As a mom who uses cloth diapers on most days, I admit I have not done much research on disposable diapers before birth. My original plan was to do cloth diapers all the way, except for traveling, but my son came out as a tiny baby, and remained tiny in his first two months.
His weight was okay medically speaking, but what I did not foresee was that our universal-sized cloth diapers were too big for him those months, and that we had to wait a lot longer than originally thought before we could use them. We ended up buying the traditional lampin and using them for months, then used disposables whenever we would go out of the house.
At first, I thought all high-end diapers were the same, and that, since they were high-end, they had all the best features. We were paying premium for it, after all.
Fast forward to baby P’s fourth month when we flew to the US to visit my family there. We ended up bringing a huuuuge box of high-end diapers. I didn’t want to risk trying out a different diaper while on a trip, mainly because I wasn’t sure how my then-infant would react to them. Disposable diapers in the US are even more expensive, so trying out different brands to find out what works for him while on the trip was probably not a good idea for my son, nor for our pockets.
We ended up bringing a whole box – they were too bulky that we had to bring it as a separate box. Along with a carseat, stroller, and our own luggages, you can imagine just how many things we brought – it’s a good thing my family in the US were always there to help us out.
To be honest, that got me thinking about looking for better diapers to suit our needs, but I had no idea where to start. I just knew I didn’t want to travel with that big a box anymore – just for diapers!
Thankfully, Pampers reached out to us for a possible partnership, and after learning more about their baby-dry line, I’m just glad I did not close the door right away and listened to what they had to say.
In this blogpost, I am sharing our Pampers experience. We have been using Pampers since my son was around 10 or 11 months (for traveling, and sometimes, even for trips within Manila) and these are the reasons (based on our own experience) that make us love the baby-dry line of Pampers!
- THIN BUT HAS VERY GOOD ABSORPTION. I did not realize how important this is until we started traveling. Eversince we switched to Pampers baby-dry, we don’t feel the space it takes up in our luggage anymore. We have traveled using it within the country, but have also brought it with us to long-haul trips like Paris (3 weeks worth of diapers). As I write this actually, we are doing a trip across the US and Canada, and we have brought packs good for 1.5 months with us! I seriously cannot stress enough just how space-saving their packaging and actual diapers are. Even for my diaper bag, I hardly feel that I’m stocking 3-5 diapers for when we go out for the day. Now, thinness is one important feature, but it would be useless if it wasn’t effective in absorbing the liquid that goes in it. This I can attest for us: not once did P have a leak with Pampers baby-dry, and has had a few leaks with our previous (supposedly high-end) brand. True story. As my husband says (since he changes our son’s diapers more than I do – “magaling talaga ang Pampers!”). Another true story for us: since my son is breastfed and very active, it’s normal that he’s grown to be long and lean (as opposed to the usual idea of a chubby baby). With our cloth diapers, he kept going up a size for his bottoms, but after using Pampers, we realized it’s because of the cloth diapers, not because of his actual size. The thinness of Pampers allows us to extend the use of P’s bottoms much longer (aka more tipid) because of its thinness! Lastly, because of its thin size, it uses less materials and requires smaller packaging, which is actually one of the goals of the company in their effort to reduce environmental impact and conserve resources (I have to say, I really appreciate this part!). They have already achieved a 50% reduction rate in their diaper materials and packaging over the past two decades, which I think is amazing.
- GOOD ABSORPTION: As mentioned in reason number 1, Pampers has been really good in absorbing the wetness, but I have to stress here that their claim of dryness up to 12 hours is soooo true. Now, let me be clear here and say that I think you should still change a child’s diapers often (or whenever you feel that he or she has peed and more so, after he or she has pooped), but this feature comes in very handy when you’re outside the house and there’s no proper changing station, or when the child is sleeping. In Paris, for example, we have never come across a restroom with a diaper changing station. Good thing we brought this stroller, which we could recline so we can change his diaper, but still, we had to look for spots where it seemed okay to change him. And sometimes, that took time. The same holds true for our current trip – during our roadtrip across the Canadian rockies, we had to wait for the bus to make stops so we could change him properly.
- ZERO RASHES. I admit, I was worried about how baby P would react to a new brand of diapers, but thankfully, we’ve had zero rashes with the baby-dry line. Even when my son has worn it longer than he should have, especially during travels.
- EVEN ABSORPTION OF WETNESS. Pampers has launched the new baby-dry last March. I love how big brands like them continuously look for ways to improve their products, and in the new baby-dry, they added a feature that was once available only for their premium line (yes! they have a premium line that’s made in Japan!): the magic gel channels! See, the previous baby-dry had magic gels to absorb the wetness of the liquid, but it did not have the channels to distribute the liquid properly. With the new baby-dry, the magic channels have been spread out evenly, which means that the liquid does not concentrate only on a side, but spread out the liquid evenly, resulting to less sagging (which can really be uncomfortable for babies)!
- GREAT FIT. Okay, so I haven’t tried each and every brand of diaper out there, but I have to say that I am happy with the fit of Pampers on my son. Its thinness allows him to move with very little weight, so I assume it’s comfortable and easy to move (imagine if we wore heavy diapers? Actually, I don’t have to imagine — I did wear disposable adult diapers post-birth, and I hated it. It felt so heavy and weird.) Fit is very important in any article of clothing for children. Because they learn mostly from movement, bad fitting articles of clothing can really hinder development. When I was reading about Montessori’s principles, I came across a book or blog (sorry, I don’t remember the source exactly huhu) that said something like “You won’t go to the gym in a dress, will you?”, and that made so much sense for me. If we need comfortable clothing to be able to move, the same principle must apply to our children. Diapers are often overlooked, though, because we often assume saggy diapers are normal, not realizing how it could really affect their movement. While cloth diapers are bulkier, I stick with them for environmental purposes and supposedly for easier toilet training (my thoughts on this at the end of the post). However, we disposed of the thick kinds after one use. Even if they were advertised to be more breathable and all that, the fit just didn’t seem right for my son. It was very hard to put on any shorts or pants, too! Truthfully speaking, the best for movement, really, would be to have no diapers on — but diapers have been an answer to our lifestyle these days — surely, we cannot just let our children pee and poop whenever and wherever they like, especially while we are traveling, running errands, or just outside our homes! Thin diapers would be the next best for me – but it shouldn’t just be thin, it should fit well, too.
Overall, we are happy we switched to Pampers. It is definitely value for money. The only thing to note here, is that if you’re already at the stage of supporting toddlers’ need for using the toilet, using any kind of diaper can delay that process.
Aside from the environmental factors, we decided to go mainly for cloth diapers because from what I’ve read, with cloth diapers, it’s easier for children to feel the wetness and compare it to the feeling of dryness, which meant an easier shift to using the actual toilet once they show readiness (In Montessori, this is somewhere around the age of 18 months). This was true during Pablo’s first months – he would cry the moment he was wet – which meant he was communicating for his need to be changed. However, it is also true that children adapt quickly and we later realized that even with cloth diapers that barely had those anti-leak features, he just got so used to it that he just doesn’t react anymore, even if he’s peed several times already. The bottomline? In our experience, cloth diapers are not necessarily better than disposables in this aspect. Once your child is showing readiness for using the actual toilet, I feel that for diaper users like us, the best way to do it is to allow him or her to go diaper-free as much as possible, and have diapers ready whenever you’re out.
Hope this post was helpful for you! Till the next blog!
