Before having my son, I’d heard lots of rave reviews of Fuzzi Bunz. I thought they had the most annoying name ever, almost enough to make me not want to use them. However, we had a very heavy wetter from day one. His Kissaluvs would be soaked through in less than half an hour, his Pro-wrap all-in-ones were so low in the rise that he’d leak every single time I made the mistake of putting him in one. I was doubling up Chinese pre-folds during the day but during the night, he had to have something more.

The Basics

The Fuzzi Bunz diaper is a pocket diaper - basically a waterproof outer layer with snaps and an inner layer of microfleece to avoid the babies skin from being wet. It’s up to the user to insert some sort of stuffing - anything from special purchased hemp inserts to folded prefolds to even cheap towels. Depending on the type of wetter you have, you can stuff it with more or less. Because our son was such a heavy wetter, I knew I could put thinner yet more absorbent hemp inserts, which I hoped would work well for nighttime use.

Priced by the company, Mother of Eden between $13.95 and $15.95 depending on size and colour, these were not cheap, especially when considering some sort of stuffing material must also be purchased. While I had no problems buying a $20 cloth diaper in a cute print hand made, the thought of spending almost that on a mass produced ugly cloth diaper was a bit hard to swallow. I finally gave in, however, and purchased one Fuzzi Bunz to try out.

The first “issue” I had with this pocket diaper was the confusing, ever changing style these diapers seemed to go through. From three snaps to four, from rounded tabs to pointed tabs, dozens of changes in types of microfleece, and with stitching at the leg to without to with again, not to mention the changes the outer shell have gone through. Because I was beginning to see and here of some major quality control issues with the Fuzzi Bunz that were in part prompting these changes, I did my research to find a good business to purchase these from, in case I did need to return them.

The Trial

The Fuzzi Bunz I purchased were the newest style, introduced in late first quarter 2003. It seemed to be made decently, with no major defects in any of the seams. The snaps at the front weren’t perfectly symmetrical, but that didn’t bother me that badly. The microfleece was fairly soft, although it appeared quite a bit thinner than any other microfleece I’d ever seen on any diaper before.

My son was well proportioned - both his waist and thigh size were both about average, and we’d found that most cloth diapers we used fit well in both the waist and legs. The medium sized Fuzzi Bunz fit well in the waist and one leg. Yes, one leg. I thought at first that he simply had slightly different thigh sizes, but measuring the diaper legs and his thighs found that the problem was with the diaper, not his thighs. Annoying at worst, as the diaper was still able to function, which may not have been the case if my sons thighs had been more chunky or more skinny. The rise on these diapers was lower than I’d have liked, and if he began crawling around in it, he’d get a horrible case of “plumbers butt”. As this diaper was for nighttime only use, I was willing to deal with this annoyance. I’d likely be singing a different tune, however, if he tended to have a bowel movement at night.

I like... and dislike...

The best thing about the Fuzzi Bunz pocket diaper was the ability to change the absorbency to fit the need of the child. I was able to stuff it with two hemp inserts that worked well overnight and weren’t almost dripping in the morning. The microfleece top layer of the diaper also kept my son’s skin mostly dry during the night.

Mostly dry?

While this pocket diaper was supposed to keep the skin totally dry due simply to the nature of microfleece, once the top insert was mostly damp, the wetness began coming back through the fleece. The problem was not a detergent buildup, but a microfleece problem. After the first two washes, the microfleece was translucent, not to mention fairly rough. The type used was not of any decent quality, unfortunately. I was rather annoyed that after spending so much for a plain pocket diaper that the fleece was of a lower quality than I’d ever seen before. While the quality of fleece was poor, it had an unseen up-side - while I’d had repelling issues with other pocket diapers due to thick fleece not having a good time with our hard water, I didn’t treat this Fuzzi Bunz any differently than a non pocket diaper and buildup was never an issue.

By this time, we had a total of three Fuzzi Bunz - all of the “new” pointy style tabs. All three were the same size, a medium, but yet all three fit differently and all three had different spacing of the snaps, different leg sizes, and two of the three had thicker fleece. The snaps of one of the three were of a slightly better quality, and would actually stay snapped if my son did wear this diaper while crawling around, whereas the other two would come unsnapped if he moved around. Needless to say, I was less than thrilled with the lacking quality control in these pocket diapers.

Despite the issues with the first Fuzzi Bunz we owned, when the time came to switch to a larger size, I decided to give Mother of Eden another chance, because I still hadn’t been able to find something that would work as well for overnight. This time, I purchased two size larges along with hemp inserts.

I was slightly more pleased with the two large pocket diapers that arrived. The fleece was much thicker than the fleece on the three we’d purchased in the past. The outer shell also seemed a bit thicker, which I hoped would prevent the fraying issue we had in one of the old diapers.
The snaps again were not symmetrical, nor were they evenly spaced, but this again didn’t prove to be that huge of a problem. More of a problem this time, however, was leg spacing on one of the Fuzzi Bunz - it was larger by just enough so that it gapped when my sons leg was in a certain position. While the gap hasn’t caused a leak yet during the night, if these diapers were used during the daytime when he was up and moving around, they absolutely would not have worked. In addition, while my son is at the lower edge of the size large diaper, I can’t imagine it being large enough in the rise to prevent plumbers crack for much longer.

Maybe, maybe not

I’d always been confused by the people who had so many quality control issues with Fuzzi Bunz yet still continued to purchase them. Unfortunately, now I know all too well. After my latest purchase, however, I likely will no longer purchase any more. I don’t like to play “let’s see what style we get this time” when Mother of Eden seems to be perpetually changing things around, nor do I like to see what quality control has missed in a none too cheap diaper.

Recommended:
No