Flat cloth diapers: How to use & best materials

I love flat cloth diapers, and like many other cloth diapering parents I wish i had tried them sooner, or just started out with flats to begin with.

I feel that while flats do seem complicated, they are actually very beginner friendly.

Flat cloth diapers are large squares of fabric that you fold into different shapes to best suit yours and your baby’s needs, they are easy to care for and are very affordable.

If you want to know how many cloth diapers you will need check out my article “How many cloth diapers do I need?”

What is a flat cloth diaper?

Flat cloth diapers are what people have used for hundreds of years to diaper their babies, starting in the 1500s clear up till the 1960s-1970s when disposable diapers took over the market.

A flat cloth diaper is a large square piece of fabric that is typically 27″ x 27″ – 30″ – 30″, and usually made of cotton.

However, flats can be made out of pretty much any absorbent fabric and be cut to pretty much any size.

The most common type of flat cloth diaper that I see are 28″x28″ birdseye weave 100% cotton flats, which is pretty much the same thing our grandmas and great grandmas used.

Now, there are flats made of bamboo and hemp, and in different weaves as well, there is muslin (like aden+anais blankets), fleece (like thick sweatpants) and jersey (like a T-shirt).

Flats are also pretty much the only true one-size from birth to potty-training cloth diaper out there.

How do flat cloth diapers work?

One of the downsides to flat cloth diapers is that you have to fold them, now this isn’t hard or complicated, but you do have to do it.

The fear of folding flats is probably the biggest reason people avoid using flat cloth diapers.

When you fold a flat cloth diaper you are turning 1 large, single layered square into a smaller multi-layer shape that is either wrapped around baby or lain in a cloth diaper cover.

Because you can fold flats in many different ways, you can put a ton of layers into the places you need them the most.

All of my kids have been heavy, front wetters (all the pee somehow ends up only at the front of the diaper), so I always use folds that put the vast majority of the absorbency in the front.

There are also folds that put more absorbency in the middle of the diaper or at the back, flat cloth diapers make it easy to customize the absorbency to exactly what you need.

Which flat cloth diapers are best?

There are tons of different flat cloth diapers, which on one hand is great because you can pick and choose and find exactly what you want.

But on the other hand, with so much to choose from how do you even know where to start?

Let’s look at a few different variables when it comes to flat cloth diapers so that you can choose which one is best for you.

If you are wanting to pad-fold your flats, and either lay them into cloth diaper covers or stuff them into pocket diapers like I do.

Then the texture of the flats doesn’t matter quite as much, especially if you are using a stay-dry liner with the flats and covers where the flat would come into contact with baby’s skin.

So, any flat that would have kind of a rough texture would work really well here, especially stuffed inside a pocket diaper.

Hemp flats for instance can be a little rough sometimes.

To be clear, even a flat cloth diaper with a rough texture can be used directly against baby’s skin, I just don’t know how comfy it would be.

If you are wanting to wrap the flat cloth diapers around your baby most cotton and/or bamboo flats are perfectly soft and comfy.

Stretchy flats are especially nice for wrapping around baby and are crazy soft and absorbent.

If you are worried about hemp cotton or regular cotton flats being too rough, then I would suggest looking into bamboo flats.

Bamboo is usually the softest and fluffiest material ever used for cloth diapering.

However, depending on how a material is made you can have hemp flats that are really soft, or bamboo flats that are rough.

I personally love flats that are a mix of bamboo and organic cotton, I also so really love flats that are made in a muslin weave.

Currently I don’t know of any flat cloth diapers that are both bamboo/cotton and a muslin weave.

So, I have 2 favorite flats, the favorite flat cloth diaper I’ve had the longest is the

Petite Crown organic cotton birdseye bamboo flats they come in 6-packs for $29.95, that’s $4.99 per flat cloth diaper.

My next favorite flats that I only got about a month or 2 ago are the

Cloth-eez organic muslin flats, they are 100% organic cotton, you can buy them individually for $3.95 or in a 6-pack for $21.95 (slight discount for buying bulk making them $3.65 each).

If you want to learn more about cloth diapering fabrics check out my article “What is the most absorbent fabric for cloth diapers?”

Are flat cloth diapers better than other cloth diapers?

While I don’t really feel that flat cloth diapers are necessarily superior to other styles of cloth diaper, I do feel that they are easier to care for and are more durable than regular inserts.

In my experience, regular cloth diaper inserts start to show wear and tear a lot sooner than flats.

With the exception of some DIY jersey flats that I made, but I think I used a material that wasn’t really suited for flats (too thin of a material).

Also, since flats are just 1 layer of fabric they wash and dry super easy which is probably the biggest reason I love, followed closely by their versatility.

The versatility of flat cloth diapers is why I feel that they are actually extremely beginner friendly.

Let me explain, if you are just starting out and you decide that you are going to buy a whole stash of all-in-ones because they are believed to be the easiest.

Then you discover that you don’t like all-in-ones well, now what are you gonna do with all these all-in-ones? you could sell them or keep them as extras, but they aren’t really ever gonna see much use again.

But if you start out with flats then a big part of your stash with carry over into most cloth diaper systems.

Flats can be used with cloth diaper covers (either pad folded and lain into the cover or wrapped around baby) whether those cover are PUL/TPU or wool, they can be pad folded and stuffed into pocket diapers.

And depending on the brand/style of all-in-one, flats could even be used as a booster for those to.

This way you would be starting out your cloth diapering journey with something that can adapt to most, if not all of the systems that you try.

Resources

Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning I receive a small commission (at no additional cost to you) from qualifying purchases made through those links. * Indicates an affiliate link

Link to stretchy flats at theblythelife.com and fruitofthewomb.com

Link to Petite Crown cotton/bamboo birdseye flats at petitecrown.com

Link to Cloth-eez muslin flats on greenmountaindiapers.com

Link to a cheaper bamboo/cotton flat on clothdiaper.com *