And here it is on a baby. The double gusset gives the diaper lots of room for inserts but doesn't quite do what I think of when I think double gusset. It seems like both gussets should be touching baby's legs in the event of a blowout, to prevent leaking. Only the inner one does. Neither elastic areas are particularly soft, so beware of that if you have a sensitive kid.
Problems
Only a few weeks later and these have navigated to the bottom of my stash. They fit OK over Alva's bamboo fitted with a bit of tucking, but I admit I'm not a huge fan of unsnapping a sopping wet fitted and we tend to use disposables at night.
If you use this with microfiber or charcoal bamboo inserts (which have microfiber in the middle) and have a younger baby who is generally on his back, you may get some nasty compression leaks out the top. Again, this is probably due to the very long front flap.
This diaper is VERY roomy through the crotch, thanks to the double gussets. If you don't have enough absorbent material inside you'll likely have gaps, which will cause leaking. You can kind of see in the photo above how the insert's edge is over an inch away from his bum? Pee will simply run down through the gap inside the diaper and sit directly on the PUL, eventually leaking through.
This cover is probably better suited to holding a thicker tri-folded prefold, a snappi'd prefold, or bulky nighttime inserts or fitteds.
