[frugal tarheel]

Congrats to you and your wife!

You've gotten a lot of great advice from folks who've been diapering babies far more recently than I BUT, I did want to add a little something.

When it comes time for a baby shower and folks ask what you want/need, I would strongly urge you to ask for diapers and wipes. That way, you can try out all the brands to see what works best for your baby.

(Diapers and wipes, along with contributions to the 529 account, are my favorite gifts to give to new parents.)

You also won't end up with five diaper genies, four baby bathtubs, three dozen 0-6-month outfits, and a host of other "must-haves" that you really don't need to raise a baby.

Congrats again!

Living the frugal life in Apex,
Amy
www.ourfrugaljourney.com

[beepampered]

I usually just buy the HUGE pack of Walmart-brand diapers and they end up being about .10 cents a diaper.

During the day we use cloth diapers and this is always the cheapest method. It also encourages early potty training which means fewer months/years of diapers and that's an unaccounted for savings.

I also use soft cloths instead of wipes - way more environmental friendly, cheaper and more efficient in my opinion.

At night, we use disposables. My first child was allergic to Huggies. As far as absorption goes, I've found that I might have to go up a size to get through the night without leaking. (So, my son only weights 22 pounds but is in a size 5 which I think is for 25+ pounds).

Congratulations. The most important thing to remember is that everything is just a phase and all our wonderful advice doesn't mean anything - YOU'RE the one in charge.

BEE

[Catt]

I did the same as "beepampered" with my kids: Cloth during the day and disposables at night, since they will absorb more. Saved a TON of money that way and helped save landfill space. And it really is not complicated at all to use cloth.

And, yes, there are SO many things at "Baby Superstore" kinds of places that you don't need. I found it overwhelming just to walk into places like that. Follow your instincts and just stick to the basics. Congratulations!

[ebtswtmommy]

BTW, I did this with both of my girls and plan on doing it with the new baby also. I used to always cut all of my wipes in half. I'd open the pack, get out my scissors and cut them all neatly in half. I'd store half of them in a ziploc baggie, so they wouldn't dry out, and put the rest back in the wipe dispenser. Babies are so small, that even half a wipe does a great clean up. Obviously, you may need to use a few wipes each time, but in general you go through less. My husband who has HUGE hands, never found it to be a problem.

FYI, I do this with paper towels, and dryer sheets too. I read in the Frugal Gazette about using smaller amounts of laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent etc and it really works. You just have to put in a little bit of detective work to figure out how much of something you need in order to do the job of cleaning. With my dishwasher, I put just a little squirt and my dishes still come out sparkling. I use less than 1/2 the recommended dosage for laundry and everything still comes out great.

HTH!!

[Gatlee]

[ebtswtmommy]

Gatlee,

If the select-a-size are on sale, I'll buy those, but generally I just buy regular size paper towels. I just pull the paper towel on the perforation and once it's off the roll, I'll fold it in half to give it a bit of a crease and tear in half. And, if I'm giving them to my girls, I'll quarter them. They're hands are so small, they can get away with such a small size. But, if I only have a half left, I'll then tuck the unused portion back into the top of the roll opening. So basically, I do it as I go. I wish I could think of a way to do it for all of them because my husband will pull 2-3 towels at a time and it drives me batty to see such waste, but he's such a good guy in so many other ways, I try, try, try to let it just slide.

I suppose, you could use an empty tissue box . . . Now you've got me thinking.

[Gatlee]

Thats what I try to do also, but I have the same problem w/the hubby(and kids, casue they can reach them now!)! But the same holds true....we have to pick our battles... right?
What about using a table saw and cutting the rolls in half LOL

[ebtswtmommy]

Tara,

Any excuse to break out the ole power tools!!!

[ebtswtmommy]

Dan,
Update on the store brand diapers from Baby's R' Us. They're horrible. Don't buy them. They leak something fierce and I've had to change his clothes and mine about 2 -3 times a day. I know I should just cut my losses, but I have 192 diapers and I want to use them all. I'm hoping as he gets a bit bigger, they'll fit a bit better, and perhaps provide better protection, but I'm not really holding out any hope.

Live and learn.

[Catt]

Do they have any type of guarantee on those Toys R Us diapers? I'm sure you paid a lot for 192 diapers, even if they were a store brand. I would talk to the store manager and tell him/her about the problems you had with the diapers. You might at least get a partial store credit or something.

[PetrinaH]

Congrats to you and your wife! I haven't been on much as of late!

My hubby and I have a soon to be 2 year old girl. I have to respectfully disagree with other posters re: Luvs. I tried these with some high value q's I lucked into and I HATED them. There was a definite difference in quality.

For just about the entire first year of her life, we used Walgreen's brand diapers. About a month or two before she was born, I lucked into a great store coupon/sale deal for these at Walgreen's that made each pack about 25 cents!!! So we stocked up majorly with all different sizes- we filled her closet almost entirely with diapers. We were surprised at how well these worked- I was afraid of quality issues, rashes and the like but we and she tolerated them just fine.

Now we alternate between Huggies and Pampers- whichever we can find the best deal on with q's. I'm looking forward to potty training so we can eliminate this expense.

When it comes to wipes, we have a brand preference for Huggies wipes and thankfully we've found some great deals- most recently at CVS where the jumbo packs were ringing up at the same price at the smaller packs several months back so we're well stocked on these. Pampers wipes are very very flimsy so I've learned the hard way to stay away from these.

You can also go "green" and use cloth diapers which, if you start from the get go, you can wind up saving money on. We opted against it due to the aforementioned stash of W diapers in our closet. By the time we went through those, we just didn't think the start-up expenses would warrant the investment in cloth diapers. And we already have enough laundry to deal with due to our 3 older kids.

If you want any advice on any other baby products/issues, please feel free to PM me. We kept our baby-related spending down to a minimum (I even made our daughter her baby food to cut costs) but one of the pricey items we opted to get as been, IMHO, worth every penny...if you're looking for baby carriers, I highly highly recommend the Ergo carrier. You can also get a good deal on it if you go through the Women's Birth & Wellness Center in Chapel Hill (where we delivered at 1/2 the cost of a hospital birth BTW).

Best of luck to you and congrats on the wonderful news!

[dan]

Good to know. We picked up a couple of boxes of Huggies at CVS a few weeks ago during their ECB deal. We'll give them a whirl when the baby gets here (any day now). We're also going to try cloth diapers -- but we're not making any promises on whether we'll stick with cloth. We've heard both sides of the cloth debate -- it seems that you either love 'em or hate 'em.

[beepampered]

Hope the birth goes well, Dan. I use cloth diapers but did not use them for the first couple of months. I was too tired, the baby wets too often and too small to use the Medium sized cloth diapers which is what I have bought. Best wishes....BEE

[heazer]

Hope things go smoothly for you, and you all gets lot of rest.

We don't have a club membership anymore, but when our little boy was first born we used BJ's for our diaper needs. The reason we used them was that we ended up needing to use Pampers, and BJ's is so coupon friendly!

Every month there are diaper coupons, generally 4-5 dollars off of a case price. There is usually a coupon for 2-3 dollars off of a case of wipes. Since those are store coupons, you can stack mqs with that and really reduce the price.

Maybe to recoup some of the upfront cost of the membership you could (secretly!) share a membership with another family you are close with.

Enjoy your little one!