Diapers may be life-savers for parents during the first few years of their child’s life. But they can just as easily be a pain, financially. Still, as new parents, it’s perhaps a good idea to already start stocking up on nappies to take care of your baby’s poos and pees.
But the question really is: exactly how many diapers is too much or too little?
As is everything else in your little tot’s life, there are a lot of things to consider when shopping for diapers. Price being at the top. That’s because the cost of diapers, whether disposable or cloth, are significantly different for each type and/or brand.
And since raising a child in Singapore will cost you reportedly $285,468, it’s best that you figure out how much you’ll spend on diapers in your baby’s first few years.
How Many Diapers For The First Year?
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Before you welcome your little one to his/her new home, you should already have a fair share of diapers on-the-go. Let us take you through how this will work out in your baby’s first few years.
- Infants: Newborns typically need six to nine diaper changes a day. Hopefully, you’ll get to start stockpiling newborn diapers as gifts from your baby shower. Which means that in just their first week, you’ll be needing roughly 70 to 100 pieces of diapers for you baby.
- One-year-old: You also have to prepare for around 2,000 to 3,000 pieces of diapers for your baby’s first year.
- One year and above: But as your baby grows older, you’ll be happy to know that this number will decrease in time and you won’t have to deal with these many wet and messy nappies in the years to come.
At this point, you should have also already decided whether you’ll be using disposable or cloth diapers as this will also depend on how many you’ll be stocking up with.
For cloth diapers, you get to at least purchase fewer pieces but the safest number would be around 20 newborn cloth diapers. Although even with a tonne stored up at home, expect to do a lot of constant laundering within a week.
As for disposable diapers, if you’re still trying out new diaper brands for your baby, you don’t necessarily have to bulk buy the first diaper brand you choose.
Every baby is different and sometimes a particular size or feel of the diaper just won’t work for them. If you find a good fit and type as well as a reasonable price for you, then go ahead and stock up!
Which brings us to the inevitable question of: whether to buy disposable or cloth diapers. Let us show you how you can make that choice for your little one.
Why Choose Disposable Diapers For Babies
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When buying disposable diapers for your little one, you should take into account the sizes. Newborn diaper sizes, for instance, would probably only last for the first few weeks so you won’t need to buy big bulks of it.
If you have enough storage space at home, you can always buy different diaper sizes that your baby will grow into, such as between sizes S to M. Remember that diaper sizes depend on the weight of your baby, so you should also keep in mind their growth rate when shopping for diapers.
Taking disposable tape-type diapers as an example, this is the size chart you can refer to:
- Newborn (NB): Newborn to 5 kg
- Small (S): 4 kg to 8 kg
- Medium (M): 6 kg to 11 kg
- Large (L): 9 kg to 14 kg
- Extra Large (XL): 12 kg to 20 kg
Do also keep in mind that every baby grows at their own rate and speed. So it won’t be easy to instantly determine what diaper sizes and types would last for them.
The Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) has also advised that you should frequently change your baby’s diapers to keep their little bums clean and dry. This also helps in preventing your little one from developing rashes or infections from wearing soiled diapers for too long.
Why Choose Cloth Diapers For Babies
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Many new parents also prefer cloth diapers more than disposable ones as they are not only cost-effective but also environmental-friendly.
You also won’t have to worry about stocking up so many pieces as your baby grows for there are cloth diapers that can adjust to your little one’s size from newborn and to the rest of the year.
While it was suggested earlier that you have at least 20 pairs of cloth diapers, it really depends on how much you are willing to wash every now and then. But it still wouldn’t hurt to have enough in your storage space at home.
Hopefully now you know how many diapers in the first year your baby would need. We would also recommend consulting with your doctor to check on your baby’s growth spurts to be on the ball with this crucial purchase.
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