How many diapers a day?

[Serendipitee]

Hi there. I am having my first baby in a couple of months, and have a family connection for cheap Pampers. I plan to stock up at the sale next week! How many diapers a day (approx.) does a newborn go through, and does that change at say, 3 months of age? Thanks. Trying to sort out how many of each size to get for the first few months, without buying too many of a certain size.

[WatchingThemGrow]

Every baby is different. Our babies both went through at least 2 large boxes of Newborns, 2 boxes of 1's or 1-2's, and at least a box of 2's. They were slow gainers after losing a lot after birth. Friends' babies grew out of 1-2's in a couple months and they never fit in newborns.

Will you be able to exchange them for a larger size if you don't open the box? How often will you be able to get this deal?

This time, we ended up needing several more boxes of the smaller sizes (1 and 1-2) because DS is so skinny, so I've bought some overstocks from people on Craigslist if they were obviously not taken out of the bag. Any cost savings they had from buying them ahead was negated by having to get rid of them at a loss. Something to consider...

About how many per day...I think we used on average 10/day for the first couple weeks, then it went down to 8. At 5 mos, we're doing about 6/day maybe.

I like to stock up, too. I'd rather just try to plan it conservatively, store them and use every coupon from email, ads, internet, manufacturer along with a store sale to pay as little as possible for the best diapers I can than run out and have to buy them off the shelf full-price. Good luck!!

[bubbaray]

IME, the size that most kids are in for the longest is size 3.

I would get 2 packs of newborn, 3-4 boxes of size 1-2 or size 2 (depending on which type of Pampers you get) and the rest size 3. You don't want to end up with too many of a too small size.

[sidmand]

I agree, it's hard to know, especially in the beginning. We didn't want to buy a big box of newborn dipes and so far we've gone through two packages of 40 and just bought a pack of 80! DD was 7 lbs 2 oz when born, but if you have a bigger baby, you might not need any newborn dipes at all. Also, I've found that Pampers newborns are much smaller than Huggies newborns, but I think it switches at some point because we use Huggies Supremes and I'm pretty sure someone said Pampers ran bigger than those...

We were told to change her before every feeding (to wake her up) but she invariably poops during the feeding so sometimes we change her afterwards or both. I'd say we use about 8-10 diapers per day or so right now. With DS (size 6 diapers and almost three-years-old) we change him every 3-5 hours only during the daytime, so we only use/used about 4 or so diapers (excluding overnites) once he could sleep through the night, which was probably about a size 3 or 4 diaper.

[shaee]

I am due in a few weeks too and was thinking of buying and stocking up because of a few deals I saw.

I figured i will go with size 1 (box of 216 swaddlers) ... cant go wrong with that because size 1 will be used eventually if not in the beginning.

Is that a good plan?

[Wife_and_mommy]

For us the size we used/use the most is size 4. DS was in a 4 from 2m, dd from 6m. They weighed 14 or so. DS is still in a 4 at 29#.

I've heard of many who use 3's for a while. We had issues with leaks so moved up with no fit problems whatsoever.

[JBaxter]

I just wanted to chime in be wary of buying in bulk before your baby comes not all diapers fit all babies well. Nathan was very sensitive to certian brands and I would have bought a case and not been able to use it. My suggestion is buy one bag first to make sure they fit well and dont cause rashes. Then buy in larger quantity

[egoldber]

I agree I would not stock up. With Sarah, Pampers fit best. With Amy Huggies fit her much better. And even though she's tiny, she's been in size 4 forever. She was barely in 2s or 3s.

[pastrygirl]

I also wouldn't stock up. We went through every brand possible before finding one that didn't leak. (That was Luvs, for the first couple of months, then Pampers Swaddlers then Pampers Cruisers.) My son was in size newborn to size 3 only for the first few months. He was in size 4 by 4 months old!

[codex57]

I just wanted to chime in be wary of buying in bulk before your baby comes not all diapers fit all babies well. Nathan was very sensitive to certian brands and I would have bought a case and not been able to use it. My suggestion is buy one bag first to make sure they fit well and dont cause rashes. Then buy in larger quantity

I agree. When DS was just born, we tried a bunch of different brands on him. Settled on Pampers Swaddlers, but that's because we liked them better. We developed a STRONG preference for Swaddlers. He didn't seem to care what was on him.

If you're trying to stock up, buying bigger can be better. That's what the nurse told us during delivery. DS was a premie so their newborn sized diapers were way too big. Nurse just taught us to fold is so that it would fit him. Said it can work like that even when they get bigger.

We just bought two boxes at a time (at most). They grow quickly but do seem to slow down some at size 3 or so. So, I wouldn't stock up too much at Newborn and Size 1.