Ok, everybody (new mama to be’s, in particular), let’s talk about DIAPERS. From conversations I’ve had, I feel like this a touchy subject and funny enough, VERY talked about subject when it comes to new babes. HOW does one even begin to make the decision on what diapers to go with for their babe?! Cloth, disposable, natural, or novelty (you know, the ones with the strawberries on the toosh)?? … It’s a tough decision, I don’t know how you mamas did it … it took me A LOT of back and fourth. But before I dig into all of the nitty-gritty details here with you, I should clarify that this blog IS sponsored (thank you Pampers for powering the site today!). However, I also want to mention that the reason WHY we took this sponsorship on is because we genuinely have been using Pampers Swaddlers for a while now, almost exclusively.
Let’s backtrack a little bit here so you can understand what brought us to this decision to use Pampers … When I was pregnant with Leo, one of the things I daydreamed about was diapers (is that weird?? Am I the only one who did that??). I pondered about always having my baby in those cute diapers with the adorable prints on them … I mean, just think of all of the swoon-worthy photos you can get with these?! LOL!! And then my mind would change and I was determined to be one of those moms who used cloth diapers. Needless to say, sanity took precedent and we made the decision to go with disposable.
In addition to our crazy travel and work schedules there were a few other factors we took into consideration when choosing diapers for Leo, and I wanted to share them with you below so YOU could also have a little guideline when choosing which diapers you feel would work best with your lifestyle and your babe. Consider it my personal “diaper checklist” lol!! Here we go …
1. Night time: The moment Leo falls asleep is the time when I finally have some time to catch up on life and as I’m blasting through emails, returning messages, responding to comments on social media, the LAST thing I want is a wet or dirty diaper waking him up. Seriously, if the diaper doesn’t outlast Leo’s sleep, that’s not going to fly in this household. Mama needs to stay on top of things the best she can! Another bonus? Pamper’s Swaddlers have a “wetness” indicator” so I know when Leo needs to be changed without having to wake him up to check.
2. Blow-outs: Yup. Blow-outs. Explosive, messy, make me gag, hold my breath until I feel like I’m going to pass out blowouts … if a diaper can handle these unfortunate events and I don’t have to be cleaning up an undesirable mess in the middle of a restaurant, or in my vehicle … COUNT ME IN. Remember that blowout we had in the car over the holidays and I was gagging?? LOL!!
Ps. You’re probably way ahead of me here and already thought of this, but don’t forget to stock up on baby wipes … we learned this the hard way … LOL! Now we have wipes in my car, Justin’s truck, Leo’s diaper bag, all over the house, in the nursery, etc. Lately, We’ve been testing out Pampers Sensitive Wipes, they’re hypoallergenic, perfume-free and THICK … (thank goodness) … LOL!
3. Cute patterns: YES!!! I LOVE cute patterns!!! UNTIL I have to clean up a blowout. LOL!! Having a variety of cutesy patterns to choose from is great and they look AWESOME in photos (I actually still have some saved in Leo’s closet for special occasions and photo shoots), BUT nothing ruins a WHITE photoshoot more that a diaper that craps out (pun intended LOL!)… decisions, decisions … fancy or functional … the struggle is real. LOL! Luckily our go-to diapers have a cute Sesame Street design and are reliable.
4. Comfort: We’re happy when Leo is happy and being that he’s in a diaper all day long we go for diapers that move with him, diapers that have some elasticity, that stretch, and that are most importantly, COMFY for him!!
5. Affordability: Obviously all of you are aware of how much babies poop but we honestly weren’t aware or mentally prepared for JUST how much they poop. Holy sh*t!!! Literally!! We’re constantly cleaning up dirty diapers these days LOL … poop is now a common topic in our home which means that affordable AND functional diapers are a necessity in this poopy household. LOL!!
I’m also REALLY excited to tell you that Pampers has graciously arranged a donation of 180 packs of Pampers Baby Dry Diapers to be delivered to BabyGoRound (Vancouver, BC) AND 30 cases of Pampers Baby Dry diapers to be delivered to Mama for Mamas (Kelowna, BC) in June!!
For the seasoned diaper changing mama’s out there, what do YOU look for in a diaper?? Share your comments below!!
xo
Jilly
Thank you Pampers for sponsoring this post. All comments and opinions are my own.
I LOVE pampers! We haven’t used anything else with my 11 month old! We tried the cloth diaper route but like you just wasn’t worth it!!i love reading your blog!!
We used a variety on our first and found that pampers was great until the toddler stage- then we liked huggies. With our second we used mostly up&up from target and our third mostly has used people’s choice from Walmart and huggies night for overnight. One thing I have always used is huggies wipes. I HATE pampers wipes. I feel like they don’t grab all the poop properly and I have to use a million wipes. Seriously hate them.
We used pampers priemies until he was big enough and then we tried Huggies ..Life changing! The fit and absorbency was way better. Cute photos tho ?
Pampers is the only brand we have found that doesn’t leak !
Thanks for the post!! I’m currently 31 weeks pregnant with my first babe…. and I too, daydream about diapers. I’m having the hardest time deciding. I always want to practise the most natural way….. but I also want functionality and affordability. Being a one income household, it’s really tough. But I want what’s best for my little guy. I’ve read good things about Aleva as far as natural goes….. but the price point in comparison to Pampers or Costco brand….. well they aren’t even in the same ball park. What you didn’t mention, is how did you decide to go with Pampers swaddles over a more natural type? Was it just simply all the points you listed? (Affordability, functionality, etc, etc). Because that’s where I’m at! And everyone recommends Pampers or Costco to me! What’s a mama to do?!! I appreciate your honesty, because it’s not an easy decision, as silly as it sounds. Seems like an over-thought, but I really just want what’s best for my little babe, but a fixed income makes these “easy” decisions, much more difficult!
I love Pampers especially when my daughter was small. Now I swithed to huggies because of a bum rash and i Love them just as much!
I was super loyal to Pampers with my first. with my 2nd we started with Pampers twaddlers but I grew so frustrated with leaks once he started crawling and moving around more that I tried out Huggies out of desperation. I felt like a trader but in the end some babies just fit better in certain brands than others.
Don’t get too crazy about anything before she/he is born – they might have sensitive skin and react to certain brands. Just a heads up!
I also love that pampers has a rewards program too. because we should be rewarded for cleaning up those messes!
Pampers just fit our Leo better than any other brand we’ve tried. I use swaddlers during the day and baby dry at night and have no issues unless he’s between sizes. I find we need to size up as soon as he’s within the next sizes weight range.
Hey Jillian! I have 7 month old girl and I love following your Instagram and blog for stories about Leo. We also exclusively use Pampers. I use Swaddlers during the day because I like the wetness indicator (I feel like it helps reduce waste because I won’t accidentally change a diaper that’s not wet. However, ever since my baby started sleeping 11-12 hours straight every night, I started using Pampers Baby Dry at bedtime. You don’t need the wetness indicator overnight (you’ll know it’ll be full in the morning!) and I find that it’s sooooo much more absorbent for overnights!
I have quads (although they’re almost 20 now) and to be honest, for me it came down to cost and convenience. Luckily my very good girlfriends had a couple of “diaper and wipes” showers for me. The only thing people brought were diapers and wipes! That was a godsend!!!
I also went to a diaper outlet in Toronto when they were first born and got 1500 preemie diapers! That lasted us until they went into the next size.
Wait till you have to start toilet training. You’ll be ripping your hair out! Lol
While being more convenient, disposable diapers are a disaster for the environment. Seems like taking a long term view of quality of life for our children and grandchildren might be worth some inconvenience now. Yep, cloth is more work but it is doable. (And cloth has been proven to be the safest by far for the environment.) I had 4 children as well as a job as a nurse midwife. I have grandchildren now and I worry about our refusal to consider the big picture for their future.
The environmental factor was the main reason we chose to cloth disper. The other factors (cost savings, not having blowouts, and cute colours and prints) were just a bonus.
Thumbs up, Deb !
I literally tried cloth for ONE night. It was the WORST sleep night for little Lucas since he was born. I got the hubby to cancel first thing in the morning. Sleep trumped cloth diapering for shizzzzzz. We’re using Huggies but I want to try Pampers, especially the overnights. Huggies overnights leak EVERY SINGLE NIGHT! Like seriously, what the?? As soon as we’re done, I’m going to pick up some Pamper overnights and try them out.
Have tried all – Huggies with my first two, cloth with my 3rd, and all the kids in daycare use pampers. This girls vote is 100% Huggies, although using cloth with one child made me feel better about my environmental impact. Love the pics 🙂
Great post! I tried Honest and had a subscription set up, but after 2-3 months we switched to Pampers. The Honest wipes were terrible and irritated her bum, the diapers were ok, but just didn’t have the cloth-like feel like Pampers. Nothing but positive things to say about Pampers!
I have two boys in cloth diapers ? We do use pampers overnight. The fancy print one just don’t hold up…but I too always have some on hand. They are just so cute ?
Agree. Agree. Agree!! If mama can’t sleep through the night because of a diaper…then that diaper HAS to go. Also, I’m all for a cute print until it’s fully covered in poop, lol!
Cloth diapers all they way! No leaks, no rashes and not that much work. We use cloth wipes too and they just go in the wash with the diapers. We started with Honest brand disposables, pampers and huggies just felt too plasticy and had a weird smell. I was worried about committing to cloth diapering full time but 3 months in I couldn’t be happier with my decision.
We cloth diapered our little one during the day and used Huggies at night. To me, it was the best of both worlds, helping the environment and reducing my impact while not having to worry about any night time surprises!
In the long run, cloth diapering was a lot less expensive because I purchased the Kawaii diapers off of Amazon (20 diapers for $75.00! Score!) and they were really absorbant.
Pampers Swaddlers all day everyday… literally! Honest diapers are ADORBS but so much leakage + waking up in the night = not worth the price in CDN $ …. I tried Huggies ONCE and it was basically like my daughter was not wearing a diaper! Also, what kid doesn’t love Elmo?
We used Pampers for the first couple of months, but then switched to Bambo Nature. They are more expensive, but they are amazing diapers and, most importantly for me, don’t have the scent that Pampers do. I didn’t really notice the Pampers smell much before we switched, but once we started using unscented, I found it hard to go back to Pampers for the odd time we were out of Bambos (I’ve only been able to find Bambos on Amazon). I do miss the wetness indicator though! For wipes, we love Honest Company. Big, thick, unscented, what more could you ask for?
Our baby boy loves the Pampers Swaddlers! At almost a year old we have tried several others that were gifted to us… Huggies and Up and Up both leaked terribly. I have found Luvs to work well, they just seem heavier when full. Amazon diaper delivery is the best. We are not as picky about wipes having used the BJs brand, Up and Up, and Pampers. Our little guy did have a reaction to Huggies wipes, so we do avoid those. You have to do what works best for you mama!
Have loved Pampers Swaddlers, it’s all we’ve used for six months (though we use Honest wipes even though we’ve never tried their diapers, haha).
One more piece of advice I’d offer is don’t feel you HAVE to abide by the weight range on the package when choosing a size. My 6-month old is very long and lean – about 68cm and 16lbs – but has been using size 4(!) since he was 3 months old. Might seem crazy big but I could tell the 3’s were uncomfortable on his legs and leaving red marks, so I think mostly go by how it fits on their body and that they are comfortable! Maybe he’d be a smaller size in a different brand (a theory we might test out this summer) but yeah, ignore the weight range!
Once we went through all that was given to us at baby showers, walmart brand is what we stuck with. But I know each kid is different and diapers will fit differently. You have to do what works on YOUR kid.
Pampers swaddlers are okay, but I absolutely hate the baby dry! We like the huggies little snugglers the best! And I absolutely hate the pampers wipes! Huggies has them beat in that department!
I use aleva naturals. My husband did not want to do cloth diapers so we compromised on eco diapers. They are so soft and do a good job with holding everything in, even overnight!! They even have a wetness indicator. My background in environmental science prevents me from adding regular diapers to our landfills or have my baby exposed to some of the chemicals ( if they smell good they have chemicals). No judgement, just our choice and thought I would share why. Cute pictures!
For those mamas looking for an Eco diaper try the PC green diapers! They are amazing and priced a bit better than the other expensive Eco brands. I will admit that I recently switched to Pampers Cruisers as my little guy has starting crawling and I feel the cruisers have more stretch. Does anyone however notice the awful perfume smell from Pampers or is it just me? The PC green diapers I feel don’t have a smell.
They gave us some Pampers at the hospital and I just couldn’t stand the strong baby powder smell. Plus I don’t want synthetic fragrances anywhere near my baby. Not for me.
I am a cloth mama who uses huggies at night. Huggies don’t smell like pampers do and they hold way more, in my experience through 4 kids. My ckoth though is by far the best at holding everything in. I get that it isn’t for everyone, but it isn’t any harder to use then disposable, they are cost effective (way more so then disposable), and in the case of my babies, they help hold up pants that otherwise fall down because my babies have all been slender.
I used cloth for 2 years and I loved the decision. Using them was only marginally harder than disposable diapers, way less expensive, and have a smaller impact on the environment. Disposable diapers take 500 years to decompose and the average baby will wear 3000 disposable diapers in its lifetime. We switched to Huggies because the daycare kept throwing out our cloth diapers and at $25 each I couldn’t handle it anymore, and I really hate the smell of Pampers. I feel guilty everyday, and for every diaper I throw away. If I could afford it I would use Honest as they are decomposable, but they are double the price, one of the reasons we chose cloth in the first place. To each their own, and every mom needs to make their own decisions, but the environment was a HUGE part of me making mine.
I use pampers and do prefer them over other brands but my guy still has blowout 25th them. Any suggestions on how to minimize them with the pampers? I’m a new mom Syu maybe I’m not putting them on him correctly…
Sorry for the typos. I posted this from my phone and there was an ad in front of the comment box so I couldn’t see if my predictive text was working…. Anyway. My guy has a blowout at least once a day with pampers. I tried huggies in the beginning but they didn’t seem to work well for us.
We used buggies in the hospital for our preemie but as he got bigger they started leaving read marks in his skin because the double gusset would dig into his leg creases.
Now that he’s big enough we use cloth at home and pampers when we go out. I honestly think the diaper choice depends on the babe and their body type.
However I do agree with another commenter that pampers wipes are the worst. The texture of the wipe is awful, you need to use a million for poop, and they dry out easily. If I’m going to use disposables I’ll use pampers diapers and Higgins natural wipes which are way thicker, wetter and easier to use.
When my son was born the hospital supplied pampers. Once home we used up all the small packs gifted to us at the baby shower. We ended up going with huggies! I had no issue at all with pampers, the only time we ever had a blow out which was luckily very small, was wry Walmart brand diapers. We use the huggies little movers now that my son is 21 months. Love the way they fit and move with him! We also buy huggies wipes, but I’m not partial to them. Ive yet to find a wipe that I like that is thick enough to do the job! I use 2-3 with a wipe. Pampers, huggies, and store brands.. hoping someday I will find a suitable wipe!
I swear I saw something on your Instagram saying pampers was cruelty free but I can’t find anything online about it… did I imagine this?