#clothdiapers: GoGreen Champ vs BumGenius elastic replacement

It's not even Thursday and I'm talking cloth diapers! I had to post because I have some interesting info for cloth diaper pros: last night I found one major differences between my favorite cloth diapers, the GoGreen Champ and the BumGenius 4.0 One-Size. As you may or may not remember, I've been cloth diapering now for a little over 2 years, and during the last year I've had two babies in cloth diapers simultaneously. This is, of course, quite a beating on the diapers - the PUL, the hook and loop, and the elastic. Fortunately, both these brands of diapers have held up great as far as PUL. I have had to replace all the hook and loop on the BumGenius (which were fully 2 years old or more), but it really wasn't too difficult - just time-consuming.

Minor differences first: for a while, the GoGreen Champ was one of my favorite diapers because a) they have double leg gussets, and b) they were my first diapers with snaps. Now that I've started acquiring some BumGenius snaps, though, I find that the BG snaps are actually less intimidating to childcare/daycare/relatives than the typical cloth diaper snaps because there are only 2 snaps instead of 3, and they are placed in a location on the diaper that is similar to hook and loop placement (and therefore, similar to disposables). That's definitely a score in favor of the BumGenius - snaps last longer than hook and loop and I can bring them to childcare/Mother's Day Out. However, the two diaper brands were still on pretty much equal footing until last night.

BumGenius 4.0,
elastic easily accessible

Here is what swung the pendulum for me: GoGreen Champ diapers have the leg elastic literally sewn into the leg. As in, you cannot replace the leg elastic because there is stitching through the elastic, inside the casing. This is kind of a game changer for anyone who plans to use the diapers for more than 2 years. After 2 years, elastic on pretty much any cloth diaper loses it's elasticity and the legs of your diapers will start to gape and therefore leak. When BumGenius released the 4.0 diaper, they made the leg elastic easily accessible without having to even open a seam. You just snip the old and sew on the new. I've done several replacements on BG 4.0's and it's a breeze! FuzziBunz are even easier, if you're interested.

I did manage to sew new elastic over top of the old elastic on the GoGreen Champ, but it's a messy job and isn't seamless in any sense of the word. It yielded some bumpiness that I don't love. You also have to cut through the PUL casing around the legs, which is going to cause some leakage and eventually will render the diapers unusable. This was a temporary solution for me and I would not recommend it. What most people would have to do is probably actually throw out a GoGreen Champ diaper when the leg elastic goes, or sell the used diaper to someone who wants to try and go through the trouble of adding new elastic.

The inner double leg gussets on the GoGreen Champ, while nice for containing poop, are another replacement issue. You can't replace the leg gusset elastic either without damaging the PUL. Now that I've rigged a temporary replacement of the leg elastic, the inner leg gusset is much more saggy than the legs. All kinds of weirdness in fit now, and the leg gussets are rendered pretty much useless.

In conclusion, I used to recommend GoGreen Champ on equal, or sometimes better, footing than the BumGenius 4.0 but now I definitely won't.

Have you found some way to replace the leg elastic on your GoGreen Champ? If so, I'd love to hear about it and be able to retract this post! It's a great diaper otherwise.


NOTE: Obviously, I did not receive any free product in exchange for the mention of these brands and diapers. As you know, I do write for the CottonBabies blog, which I choose to do because I love and believe in their products.