When it comes to disposable diapers, which brand is best? Is there really a difference beyond the price? Don’t they all serve the same purpose, after all? Cover my baby’s butt and keep the mess in. All without breaking the bank. That’s really all I’m asking – is that so hard?

Which Disposable Diapers Work Best?

Pampers Swaddlers

This is the brand they actually provided at the hospital (props to Pampers marketing team). And they’ve been great from the start. No blowouts, no leaking, they wick moisture away–everything necessary in a good diaper. They also have a nifty yellow line down the middle they call a wetness indicator that turns blue when baby is wet, which comes in quite handy when you can’t always tell if she has a dirty diaper. Another plus is how soft the Swaddlers are. The normal Pampers aren’t quite as soft, which is why I didn’t buy them. I figure soft diapers to baby is like soft toilet paper to me. “Crisper”, shall we say, diapers for her, is equal to office style toilet paper for myself. No thank you.

Honest Diapers

I was really rooting for these! They have so many cute patterns, I just loved them! Plus, with the higher price tag, I figured they’d be pretty good quality, right? More expensive means higher quality? Wrong. In this case anyway. They were so stiff it was like I was wrapping baby in cardboard. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But she also leaked out of one leg, all over the baby carrier, blanket, herself, and me… I won’t be buying these again.

Huggies Little Snugglers

Huggies was actually the brand I stuck with the entire time my oldest daughter was in diapers. Very similar to Pampers, I haven’t had a single issue with Huggies. The Little Snugglers also have a wetness indicator and a cut out area for the umbilical cord. I still had to fold them down for K2 so that it wouldn’t touch, but it made it easier.

CVS Health Diapers

Normally I wouldn’t think to buy diapers from CVS, but there was one day we had to run errands and I completely forgot to restock the diaper bag. Not having time to run back home, we stopped by CVS really quickly to pick up a pack to keep in the car. (Which is actually a really good tip, by the way, many of us don’t always remember to restock diaper bags before we leave the house.) The CVS brand was cheaper than the alternative name brand so we figured we’d try it. If they sucked, we didn’t have to use them all the time, right? Surprisingly, the diapers were very similar to Pampers or Huggies. No leakage, no blowouts, etc. Unfortunately K2 grew out of them before we could use them all, so K got some extra diapers for her baby dolls.

Luvs Ultra Leakguards

Ohhhh Luvs… K2 had the biggest blowout I’ve ever seen in these. They held almost nothing in. She was a mess! We were at the doctors office, on top of it. Thankfully my doctor was really cool about it and let us stay in the room to clean her up, which took awhile. She was so dirty we had to do a change-her-in-the-air thing to keep poop transfer minimal. Luvs also gave her her first diaper rash. They weren’t very good at wicking away moisture. We’ll be staying away from this brand. Cheap is their only positive quality.

In conclusion, Pampers Swaddlers and Huggies Little Snugglers seem to be the way to go. 

Have your kids had similar reactions to these brands or others? Let me know in the comments!

PS: Do you know what you REALLY need to register for?