Before my son was born, I had 2051 diapers in my stockpile. I know to many of you, that sounds like a lot of diapers, but in reality, that pile lasted me roughly 6 months. Babies go through diapers like they are…well, disposable! There are many advantages to using cloth diapers, and they are becoming pretty popular recently. If you go the disposable diaper route, be prepared to go through a lot of diapers. This post will teach you how to build a diaper stockpile and why you want to build a diaper stockpile before you welcome your baby. 

If you are considering cloth diapers, check out Simply Mom Bailey. She has some great tips, reviews, and information when it come to cloth diapering. 

My husband was the big neigh-sayer when it came to cloth diapering. He was grossed out by the idea, but also didn’t want to put in the effort. I appreciate all of the parents out there who cloth diaper, but for us the disposables have been easier. I am glad that we had a diaper stockpile ready before Peanut was born.

Why build a diaper stockpile?

There are some really great benefits to building a diaper stockpile before your baby is born. Most of them have to do with saving money!

• Money will likely be less tight before your little one is born. It may help your budget to balance better after baby if you have already stocked up on diapers.
• If you start now, you can just buy diapers when they are on sale. This will save you $$ in the long run.
• Shopping is much easier before you have a baby in tow. A quick run to the grocery store when you have a newborn, can be much more of a pain in the butt than you want to deal with just for a pack of diapers. Save yourself some trips, and stock up now!

How to build a diaper stockpile?

• Shop around for deals and buy diapers when you find them at a great price. I personally recommend Amazon Subscribe & Save for diapers. I have yet to find a better price on name brand diapers! Target also has some really great deals when you combine Cartwheel deals, sales, and coupons on top of your 5% Redcard savings. I’ll go through my favorite diaper brands below, but Up&Up is definitely on the list.
• Ask for diapers for gifts. I added diapers to my baby registry. In addition, when my mom threw me a shower, she had a “diaper raffle” Everyone who brought a pack of diapers received a raffle ticket and then she had a prize drawing.
• Keep receipts! You don’t know what brand or style of diaper will work best for your baby. The last thing that you want to do is stock up on diapers that you don’t end up using. The good news is that places like Walmart and Target have great long-term exchange policies. Make sure that you know where your diapers came from.

How many diapers should you buy?

Know that every baby is different! The amount of diapers in each size that you go through will vary, but you can guess based on other moms’ experiences.

For a nine month diaper stockpile, I would suggest that you aim for approximately:

Size Newborn: 148, 1 box – you will likely get some of these from the hospital as well.
Size 1: 648, 3 boxes
Size 2: 558, 3 boxes
Size 3: 900, 4 boxes
Size 4: 164, 1 box

My Peanut was a petty average sized baby until he was about 2 months old. After that he has grown very quickly.

In the first 9 months of his life, he has gone through:

Size Newborn: 129 
Size 1: 472
Size 2: 880
Size 3: 724  (we are still in this size now.)
Size 4: 164 (we use these overnight!)

He could have stayed in size 1 longer, but we ran out of the brand that we liked, and the size 2 diapers worked just fine.

When he was born my stock consisted of:

Size Newborn: 176 
Size 1: 538
Size 2: 812 
Size 3: 372
Size 5: 153 

How did I come up with these numbers? Well, I read blog posts! It was hard to put together information, but I pieced together numbers from different sources.

Here is what my research told me that other parents went through in the course of their babies being in diapers.

Size Newborn: 40-264, average 188
Size 1: 160-840, average 423
Size 2: 560-760, average 529
Size 3: 684-1512, average 1204
Size 4: 1200-1600, average 1400
I can’t speak to the validity of any of these numbers, it’s just what I found from Google.

What kind of diapers are best?

Now that we’ve talked about how to build a diaper stockpile, let’s talk about what you should build your stockpile out of. As I mentioned above, all babies are different. Ask other moms in your life what their favorite diapers are and see if you find any trends.

Here is a ranked list of all of the diapers that we have tried for Peanut.

1. Pampers Swaddlers Sensitive – These were great when he was first born. The hospital used them, and we had some at home. 
2. Pampers Swaddlerss – We didn’t have any problems switching from the sensitive Swaddlers to the regular, and our son has very sensitive skin. 
3. Pampers Baby-Dry -We use these as our overnight diapers. We put Peanut in a size too big to help prevent waking up to a wet baby. It does still happen sometimes. 
4. Huggies OverNites – I tried a free sample of these, but they were too expensive for me to buy. They worked really great though, so if you have a bed-wetter, I would recommend them. 
5. Up & Up – These are the best for budget/off-brand diapers. They don’t keep Peanut’s skin as dry as the Pampers do, but they hold plenty without leaks or blowouts. 
6. DG Baby – I have no idea where these came from, so we must have gotten them as a gift. They were similar to the Up & Up only balkier. They held a lot, but expanded when full. 
7. Huggies Little Movers –  We did not like Huggies at all. (other than the overnights) They leaked and held the smell of urine in them. I know some people who love them, but they didn’t work for our baby. 
8. Honest Company – I heard great things about these, and they are so cute! I tried them two or three times, but didn’t like them at all. They weren’t very absorbing and smelled bad. 

What is a “good deal” when it comes to diapers?

Diapers vary in price by size and brand! Generally I use the prices from Amazon Subscribe & Save as a good comparison because that is where I normally buy diapers from. Check out my Amazon Subscribe and Save page to see the best deals that I found this month. 

Size Newborn: $0.09
Size 1: $0.10
Size 2: $0.13
Size 3: $0.14
Size 4: $0.15

I think that just about covers it! What else do you want to know about how to build a diaper stockpile before baby is born? Go ahead and ask in the comments. 🙂