Thursday, October 15, 2009

Thursday's Thing- Lexus vs. Toyota, or Great vs Very Good Diapers

Today's topic of discussion is diapers. Lots of moms have their favorite brand and will only stick to that brand. That's ok, but I just have to say don't knock it till you've tried it. And I have tried plenty of diapers, like wipes. I don't actually have a favorite diaper, but since one of my favorite things is money, I try to keep mine by buying the cheapest thing available. This is easy to do since my kids are older and not prone to blow-outs the way they were as wee little things. But to be honest, I really love the Pampers swaddlers for newborns and infants. Once my kids got into the Size 2 diapers, they had a bit more control of their bowels (read:less explosive diahrea) and so the kind of diapers they wore became a lot less of an issue. Their butts just needed to be covered, and if I could do it for less than 20cents a changing, that was good enough for me!

So for the sake of efficiency, I am going to share with you my thoughts, and the prices of size 1 and size 4 diapers from my three major shopping locales: Target, Walmart, and Costco.

Pampers Swaddlers Diapers-
These are THE BEST diapers for newborns, and infants. I LOVED these diapers so very very much when my kids were babies. They use them at the hospital, so you are already sucked into using them, but they use them at the hospital because they are awesome. They are soft, and have a nice and faint baby aroma to them. Nothing too abbrasive, especially since newborns being as cute as they are manage to make the nastiest messes. First you have the black tar poop, then you have that psychotic yellow-curry juicy-grossness mess. But the sweet Pampers keeps all that crap on the inside, as best as it possibly can.
And Big Bird and his Sesame Street friends grace these wonderous diapers, giving you an encouraging smile while you change your newborn for the 15th time in the same hour, and the hour happens to be 3am.
Size 1:At Target- 216 diapers for $42 puts you at 19.4cents a butt-cover. They are $2 cheaper, according to the Walmart website, which puts you at 18.5cents a diaper.

Luvs Premium Stretch Diapers-
These diapers are 'pretty good'. They are made by the same company as Pampers (Proctor&Gamble), so think Lexus when you are using Pampers, and Toyota when you are using Luvs. My beef with Luvs is that I find them to be a bit too thin, which is kind of one of their selling points, though I don't really understand why. Are we, as a society, already trying to get our babies to be body-conscious? A big diaper does not help or hurt a baby's blob of a frame. They are just a blob with a giant head on top! And another thing that kind of gets to me is the smell. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't. But some people buy Luvs cause they love the smell the most. To each his own. And if you happen to be a big Blues Clues fan, then these diapers will have you coming back for more.
At Target- size 1s are 264/$39. That puts you at 14cents a diaper, which is great, but I actually prefered to pay 5cents more for the Lexus of newborn/infant diapers. size 4s are 21cents, since you pay the same price for the box, but you only get 180.
At Walmart they are.. I don't know cause the Walmart website is still sucking... But look for coupons people! Cause P&G is pretty good about putting those out there.

Huggies Snug & Dry-
You can't go wrong with Huggies products, but they are so far superior that I ever go out of my way to buy their products. And even with coupons, and when they are on sale, they are not cheaper than the cheapest kind out there. Sure these are cute, with little Mickey Mouse characters on them, but if my kids want to see Mickey Mouse, I will just turn the tv on for them since we pay to have cable.
For size 1s- get them at Target cause they are 228/$39, which puts you at 17cents a diaper, as opposed to 18cents at Walmart. For Size 4s though, go to WAlmart for 140/$35, which puts you at 25cents a diaper. It's the same price per unit, but if you go to Costco you can get a box of 200/$50.

Parents Choice-
Again, only at Walmart. And I know I really hated on them last week for their sucky wipes, but I am all about their diapers. They are cheap and they do the trick. The only trick they don't do is tell you what size they are. This truly stinks if you have two kids who are a year apart and not wearing the same size. (Lots of people do that, right? Have kids reallyclose together? It's the cool thing to do, right!??)... Anyway, that was annoying, but Topher and Lily have both been wearing size 4s for a while now, so that's no longer an issue. These daipers also have no cute characters on their package, which is probably why they are cheaper than the rest, and that's fine for me cause I pay enough for cable, I don't need to pay more for characters that my kids can pee on.
These diapers are about 15cents a piece, which is why they are my diaper of choice. I don't have exact figures for you, but I believe I a box of 82 goes for about $14.

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