Two reviews in two days? What gives? I'm updating all my older diaper reviews! You can expect several more reviews in the coming weeks, and you can access them all here. If you're interested in reviewing diapers for Baby Cheapskate, join Cheep Peeps' Diaper Reviewers group Take a look at what's currently up for grabs or make a suggestion.
Today's review of Pampers Swaddlers is from lovely BC reader Karen:
Pampers Swaddlers are available in the following sizes:
- Newborn- up to 10 lbs
- Size 1- 8-14 lbs
- Size 2- 12-18 lbs
- Size 2/3- 14-22 lbs
First ImpressionsPampers Swaddlers are very soft with a light baby powder scent. The diaper has stretchy tabs and elastic sides for baby's legs and a mesh-like material inside the diaper. The diaper is white and features Baby Sesame Street characters. The newborn size has a cutout for baby's umbilical cord.
In Use
The diaper is simple to put on. It is easy to tell which side of the diaper is the front and which is the back (wasn't the case with Huggies, where the busy designs cover the entire diaper). I like the fact that the diaper is white, as this gives a visual of whether there is poop in the diaper, (just in case the smell doesn't give it away). The tabs work well, even when removed and adjusted a few times. In the four months of using Pampers Swaddlers, I've never had a broken tab. Pampers Swaddlers aren't perfect and we have experienced 4-5 blowouts over a 4 month period. Sizing is true to the weight suggestions on the box. My daughter weighs just over 12 lbs and is wearing a size 2. My baby has normal skin and we only use baby wipes when she has a dirty and not when she has a wet diaper. She hasn't had any issues with diaper rash while wearing Pampers Swaddlers.
Pros
- Soft diaper vs the paper-like consistency of cheaper diapers
- Moisture is wicked away quickly from baby's skin
- Light baby-fresh smell
- Available at all major retailers
- One of the most expensive disposable diapers available
- Breastfed baby poop tends to ride up the back of the diaper and sometimes through the leg openings, causing a mess
There is a reason why most hospitals outfit newborn babies with Pampers Swaddlers. It's a quality diaper that does a great job of removing moisture away from baby's sensitive skin immediately. The softness of the diaper is hard to compare with any other diaper brand. Pampers Swaddlers perform a great job of containing lots of pee and poop without too many leaks. I'm planning on using Pampers Swaddlers until we move on to the next step in diapers- Pampers Cruisers, perhaps?
To save on Swaddlers, be sure to register at Pampers' website. The'll send you coupons. You can also check for coupons on the Coupons and Formula Checks board at Freepeats.org and Baby Cheapskate Baby Coupon Traders.
Read about using cloth diapers with a newborn here.
Readers, what do you think of Swaddlers? Is there a comparable store brand disposable for very young babies that you've tried?
44 comments:
I totally agree with the comment about breastfed poop riding up the baby's back. This happens to my son A LOT (are Huggies better this this regard??). Otherwise, I LOVE Pampers Swaddlers.
I used Swaddlers until Mikey was too big for them. I LOVED them and I would use them again and again!
:0) Gina
Agreed! We used Pampers Swaddlers until my one year old outgrew them and now we use Cruisers. It seemed we'd have 3 or 4 days in a row with blowouts and then we'd move up a size and it would solve the problem.
We tried Luvs (leftover from my nephew) and we had leaks and blow-outs every time.
This is my baby splurge item. I know they are expensive, but they really make my life as a mom to 2 under 2 much easier.
My daughter has been using swaddlers since she was born. I loved it! She never had any diaper rash ever since she was born. She already outgrew the swaddlers, and now she is using pampers dry. I think it worth the money! I tried huggies before, but they keep leaking for some reasons.
I use Swaddlers and love them...My son just outgrew the newborn size and I have moved to my size 1 stockpile. I am just wondering--is it ALWAYS cheaper to buy...say the Target brand...or are Swaddlers cheaper when they are a "stockopportunity" and you have coupons?
I've tried about every brand of disposables, including all the generics around where I live. Pampers are my favorites out of everything. We've had one (really) poopy blowout with a pampers diaper, but I think it was on the verge of being too small for one of my babies.
My only con with Pampers is sometimes at the beginning some of the diapers would leave little gel beads on their private areas. I'm assuming they were the gel that absorbs when the diapers get wet. Other than that, no problems. I have one baby that gets diaper rash a lot and these don't cause him any more or less of a rash than any other diaper.
I love Pampers the most and try to stock up when they are cheap with my pampers coupons.
There are 2 major cons missing from this review:
1. These diapers leave gel crystals on the baby's skin.
2. The mesh-like material makes all the moisture from baby's poop pass through mess, and some poop residue stick dry and hard to baby's skin. Cleaning baby's butt was always hard, having to rub and rub over the area.
In regard to Anonymous 8, I never had any gel crystal residue on my daughter. I love Swaddlers.
Right now we're using Especially For Baby (Babies R Us Brand) Diapers, and have been having very good luck. I also love Luvs. Whenever Target has a store coupon for them, I try to buy a few boxes.
I have twin daughters, and we got LOTS of diapers as gifts. We LOVED the Pampers Swaddlers, but one of my girls got a really bad rash from them... I'm not sure we would have realized that it was from the diapers if we hadn't had two babies and lots of diaper brand options, but it cleared up whenever we switched to Huggies and flared up immediately when we used the Swaddlers. The Swaddlers definitely fit better and were more comfortable, and our other baby did really well with them, but it's just something to consider!
Love the Swaddlers! I think the softness, and fabric-like feel is so much more appealing than the crackly papery diapers.
I never found gel crystals sticking to my son until he was in a size 4 or 5 Cruiser. And it wasn't all the time, so it might have been lot to lot variation.
We have noticed the dry poop problem that Anon 8 mentioned. I think that's more my fault than the diaper's. Really though, I'd rather scrub off a little dry poop once in a while than have my baby sitting in a soupy mess.
I loved the Pampers Swaddles for the first month or so but then disliked them. They would leave awful gel-like crystals on her sensitive skin. Also, we had the same dry poop problem Anonymous 8 mentioned. One other con that I found was that they STUNK when it was even just a wet diaper (this could very well be because of the mixture of the urine and the baby powder scent of the diaper). because of these factors, I did not feel it was worth the splurge to continue using (what we were using was stock from what was given at our baby showers). We use LUVs right now for day time. DD will be 1 this month and we have never encountered a blowout or a leakage issue. However, they do NOT hold up for her overnight sleeps. Therefore we utilize the Huggies Supremes for overnight and they work WONDERFULLY.
Back onto Pampers, I also wanted to point out we tried the Pampers Cruisers. LEFT AN AWFUL DIAPER RASH ON OUR BABY! Apparently also on the sons and daughters of a few co-workers here. We immediately stopped useage.
There is NO comparison in my opinion! We used Pampers Swaddlers, and we now use Pampers Cruisers. I tried Baby Dry and hated them, so we are back to the Cruisers. They are much softer and do a better job, especially with poop. They may be more expensive, but it's worth it!
Pampers Swaddlers were the only diaper we hated. The weird mesh in the inside would stick to our baby's butt like a bandaid unless we slathered him in pretroleum jelly. Unfortunately it was the only brand we were able to get in preemie sizes so we used them for a while. I switched right away to Huggies, Especially for Baby and Seventh Generation as soon as he was into size N. For some reason the ones we got in the hospital did NOT have the netting, but all the ones we found at the stores did. The hospital ones were great.
I have been using the Pampers Swaddlers Sensitive diapers for 3 months now & LOVE them! The best part is the yellow line down the middle which turns green as soon as it gets wet, which is perfect for my son who can't stand to be in a wet diaper for more than a second!
We use 7th generation, but tried swaddlers when our son was a baby. I agree they are the softest diaper out there. My only qualm with them is most people's favorite feature - the dryness. Our son had issues feeding and wet diapers and his weight were the only way we knew he was getting enough food. I could never tell when the swaddlers were wet until they got really full.
The sensitive swaddlers even have the yellow strip that will indicate a wet diaper! Great for newborns since you can't always tell if they've wet the diaper!!
FYI--yellow strip turns blue when the diapers are wet.
I have 1 more con and a comment
Con - they stink. That FRESH baby powder scent reeks when they get wet or poopy. It smells like powdered poop.
And, more hospitals use swaddlers becuase Procter and Gamble gives them to them for free to hook you at birth! I do think they are the snuggliest when babies are little, but they aren't a must in this household.
I never wanted to buy expensive diapers when I was pregnant. But then we tried Pampers at the hospital & again when we were at home & haven't been able to replace them with anything else. From Huggies to Luvs to generics, nothing has come close to Pampers for us. Like a poster said, though they said it as a con, it pulls basically all the poop away from babys butt. We found that made cleaning easier about 99% of the time, not to mention made him more comfortable when he was younger. I've only seen gel on my son once, after he slept overnight & had a totally soaked diaper that looked like it was about the explode. We've also never had a problem telling when he needed changed before he was soaked. We like that unlike other diapers we tried, while we can tell he's wet he's not super uncomfortable. We had a problem with Huggies that once he peed even a little, the diaper started to get hard & he would end up uncomfortable & we were changing him almost twice as much. My son is almost a year & we're still buying swaddlers size 2-3's which we obviously love. We buy them at Toys R Us, a large box is about $40 without a coupon (which we get from Pampers & from Toys R Us, which are usually in $5 amounts), plus now with their rewards program, after you buy, I believe 9 boxes, you recieve a coupon in the mail for a free large box of Pampers, any Pampers I believe.
I like Swaddlers when I need to use them instead of my normal cloth diapers. However, I HATE HOW THEY SMELL. Normal dirty diaper smell (since my baby is bf) doesn't bother me, but when you mix it with faux baby powder scent, it's the most evil, terrible smell in the world. Ugh.
My son was born a month early and weighed 5 lbs. 9 oz. Pampers Swaddlers were the only diapers that worked for him. The Huggies were too big around his legs and he leaked/had a blowout in them multiple times a day. I think the fit of Pampers Swaddlers is great for teeny babies.
I like swaddlers for newborns - the first month - then when the breastfed poop up the back starts, I switch to Bumgenius as they don't ever let poop up the back out!
yeah, i have to agree that a huge con for me with all of pampers is the artificial scent. i'd much much prefer no scent at all, or at least a scent-free option from pampers.
Our baby gets a skin rash when we use Huggies, and I guess I did when I was little also. (My Mom would put me in disposables if I went to a sitter.) That is why we only use Pampers. We are not willing to try another brand since we have seen too many skin rashes with the other brands.
We are out of the swaddlers and now use Pampers Baby Dry, which are cheaper for the money than Cruisers. To me, they are the same diapers.
*****I would love to review these for you, but when I clicked on the group link, it took me to your delicious account. I didn't see a place to sign up for reviews.
Also, putting our son in a diaper that was a size bigger took care of the blowout situation. I breastfeed him, so we had plenty of opportunities for blowouts!)
We used Swaddlers until our son outgrew them and they were great. The Swaddlers do sometimes leave little crystals, but they wiped right off with no problem. After he outgrew them, we tried the Baby dry and didn't like them, and then we switched to Pampers Cruisers and LOVE them. Our Wal-Mart didn't have any cruisers recently so I tried Luv's...it was a HUGE mistake. He leaked out everytime we put one on him. We are definitely sticking with Pampers.
The Pampers Swaddlers are my favorite. They are so soft and have a good fit. The only problem I noticed is that when my baby started sleeping on her tummy at night (around 6 months, but still in size 2 diapers), her tummy would be wet in the morning, but when we used up the Pampers and got into the Huggies we didn't have this problem anymore. If we get more Pampers, I might just use a different brand for overnight.
Loved, loved, LOVED the Swaddler's!!! They were perfect for my son and so soft. I happen to love the scent - I still have a size 1 diaper from his baby-baby days that I keep in a keepsake drawer! (I know, wierd.) We use Cruisers now, not Baby Dry. I don't know what the difference is, but there is one - I just don't think they are as soft and fit as well as Cruisers. I know that it's a racket by P&G to get us hooked, but I don't care!
I'm Karen, the reviewer of the diapers. In the 4+ months that we've been using Swaddlers, I've never had the gel leaking issue that many others posters have. Also never had the mesh cause an issue with crusty poop (eew!). At daycare, baby's diaper is changed at least every 2 hours, so poop doesn't sit in the diaper for too long. I happen to like the smell of the diaper. In fact, at the hospital, I would sniff one of the teeny newborn Swaddlers for motivation during labor. (Yes, I'm odd...)
I'm glad that some people are finding Pampers Swaddlers to be a great diaper! I used them in the hospital for my son and there was no problem (switched to Huggies when we got home because I had several boxes from a shower and then just stuck with Huggies). When my daughter was born, again we got the Swaddlers in the hospital. And they gave my daughter a terrible rash! And I can't stand the scent of them...I think that's part of what gave my daughter the rash. But two days of using Huggies on her and the rash was gone.
And for the person that asked, yes Huggies diapers even have the "poop riding out the back" issue. But as a previous poster said, when we would experience lots of leaks/blowouts, we just go to the next size up and the problem is solved!
I love Swaddlers! I have recently had my second preemie and the NICU uses the Preemie size Swaddlers. They work great and don't irritate her sensetive skin. The preemie size fits quite well for a 3 pound baby, we just fold down the front part where the characters are until she gets a little bigger. For my first I have only used Pampers brand all the way up through size 3 until she was potty trained. I breast fed my first and didn't experience the poop riding up the back. So far for my second, she hasn't had that problem, but she is still a tiny little girl, but I don't expect any issues. I did try huggies while my oldest was a baby and didn't like them one bit. For my second one, I plan on only using Pampers diapers.
We loved Swaddlers and now Cruisers on our little boy. No leak problems....Huggies leaked for us.
Hey your reviews are a great idea, specially for first-time moms. I'm really pleased that you are writing things like these, in favor of the babies and families. You remind me of a time when I used to teach moms on how to change baby's diaper in different clinics and workshops for parents. Congratulations!
I had heard so many wonderful things about swaddlers before I had my baby... then when she finally got here, they gave her a serious rash :(
Huggies have worked out for us very nicely, though.
I have two boys and I love Huggies Baby Dry. NOT the Supremes!! The supremes always made a mess with the poop riding up the back. It didn't matter what size I put them in. Many mothers have told me that Pampers are better with girls. I don't know about that, but the regular Huggies are the only diapers I use. I tried Pampers when my babies were small but the smell got me and I didn't like the yellow color of the diaper. I kept checking it to make sure it didn't have breastmilk poo on it.
am i the only one that noticed that the review mentioned not using a baby wipe on wet diapers.. only dirty's? are you using water and a cloth or something else to get the urine from her skin? just a thought!
Well I actually LOVE the smell of the Swaddlers & Cruisers! When we have to use a different brand, it gags me to smell the striaght urine or poo, not the other way around. The nice scent actually helps make the Pampers tolerable for me to use. Not to mention they have been great for us with almost no blowouts in 1 year.
I also had a problem with my the poop coming up the back of the diaper. My son was a larger baby and I breastfed him. I switched to Huggies (not the premiums-just the regular ones) and had no problem. Once he got older and was not breastfed we switched back to pampers and have no problem. I just think it varies for each child.
We started with Swaddlers, but we switched to Baby Dry since we have 2 under 2 and I get more diapers in the Baby Dry packs. I have not had any major leakage problems. Huggies always leak for us.
Anon 37- when my baby was just a few days old, the pediatrician noticed that her butt was a little bit red. He told us that we didn't need to use baby wipes when changing her wet diaper, only when she poops. We've been following that advice ever since and she's never had issues with diaper rash. Of course, if the diaper was so wet that it was leaking pee, I'd use wipes to clean her up :)
I would have called the "Light baby-fresh smell" a con -- I hated the smell of these diapers. But I don't care for scented anything.
I pretty much stick to Pampers and Huggies with my kids, but neither of them have issues with sensitive skin and my 7 month old (knock on wood) has never had a diaper rash. Here are my thoughts on the Swaddlers...
1) Like the soft feel and umbilical cord cutout.
2) They seem a little larger than the Huggies of the same size so I would often use the Huggies during the day and then the Swaddlers at night, especially when my son was moving between sizes.
3) I felt like either diaper had a 50/50 shot of leaking with those breastfeeding blowouts.
4) The Pampers do leave a gel residue sometimes (I stopped using Pampers Cruisers with my 4 year old when he was a baby because of this issue) and I also had the experience a previous poster mentioned that if my son went #2 overnight and I didn't find it until morning that it would be a bit stuck to his bum.
5) This might sound silly, but I think I also liked the fact that the Swaddlers are just white and don't have all those crazy designs on them.
Now that the baby is in 3's, I tend to prefer Huggies Supremes over Pampers Cruisers, but make myself purchase either brand at stockoppurtunity prices and just use the Cruisers in the daytime and the Supremes at night.
we always get gel residue and a lot of catastrophic diaper explosions with gel everywhere .Not a fun thing to clean up
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