How many baby diapers per day and month?

In collaboration with Rokiyah Hosen

It's one of the questions that many expectant mothers and parents ask themselves during pregnancy, especially those experiencing their first pregnancy: how many diapers does a baby use every day? 

This is a practical question, because planning how many diapers your baby will need will enable you to anticipate a stock of diapers, as well as the diaper budget, which, as we all know, represents a considerable cost.

How many diapers should I pack for my maternity stay?

If you're packing your suitcase for the maternity ward and wondering how many diapers you'll need for the first few days of baby's life? Well, as a general rule, a maternity stay lasts 3 days, barring complications or special cases.

Specialists recommend changing your baby's diaper every two to three hours, or at every feed or bottle-feeding, but you can change the diaper as often as necessary. In fact, a newborn baby generally has three bowel movements a day, and urinates every two to three hours.

Keep in mind thatprolonged contact with stool can irritate baby's skin, that bacteria in urine can cause urinary tract infections, especially in little girls, and that keeping a diaper wet can lead to the development of diaper rash. What is diaper rash? It's a fairly common skin inflammation that causes red, sensitive and puffy skin.

What's more, if you don't change the diaper often enough, accidents can happen, especially to your baby's clothes, bed or car seat.

For the maternity ward, it's estimated that you'll need around 8 diapers a day, so a pack of 30 will suffice. This will give you enough diapers to be prepared for any accidents in everyday life, while not bringing an inordinate stock for your stay in the maternity ward.

How many diapers per day for a newborn (0-3 months)?

Official recommendations from midwives and pediatricians are to change a newborn's diaper at every feed/bottle (earlier when there is stool). Naturally, the frequency of diaper changes will follow baby's development.

A newborn baby feeds or drinks a bottle regularly, every three hours or so, including at night. This means they need to be changed every three hours (even at night!).

Babies don 't sleep through the night right away. Babies are not all equal when it comes to the age at which they (finally) sleep through the night. Some take 9 months, others 3 months... But in general, it's estimated that after about a month, babies start to space out their waking and feeding times, and sleep more at night. This means less frequent diaper changes.

For a baby who hasn't yet slept through the night, s'he wakes up every 3 hours or so to suckle, this means that there will be a change every three hours, so 8 days a day, or 240 days a month.

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How many diapers for a young baby (9 to 36 months)?

The number of diapers will change as baby grows. As baby grows, meals sbecome more spaced out, bowel movements become more predictable and the baby urinates less frequently. Nights will also become longer.

Even so, there's no precise answer to the number of diapers your baby will need. However, it is possible to get an idea of what is needed.

As the child grows, the number of diapers is reduced

As your baby grows, the number of diapers he needs will decrease. 

Generally speaking, at 9 months baby starts to eat the same menus as you do, even s'if they're blended. At this age, many children are already sleeping through the night. It's estimated that at this age, the number of diapers is reduced to 5 or 6 a day (counting night-time), which works out at around 150 a month.

Then, the number of diapers needed per day is gradually reduced, depending on the rhythm of each child, of course, but estimates give the following figures:

• From 13 to 20 months, children use around 4 to 5 disposable diapers a day;
• To go from 3 to 4 diapers a day between 20 and 30 months;
• From 30 months to 36 months, 2 to 3 diapers are generally sufficient.

In all cases, in the event of bowel movements, you should change lyour child's diaper as quickly as possible, to avoid maceration of the stool with the skin of the buttocks. This can lead to irritation, redness and even infection. 

To avoid any kind of irritation, we recommend using organic diapers, which are much gentler on your child's bottom.

You can either change him in the usual way at feeding time, or adopt an extra change as part of your routine.

Other factors can also influence the number of times you change your baby, such as the weather. Indeed, s'it's warmer, your baby will drink a bottle of water and potentially the diapers will be filled more quickly. It needs to be changed more regularly.

If you're breast-feeding your baby, you'll probably also need extra diapers.

So it's hard to predict a precise nappy-changing rhythm, because every baby is different and several factors can also influence this figure.

Adapt diapers to the child's age and weight

As your little one grows, the diaper size you'll need to choose. In fact, depending on your child's age and weight, you'll need to choose different diaper sizes.

Especially in the first few weeks of your baby's life, he tends to grow rapidly .

How many diapers does a baby need?

It's difficult to give a precise figure for the number of diapers used by a baby in the course of his or her life. But, if we consider an average with the examples we've seen above, we'd say that :

• During the first two months of life, an infant uses around 240 of these per month. 
• Then, from the 3rd month to the first year, you'll need about 150 a month.
• From age 1 to 2, this number is gradually reduced to 120 per month. 
• From 2 to 3 years of age, depending on the child's cleanliness, only one is needed for night-time use.

This gives us a range of 3800 to 4800 diapers, depending on the age at which your baby is potty-trained.

Think ahead about the number of diapers per month!

To avoid running out of diapers for your baby, it's important to keep an eye on your stock. But you shouldn't carry too much stock either, because as baby grows, the size you need to use is no longer the same. What's more, diapers represent a significant financial cost! Considering the average price of a diaperit makes more sense to buy them often than to stock up on diapers that your child will no longer be able to wear.

In fact, as explained above, many things can influence the frequency of diaper changes, such as the weather, whether or not you're breastfeeding, whether or not your baby sleeps through the night quickly, the timing of dietary diversification... In short, many factors can influence the number of diapers to use per day. 

And then, quite simply, the number of diapers varies according to each baby, because everyone is different.

For peace of mind when it comes to the number of diapers you need, you can opt for the subscription delivery system: you can choose how often you want to be delivered, as well as the size you need. 

The aim is, of course, to have enough diapers, but without ending up with a lifetime's supply!

How many diapers do twins need every month?

If you've just had twins, or are expecting twins, you'll need to double the number of diapers. Bear in mind that your babies may evolve in different ways: one will be potty-trained quickly, while the other will still be using a lot of diapers: every little one is different. Twins evolve at different rates. The same goes for diaper sizes: when one child moves up to the next size, the other may still be on the next size down.

To make things easier for you, you can adopt our subscription system.

After age 3: the start of potty training!

Finally, by the time your baby is usually 3 years old, he's potty-trained, meaning he's able to fill his potty on his own and gradually use far fewer diapers. Some children will be potty-trained by the age of 2, while others will take much longer. Again, this is an average and every child is different.

When your child is old enough to tell you when he wants to go potty, you can switch to the training pants. They're a more environmentally-friendly alternative to conventional diapers. 

Indeed, some people will often reuse the same diaper when their child has gone potty in time (if it's still clean, of course), in which case we recommend switching to training pants, or washable diapers. What's more, it's also a much more economical and ecological alternative.