As I promised in the last post, I’m here to review Sweet Iris Designs’ Bamboo Stretchy Snug Bug Flats. If you’ve heard all the hype about stretchy flats, these were probably the ones that got mentioned. First, because they are the grandmommy of stretchy flats, made with terry loop on a single side. Second, because they are pretty amazing.

I’ll admit, these are the flats that made me a convert. I’d tried traditional flats previously, and while I still like them for a trim pad fold, I never got managed to get a tight fit around the legs, which is important when you want the diaper mess to stay in the diaper and not on you (that’s experience talking.) If you want to try flats and pin or snappi them on the baby instead of pad folding, the stretchiness of the Snug Bugs make everything a hundred times easier.

I made my first order back when they were still an Etsy shop, and so I have a set of what are now XL size flats with sewn in tags. My second set I ordered from the website and are a set of half-flats with the printed tag. Half flats are basically designed for pad folding, especially during the day when you don’t need as much bulk and want to prioritize a fast change.

The XL flats are still my favorite size. Kai is a big kid, topping the chart for weight and blowing past it for height. By ten-months, XL became the standard flat size in our house. It’s versatile, its absorbent (we can use a single, pad folded XL flat for overnight with no leaks), and surprisingly adorable.

Our successful set up for road trip diapering: Sweet Iris flats, One Love Diaper wool wrap, and Wild Coconut Wear interlock shorties.

The downsides are price, $14.25 is expensive for a flat, and staining. For some reason, my Sweet Iris flats stain after just looking at poop. On the other hand, they tolerate sunning really well and I haven’t had to use any other method to get the stains out.

The last problem, and the reason I haven’t purchased more is that turning bamboo into fabric is a chemically intensive process, and one of the reasons I cloth diaper now is to do something good for the environment. This is sad, because I actually like the bamboo better than hemp or cotton when it comes to flats, its softer, stays softer after repeated washings, and absorbs faster than hemp for those firehose pees.