Guest Review - BumGenius Freetime from Eight Days a Week

A little while ago I had the Mama who runs the blog Eight Days a Week contact me and see if I would ever like to post some of her reviews here. That was a simple question....YES!!! The more reviews the better. Plus why not see a product through someone else eyes (every once in a while) instead of just mine :) Savannah from Eight Days a Week emailed me her review of the BumGenius Freetime. Please check out Eight Days a Week and let her know I sent you :) 

SAVANNAH'S REVIEW:

Let me just start by saying how lucky I am that my neighbor routinely checks her Facebook during the day and is generous enough to let me know what is going on in the cloth diapering world while I am at school. Thank you!

A little over a week ago our local cloth diaper and natural baby store in Honolulu, Baby Awearness, advertised that they were looking for two people to do reviews for the new bumGenius Freetime diaper. My neighbor called them within minutes of their posting, and then I called within minutes of her telling me about it. That’s how dedicated we are!

(By the way, if you live on Oahu and are interested in cloth diapering or already cloth diaper and would like to actually go into a store and touch products rather than order online, go to Baby Awearness! It’s friendly, fun, the atmosphere is great and there is even a small area for the little ones to play. Besides cloth diapers they also sell carriers, local and handmade toys, hats, shirts and onesies, cloth diaper detergent and second hand clothes and small baby items. Go check them out!)

Here is the review.. 

This is my first official experience with bumGenius and I am really impressed. I have two children, ages 2 and 9 months, girl and boy respectively. The Freetime worked for both kids, meeting each of their needs.

The Run Down: The Freetime is an All-In-One One-Size diaper from bumGenius. The 3x3 snaps on the front allow you to adjust the diapers size from infant to toddler. The Freetime features bumGenius’s new patent pending butterfly closure system: the diaper has two inserts partially sewn in at the front and back of the diaper which can be folded or laid flat. 

 

On the Job: My daughter often sleeps on her stomach with her butt up in the air and has a problem with pee running down her front. This had become such a problem that for almost a year I had been using disposables at night, so I was really hesitant when I put her down to sleep in the Freetime. I folded the insert attached to the front twice to help soak up any potential leaks and made sure it was on nice and tight. It worked great, no problems all night long! Wow!

   

I did pretty much the same for my son, except I only folded the front insert once. He still wakes up at night to eat so I changed him partway through the night. The diaper was wet, but not soaked, and his skin was dry. I usually use a prefold inside a pocket diaper at night for him, and although they are very absorbent, often when he wakes up his poor bum is wet and sticky. Even though I changed him half way through the night I feel that the diaper could have held on till morning.

Ease of use: Although it looks a little frightening at first, both my daycare provider who only has experience cloth diapering my children, and my neighbors sixteen year old daughter who helps me out on the weekends, were able to figure it out with little to no instruction.

I appreciate that the snap version has two rows across the top. If you are unfamiliar with snaps, they can easily come “untucked” at the hip if there is only one row. This also helped in getting a nice fit.

Nitty Gritty: I have to be honest, I was pretty worried about my first poop experience with this diaper, and I have to say I’m glad it was with my son and not my daughter. My daughter is notorious for messy, not so solid, poopsies; luckily she is potty training and only wears a diaper during nap time and bed time so we were able to skip a #2 with her. My son has poops that easily knock into the toilet, and with the Freetime I had no problems there with him. I would be concerned about big messes that need a lot of swishing, since the inserts are only partly attached it’s kind of difficult to maneuver without getting your hand mucked up.

What I love: The fit. This diaper is trim and fits beautifully on both my children who are built very differently. My toddler is a skinny mini and my son I lovingly refer to as “chunkers” and “ham hocks”. Yet the same diaper had a trim fit on both.

Because of the style of the inserts the Freetime dries completely in one cycle. Other AIOs can sometimes come out a little damp still but this was not the case with the Freetime.

Problems: I really don’t think there is anything wrong with this diaper, bumGenius knows their fluff! The only thing I can report is I don’t own a lot of velcro diapers, so when I put my two year old down for a nap in the Freetime velcro, with no pants on, I didn’t think much of it. She’s potty training and iffy about wearing diapers sometimes, so when I went back in an hour later she was passed out on her bed, naked butt, diaper on the floor. Obviously this isn’t the diapers fault!

There is also my worry of messy poops. I can definitely see a diaper sprayer coming in handy for a really dirty job. However, all kids are different and a lot of times it’s the breastmilk poop that is the messiest and that dissolves in water, so a cold wash would work just fine.

Overall impression: I really like this diaper! It fits nicely, it’s adjustable, dries quickly, and is versatile! For the level of performance the price is very reasonable. In fact, I think I’m going to go buy a couple more next paycheck! I would recommend this diaper to anyone who cloth diapers or is interested in it!