Sunday, January 14, 2007

Cheap diapers

We went back to disposables at my husband's request. I found several broken packs of Little Tikes diapers in the clearance cart at Big Lots. I've been using this brand with great success--much, much better than Luvs or Walmart generics. I couldn't tell what the normal prices were ($9 for the mega pack?), but I'll be watching for these soft, stretchy diapers again.
Meanwhile, I've been experimenting with infant potty training. It's supposed to be an all-or-nothing pursuit, but I think we're still saving a few diapers per day with no effort. And if it speeds potty training in the long run, well, all the better!

Baby Cheapskate keeps a watchful eye on the lowest diaper prices. Check out her sidebar for the records!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let us know how the EC goes, and if you can do it almost full time -- I've not been brave enough to try it with my two. LOL

I agree about the Luvs ... I had tried them with my oldest and they were the worst (along with another certain store brand), not lasting even an hour much of the time.

With my second, I committed to not using the big name brands, and so far I have not, having the best success with the White Cloud, Smiles and Target Premium diapers. I also have been mostly cloth diapering him for over a year and a half, which has resulted in a huge savings in diapers (my husband does not want to deal with cloth, so we use disposables for when cares for the kids and when we have outings).

Anonymous said...

Go you!! :)

Out of curiousity, why did your husband not want you to do cloth diapers anymore? Joshua was kinda iffy on it when we first had Yehoshua, but now he's a believer. After seeing how much it cost for disposables for the first month of having a newborn!! :)

I did EC with Yehoshua from the ages of 4 months to almost a year or so.

With Eliyahu, we had the choice of cloth or Huggies since every other kind of diaper gave him severe diaper rash starting at 2 days old. Paying top dollar for Huggies made it really easy to keep using cloth diapers 100% of the time! Plau, I like laundry.

Okay, I know... I'm one of those wacko cloth diapering people who like to talk about it... :)

The Mom said...

I know some people don't like Smiles (from Sams) but for quality and cost, I'd take them over Huggies and Pampers. They work really well for both of mine (boy and girl). We only have wet throughs if the diaper becomes heavily soiled (like after a long day shopping and no diaper changing sessions have occured. :O)

Luvs are terrible, White Cloud and Parents Choice are gross but I've been very pleased with Smiles. Just thought I'd mention that!

Hey, I'll have to try Big Lots some time. I haven't looked around much for diapers other than just Walmart and Sams.

BTW, in case you're wondering... I found your blog through Tammy's recipe site. :)

Meredith said...

I don't know what EC is either! Perhaps it's an acronym for infant potty training. I thought the idea was bizarre until I saw something on TV about it. Then I checked out a hippie-ish book from the library which convinced me it was truly crazy! The idea of doing it with a newborn was just scary.

But now that my little one is seven months old, she's fairly regular about wetting. I like to leave her diapers off as much as I can whenever we're home. I think it's more comfortable for her and discourages rashes. If she accidentally wets the wood floors or her high chair, I just wipe it up. Otherwise I sit her on my lap over the potty when I know she needs to go (just waking from a nap, etc.). I'm not trying for rigid training--just to make her comfortable with the toilet at an early age.

Think about it--half the children in the world don't wear diapers!

Meredith said...

Tammy, my husband is so great about helping me with the laundry. Not that I can't keep up with it on my own, but he's very proactive about starting loads and folding. He just didn't think the cloth diapering was worth it for us. I didn't mind it at all, but then our initial diapers grew too small and I never replaced them.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry ...

EC = elimination communication

:-)

Anonymous said...

Yes, the Big Lots diapers (Little Tikes) are $9 regularly for the big paks, $6 for the small ones. Either way it's about $0.15 per diaper. I used them with great success.

I also really liked the Aldi brand diapers, also around $0.15 per diaper; they're made by the same company that makes White Cloud from Walmart. I suspect this since I once found traces of a White Cloud tab strip with the John Lennon print in my Aldi diaper package.

But my favorites are the Sams Club Smiles brand, and they're the cheapest per diaper ($0.135) for something that actually works well. I have the added bonus of not paying for a membership since it's under my father's business, thanks Dad!!

I don't care for the Parents Choice or the Target brand. Both had stiff tabs that either dug into or scratched my daughter's cubby thighs.

Also, my daughter and I frequent the Thompson Lane branch, and not only did I see the crabby man there last Wed, but we also were there on the African drum day. The librarian is so sweet; the trip is worth it just for her!

Thanks for such a great blog!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the mention! Care to do a Baby Cheapskate-style review of Little Tykes for our store brand review archive?

There's a great deal on Huggies this week at Walgreens. Less than $4 per jumbo after the rebate. (http://babycheapskate.blogspot.com/2007/01/top-diaper-formula-deals-of-week_13.html)

Anonymous said...

Grace, hello neighbor! Be sure to introduce yourself if you see us at the library again!

Thanks for the Little Tikes diaper price check. I have used and like the White Cloud, too, but we no longer have a Sam's membership.

Jeana said...

I did a relaxed form of the infant potty training. It was never my goal to keep from going in the diapers compeltely, but he went in the potty once or twice a day and it did make the transition to potty training easier because he already had made that connection of what exactly he was supposed to do when I sat him on the potty.

MommyLydia said...

My friend Beth's sister did almost total EC with both of her girls. Every time we were over there, she was watching her kids all the time and would swoop down, pick them up and carry them to a kid-size toilet that they had in their room. They'd sit the baby on the toilet and sit there in front of baby, waiting for her to finish her business.

It really seemed to work well for them. I don't know if they used diapers at night or not. She grew up in Peru and it may be this was more like what she was used to growing up.

I've been trying to decide about cloth vs disposable diapers (though my husband will get a lot of say since he's going to be the stay at home parent at first, he's going to be the one that has to deal with most of the diaper changes!) _Baby Bargains_ has a lot of people saying that, past size 2, Kirkland Signature (Costco brand) is the best diapers they've been able to find. Huggies gets a LOT of negative reviews.

It is unlikely that we will be able to do cloth diapering, whatever I want, while we are here in Washington -- apartment dwellers who pay quarters for the washing machine (and a LOT of them) but I'm tempted by Gdiapers. (Http://www.gdiapers.com/)

And I do believe, even if we go with disposables, I want to do cloth wipes. Have at least that much savings in the process. And it shouldn't be too difficult to have enough on hand to be able to wash once a week.