This article is going to be a “how to” about diapers. Ever want to know how to buy diapers, how to put on a diaper, or how many diapers to buy? This article will give you the low-down on what you need to know.

How to buy diapers

When you buy diapers, make sure you do some math on how much you are paying for each diaper. Companies tend to put a different number of diapers in each box. I think they do this on purpose, so you don’t realize you’re paying the same or more for each diaper, depending on what you’re buying. For example, someone once told me to go to a membership warehouse (e.g. Costco or Sam’s Club) and buy their store brand diapers and it’s cheaper than the name brands like Pampers® or Huggies®. I just went to Costco’s website and see that a box of 216 store-brand size 1-2 diapers is $39.99 and a box of Huggies® size 2 diapers with 258 diapers in the box is $49.99. So, yes, you can spend less money by buying the store-brand, but you’ll be buying a new box sooner and not saving anything per diaper. Either way, you’ll be paying $0.19 / diaper for this size. When you get to size 5 diaper, also notice that you not only pay the same $49.99 for both brands, but you get less diapers. Based on prices today, you will actually pay more for the store-brand, paying $0.30 per diaper for 168 diapers and pay $0.28 per diaper for 176 Huggies® diapers. So, even if you don’t like math, take a calculator to get the most bang for your buck.

How many diapers to buy

Saving pennies might not seem like a big deal, but when you add up the amount of money you can save when you figure out just how many diapers you will buy in the first two years, it really does add up! Since I’ve already gone over how many diapers your baby will use by age, I’ll only reiterate that it will be in the neighborhood of 4,700 in the first two years alone (you can try to potty train early). I calculated that’s roughly $500 you can save by making sure you buy the box where you pay the least per diaper! If you have twins or triplets, watch out! This makes me wish I had done the math when I was buying a lot of diapers!

How to cloth diaper

Truth be told I only half-considered using cloth diapers, but this seemed like a good place to give you resources on where you can go to learn how to cloth diaper your baby. I found a really good video that shows you how to cloth diaper, which looks VERY similar to disposable diapers, if you choose an “all-in-one” cloth diaper. Here’s the video:

How to clean cloth diapers

According to The Cloth Diaper Whisperer, finding the routine that fits you takes some time, but the simple steps that tend to work are:

Using your washing machine:

1. Cold Water Rinse (no detergent)
2. Hot Water Wash with detergent
3. Rinse – If the load is particularly bad, consider a “quick wash” instead of just a rinse
4. Dry – Medium heat for about 60-80 minutes or hang on clothes dryer

In the same video series as above, here’s one on how to clean cloth diapers.

How to put on a disposable diaper

Here is a very good video on how to put on a disposable diaper:

If you are considering cloth diapers, but aren’t sure whether it’s more work or not or whether it will really save you money, here is a very good series of posts explaining the benefits: Cloth vs. Disposable. As I said, I never quite ventured into cloth diapers. I think I just became so overwhelmed with baby “stuff” when I was pregnant the first time, I just didn’t have any more brainpower to make that decision and I never revisited it the second time around. Researching for this article may have changed my mind!

How to organize clean diapers

Many people just keep the diapers in the box as quickly as you go through them, but if you want another way to organize your diapers, you can consider a Diaper Stacker or Diaper Essentials Organizer

How to store dirty diapers

Storing dirty diapers will keep your nursery (or any other room in your house) from smelling like a bathroom and prevent you from needing to run to the dumpster after every diaper change. We used the Diaper Champ because you can use regular kitchen trash bags rather than buy the expensive inserts that you have to keep buying with other systems. If you are using cloth diapers, you can use a wet bag or laundry bag to store soiled diapers.

I hope you enjoyed this article about how to: diapers and found the information useful.

Share your diapering tips!