Bringing a new baby into the world is an exciting and nerve-wracking time. Your household will have to adjust how it lives and functions to fit the new child’s needs and that won’t change anytime soon. Out of all the items you need to purchase for your new baby, diapers are arguably the most important. Until your baby can start toilet training, they will be using a lot of diapers and you’re going to be spending a lot on buying them. So what should you look for in the diapers you buy? Some of the critical qualities of a good diaper are absorbency, the size and comfort of the fit, and the materials used to make them.
Absorbency
You’re going to want to get diapers that can hold a good deal of waste. A leaky diaper is a bad diaper. If you were to judge which diaper to buy based on absorbency alone, most people would say you’re doing just fine. As the most important trait of any diaper, you want to find a brand that you like that offers the maximum amount of absorption. But how much liquid the diaper can hold isn’t the only trait of absorbency you should look at, how well it wicks liquid away from the baby’s skin is very important. If you use diapers that don’t adequately absorb all the liquid and keep it away from the child’s skin, then the baby could get diaper rash because of the constant moisture.
According to Baby Gear Lab, the chemical that is responsible for the high absorbency of just about all diaper brands is SAP: Super Absorbent Polymer. This fine powder looks like fine white sand and is placed in the core pads and absorption layers of the diaper. Both green and non-green brands like Bambo, Seventh Generation, gDiapers, and the Honest Company use it.
Size and Baby’s Comfort
You want to find a brand of diaper that fits your baby. Like regular clothing, diapers need to be sized properly, otherwise they could make the baby uncomfortable, which would then make everyone in the house uncomfortable with the constant crying and wailing. An ill fitting diaper can also cause problems of leakage. According to Buzzle, diaper sizes are decided and diapers made according to the baby’s age and weight. Sizes can also differ according to the manufacturer. And while most manufacturer’s offer assurances that their products are leak free and boast a double sealing edge with liners and so on, you won’t be able to find the right fit without a little experimentation. Finding a diaper brand that fits your baby and is comfortable for them will definitely take a little bit of time and effort. You’ll need to try out a couple different brands and types before finding the right one for you and your child.
What Materials Are Used
When it comes to picking what materials you would prefer your baby’s diapers to be made from, you have a couple of additional decisions you need to make. Are you going to use cloth or disposable diapers? And will you go green and eco-friendly or not? The simplest and easiest route is to get disposables. They are easy to use and don’t require any additional work besides tossing them away after you’ve replaced the old one with a fresh one. And according to What to Expect, you’ll actually have to change your baby’s diaper less often with disposables because they’re ultra-absorbent.
Cloth diapers will require a lot more work, but you will save a good deal of money, unless you opted to use a diaper service. Compared to the upwards of $2,000 you can expect to spend buying solely disposables, with cloth, you can get away with only spending $300 or so for your entire baby’s diaper using career. Cloth diapers can be made with a number of materials, The Natural Baby Co lists bamboo, cotton, hemp, modal, fleece, wool, and polyester as common materials for various parts of the diaper. Zany-Zebra lists even more materials with some like microfiber, microfleece, burly knit terry, suedecloth, Sherpa, and velour used in diapers. As you can see, there are a lot of different fabrics for you to pick from. Choosing the right one for your baby is going to require some time and research along with some testing.
A number of the materials listed above are used in Green diaper brands and if you’re environmentally conscious, then you should look into those brands. Even if you’ll have more work ahead of you with cleaning the reusable diapers, the amount of waste you can save by not using disposables is quite significant. If you’re serious about going green with your child’s diapers, then go check out Honest.com’s baby diapers or other green stores and see what they offer. Buy a pack to try them out and if they don’t work out the way you’d like, find another brand to try next.
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