If you cloth diaper your baby, chances are you’ve heard a thing or two about
wool covers. Or perhaps you have just spotted one in your favorite cloth diapering store, hanging by itself looking suspiciously solitary, unusually shaped, and even somewhat shabby looking compared its brightly patterned PUL counterpart in the adjacent display. You may have been curious, confused, or even intimidated, and you may or may not have pulled that lonely wool cover off of the wall to give it a try.
If you felt this way, you’re not alone. Many mothers find themselves intrigued by the idea of wool but do feel intimidated by this mysterious textile that found its way into the world of cloth diapering. I was one of these mothers, and I’ll admit, it took months after the first time I saw a wool cover for me to finally put one on my baby. And I am glad I did. In fact, I never looked back. I fell in love with everything about wool, and I am a die-hard, full-time wool user when it comes to diapering my baby.
So what was it that conquered my fears of wool and turned me into an aficionado? A few things. But first, let me tell you why I secretly feared wool (and why I later learned that my fears were entirely ungrounded)
3 Reasons I Feared Wool Cloth Diaper Covers:
- Fear of Leakage: After exclusively using PUL covers on my baby and still experiencing leakage from time to time, especially at night, I found it nearly impossible to imagine that a soft piece of wool could prevent leaks when a “waterproof” piece of plastic couldn’t. I imagined my baby waking up soaked and chilled to the bone on a cold winter night. I could not have been more wrong about this one.
- Fear of Washing: I, like all moms, am a busy woman. How would I have time to hand wash my wool covers when I struggled to get the rest of the laundry washed each week, in a machine? Wrong about this one too….the washing process is surprisingly quick, efficient, and only required once every month or two.
- Fear of the Unknown: Wool just, well…it looks scary, I guess. Upon first glance. It looks so.. odd. Like a tiny misshapen sweater with arms that are too short for anyone. It’s also too beautiful, in a way. So soft and lovely and clean. It just does not look like something that is meant to go over a cloth diaper that could potentially become soaked with pee and blasted with poo. Whatever the reason may be, wool is intimidating. I approached my first wool cover with a great deal of trepidation and a bit of anxiety. And after using and falling in love with wool, I realized that it is oddly shaped and it is perhaps too beautiful to become stained with yellow poo… but it does the job, and it does the job outstandingly well. You’ll become so comfortable handling and cleaning wool that you’ll soon wonder how you ever feared it.
In the end, despite my fears and doubts, I decided to go for it. I had heard some good things about wool, and I was frustrated with leaky AIO diapers at night time and PUL covers that stunk after only two uses. I conquered my fears of wool, and I got my facts straight.
Next on the blog: Wool Diaper Covers: Twelve Myths About Wool & Then the Facts