How many baby diapers per day and per month?
This is one of the questions that many mothers-to-be and parents ask themselves during pregnancy, especially for those who are going through their first pregnancy: how many diapers do you use every day for a baby?
This is a practical question because planning how many diapers your baby will need will allow you to anticipate a stock of diapers, but also the diaper budget, which, as we know, represents a significant cost.
- How many diapers to plan for his stay in maternity?
- How many diapers per day for a newborn (0 to 3 months) ?
- How many diapers for an infant (9 to 36 months) ?
- What is the total number of diapers needed for a baby ?
- Be predictable about the number of diapers per month!
- How many diapers per month for twins?
- After 3 years: the beginning of potty training!
How many diapers should I plan for when I'm in the maternity ward?
If you're packing your suitcase for the maternity ward and you're wondering how many diapers you'll need for the first days of baby's life? Well, you should know that a maternity stay usually lasts 3 days, except for complications or special cases.
Specialists recommend changing your baby's diaper every two to three hours, or at each feeding or bottle feeding, but you can change the diaper as often as necessary. This is because a newborn usually 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, that keeping a diaper wet can cause diaper rash. What is a diaper rash? It's a fairly common skin inflammation that causes red, tender, blistered skin.
Also, if you don't change the diaper often enough, it can create accidents, especially with your baby's clothes, bed or car seat.
For maternity, it is estimated that you will need about 8 diapers per day, a pack of 30 will suffice. This will allow you to have enough diapers to be prepared for possible accidents in everyday life, while not bringing an inordinate amount for your stay in the maternity ward.
How many diapers per day for a newborn (0 to 3 months)?
The official recommendations of midwives and pediatricians are to change a newborn's diaper at each feeding/bottle (to be changed earlier when there is stool). Naturally, the frequency of diaper changes will follow baby's development.
A newborn baby sucks or drinks a bottle regularly, about every three hours , including at night. It is therefore necessary to change him every three hours (even at night!)
Infants do not go to sleep immediately. Not all babies are equal when it comes to the age at which they (finally) go to sleep. Some will take 9 months, others 3 months... But in general, it is estimated that after about a month, the baby already starts to space out his wakings, his meals, and to sleep more at night. The frequency of diaper changes is therefore less important.
For a baby who is not yet sleeping through the night, if he wakes up about every 3 hours to feed, this means that there will be a change every 3 hours, so 8 days a day, or 240 days a month.
To make it easier for you, we recommend that you choose our subscription method. This will free you from the mental burden.
How many diapers for a young baby (9 to 36 months)?
The number of diapers will change as baby grows. As baby grows, feeding becomes more spaced out, bowel movements become more predictable and the infant urinates less frequently. Nights will also become longer.
Even so, there is no precise answer to the number of diapers your baby will need. However, it is possible to get an idea of the needs.
As the child grows, the number of diapers decreases
As your baby grows, the number of diapers he needs will decrease.
Generally, at 9 months, your baby starts eating the same menus as yours, even if they are mixed. At this age, many children are already sleeping through the night. It is estimated that at this age, the number of diapers is reduced to 5 or 6 diapers per day (counting nighttime), which is about 150 diapers per month.
Then, the number of diapers needed per day is gradually reduced, depending on the rhythm of each child, but estimates give the following figures:
- From 13 to 20 months, children use about 4 to 5 disposable diapers per day;
- From 20 to 30 months, they would use 3 to 4 diapers per day;
- Then from 30 months to 36 months, only 2 to 3 diapers are generally sufficient.
In all cases, in case of stools, the child must be changed quickly so that there is no maceration of the stools with the skin of the buttocks. This can lead to irritation, redness and even infection.
To avoid any type of irritation, we recommend using organic diapers, which are much softer on your child's bottom.
You can either change your child's diaper as usual at feeding time, or you can add an extra change to your routine.
Other factors can also influence the number of times you change your baby, such as the weather. If it's warmer, your baby will drink a bottle of water and potentially have her diaper filled more quickly. It should be changed more regularly.
If you're breastfeeding your baby, you'll probably also need to provide extra diapers.
So it's complicated to predict a specific diaper changing schedule, because every baby is different and several factors can also play into that number.
Adapting diapers to your child's age and weight
As your child grows, the size of diapers that you will have to take him will evolve. Indeed, depending on the age and weight of your child, the size of the diaper is not the same to choose.
Especially in the first few weeks of your baby's life, he tends to grow rapidly .
What is the total number of diapers needed for a baby?
It's hard to give an exact number of diapers a baby will use in a lifetime. But, if we consider an average with the examples we saw earlier, we would say that :
- During the first two months of his life, an infant uses about 240 per month
- Then from the 3rd month until its first year, it will need about 150 per month
- From 1 to 2 years old, this number is gradually reduced to 120 per month
- And finally from 2 to 3 years old, depending on the cleanliness of the child, only one is needed for the night.
This gives us a range of 3800 to 4800 diapers, depending on the age at which your baby becomes potty trained.
So be sure to plan ahead for the number of diapers per month!
To avoid running out of diapers for your baby, it's important to keep an eye on your supply. However, you should not plan too much stock either, because when baby grows, the size to use is not the same. In addition, diapers represent a significant financial cost! In view of the average price of a diaperit is more reasonable to buy them often than to stock up on diapers that your child will not be able to wear anymore.
Indeed, as explained before, several things can influence the frequency of diaper changes, such as the weather, the fact of breastfeeding or not, if your baby sleeps through the night quickly or not, at what time he/she starts to diversify his/her diet... In short, many factors can influence the number of diapers to use per day.
And quite simply, the number of diapers varies according to each baby, because everyone is different.
To be sure about the number of diapers to use, you can adopt the subscription delivery system: you can choose the frequency at which you want to be delivered, as well as the size needed.
The goal is of course to have enough diapers, but without having a lifetime supply!
How many diapers per month for twins?
If you've just had twins or are expecting twins, you'll need to double your diaper supply. Keeping in mind that your babies may grow differently, when one is potty trained quickly, the other will still be using a lot of diapers: every little one is different. Twins develop at different rates. It's the same for diaper sizes: when one child goes to the next size, the other one might still be on the smaller size: each one has his own rhythm.
To make sizing easier, you can adopt our subscription system.
After 3 years: the beginning of potty training!
Finally, when your baby is usually 3 years old, he/she becomes potty trained, meaning that he/she is able to fill his/her potty by himself/herself and progressively use a lot less diapers. Some children will be potty trained by age 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 training pants. This is a more ecological alternative to the classic diaper.
Indeed, some people will often reuse the same diaper when their child has gone to the potty in time (if it is still clean of course), in this case, we advise to switch to the training pants, or washable diaper. Moreover, it is also a much more economical and ecological alternative.
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