Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Story of Disposable Diapers that Juan Or Used Before

Mommy's story of disposable diapers is arranged according to brands and of course, Mommy will review on the age and stage when Juan Or used the brands and also the price of the diapers.



Hey Baby! - This is the first brand that Juan Or used since the day he was born. Mommy bought S86 and M74 packs from a sale in The Store at RM23.90 per pack (member price; non-member is RM24.90). For your note, this packaging size is no longer available - what's available now are smaller packs of about slightly more than half the old packaging size. At the time of purchase (Mommy was in 2nd trimester of pregnancy), every pack came with a free baby sleeveless T-shirt which can be worn when baby is about 9 months of age onwards. However, Mommy was lucky in that one of the pack that Mommy bought, the manufacturer accidentally put in 2 T-shirts! So in the end, Juan Or gets to have 3 T-shirts for buying only 2 packs. As for the diapers, quality-wise is good (meaning absorbent) (Hey! It's the same manufacturer as Drypers!), the only difference is that Hey Baby! doesn't come with gartered waist unlike Drypers, that's why the price is cheaper than Drypers. The outermost layer is made of breathable paper material which claims a cloth-like feel. The M size comes with a blue colour absorbent core area on the padding of the diaper, but not for size S. Later on when Juan Or was around 1+ month old, Hey Baby! is sold in the new packaging size. By then, Juan Or was already using size M. So Mommy bought 2 packs of M48 for RM15.99 per pack from Carrefour. Then about one or so months later, Carrefour advertised Hey Baby! again as buy 2 packs for RM30.99 to which Mommy bought 2 packs (M48 and L40, because Mommy thought Juan Or's body weight was gaining rapidly!). However, along the way, Juan Or's weight gain started to slow down at about 4 months onwards, so in the end, the L40 pack remains unopen till now. Nowadays, prices of things has gone up and this brand is no exception. Since the end of year 2008, the normal price has gone up to RM18.90 (Tesco) and even more recently, to RM19.90 (Tesco). During normal Tesco promotions, the price was RM17.90 which is still not cheap enough. Just last week, Mommy saw this brand sold in Tesco's Baby Fair Promotion for the good ole' price of RM15.90 again. Mommy's verdict: Good quality and recommended for daily economical wearing especially when baby needs 4-5 times of diaper changing per day.




(This is the Hey Baby! free sleeveless T-shirt.)


Pampers Comfort (orange pack) - Mommy bought one pack of M84 shortly after the 1-month confinement period. Mommy bought it from Tesco at the offer price of RM27.90. Actually, Mommy didn't really know whether this price is cheap or not, but anyway, just buy-lah to try out this brand because Pampers is the pioneer brand of disposable diapers, so must be of good quality (that's what Mommy thought at first!). Later checks in the Internet about consumer goods pricing (PriceChat) revealed that RM26.90 was the lowest price ever. After using, Mommy found that the quality is not as good as Hey Baby! because Pampers can't absorp as much urine. Not just that, the diaper is easy to leak once saturated with urine - poor holding power. For that matter, Juan Or had quite frequent occurence of wet pants (urine leaked from the side of Pampers diaper). A feature that Pampers boasts of is the holes on the back waistband part - Pampers says that the holes are for ventilation, but Mommy thinks the holes are not practical at all. On top of that, Pampers go on to decrease the height of the padded material on the buttocks part so that there's more area for the holes waistband, presumably for more ventilation. You see, when the baby defecates, the faeces flows way behind and usually flows beyond the end of the padded material of the buttocks part. Once the faeces flows beyond that, it will leak out from the so-called ventilation holes! Because of this poor design, Juan Or frequently had incidences where his faeces leaked out and stained his pants, lower part of his shirt and on the bouncinette cloth. So Mommy had a lot of 'shit washing' to do during that time until all the Pampers diapers were used up. Mommy's verdict: No good! Not recommended!




Pampers All Night: Mommy bought this when Mommy was still in the 2nd trimester of pregnancy, sometime shortly after buying the Hey Baby! diapers from The Store. Mommy bought 3 packs of M40 at RM15 per pack from a stock clearance section in Carrefour Sri Petaling. At that time, the normal price was RM29.90 or RM30+ per pack. This type is able to absorb more urine than Pampers Comfort and has a blue colour core area that is supposedly more absorbent. However, Juan Or still experienced wet patches on his pants as a result of urine leaking out from the sides of the diaper. Also, the faeces leaking out from the holes waistband (supposedly for more ventilation) is still persistent. Mommy's verdict: No good! Not recommended!




Baby Like Economy Plus: Mommy first tried this brand because Carrefour was selling it as a 2-day sale for RM19.90 per pack. So Mommy bought one pack (M72) first to try because the outermost layer is plastic material. Mommy wasn't so sure whether this type of material is suitable for Juan Or's skin or not. After trying, it turned out to be OK for Juan Or's skin. Then, about one month later, Carrefour had a 2-day sale again, but this time was RM21.89 per pack, but Mommy bought it anyway because it was the cheapest diaper available considering that Hey Baby! had gone up in price. Some more later, Tesco also sold this brand for RM21.90 to which Mommy bought another M72 pack. So all in all, Juan Or has used 3 packs of this brand (he has another 17 more pieces to go before Mommy puts him to size L diapers!). This brand is good (if you don't mind the plastic material which feels hotter to the skin) and economical. The padding material is also a bit longer than Hey Baby!'s. The good thing about the slightly longer padding material is that the faeces doesn't leak out from behind. So far, Juan Or has never experienced any urine nor faeces leaks using this brand. The only thing is that the top edges of the diaper don't look that neat when the diaper is worn onto the baby, but that's not an issue for Mommy. Mommy's verdict: Good (if you don't mind the plastic material) and very economical and reliable.







Drypers Drypantz: Mommy first bought it (M44) to try from The Store Member's Day for RM29.90 per pack. Normal price is about RM35 to RM37 per pack. Then, recently, Mommy saw it sold in Tesco Extra Cheras for RM28.90, but there was no size L in stock. Then, even later, Tesco lowered the price even more in conjunction with the Baby Fair Promotion, now at RM26.90 per pack, so Mommy grabbed 2 packs. This diaper pants has a neat fit when worn and is capable of absorbing a lot of urine. So Mommy will wear it on Juan Or for 12 hours or more (if he doesn't defecate) especially if bringing Juan Or for outings the next day. So far, there are no leaks encountered even when it is very saturated with urine. Also, the manufacturer claims it to be 100% breathable. Mommy's verdict: Very good and reliable! Mommy's favourite!



Huggies Dry (the all-blue packet): Mommy first bought one pack (L72) because of three reasons: (i) Tesco was selling it for RM31+ and if Mommy used the CIMB credit card, there's an extra 5% rebate which ends up with a price of RM30+; (ii) at that time, Mommy thought Juan Or was gaining weight very rapidly, so Mommy bought size L to stand by (but it turned out that Juan Or's weight gain decreased tremendously); and (iii) Mommy heard many good comments about Huggies, so was eager to try it out. Just yesterday, Mommy opened the packaging for the first time after buying it some 5-6 months ago and tried it on Juan Or. From Mommy's inspection, the padding material is very thin at the buttocks side, but thicker at the front part (but only slightly thicker than Baby Like's). The fastener is of velcro material, rather than adhesive tape. The length of the padding material (size L) is the same length as Baby Like's size M, meaning to say Huggies' cutting is a bit smaller than other brands. However, when worn, the padding material looks longer at the front side than the back side as opposed to Baby Like's where it looks shorter from the front side and longer on the back. Juan Or wore it overnight and it was saturated with urine the next morning. However, Juan Or's hand clawed the front part of the diaper causing a small hole and some urine-soaked gel material oozed out from the hole. But Mommy still has to try it more times with Juan Or to see whether by default the outer layer of the diaper is easy to tear/break. (By the way, Drypers Drypantz doesn't break or tear when Juan Or clawed it). Also, when worn, the bottom part tends to bulge, making the diaper looks kind of baggy. And Mommy thinks that it is not good design if the bottom bulges because Juan Or's urine actually leaked out (as in real urine droplets!) when Juan Or was in lying down position. When the diaper bottom bulges, the padding material is not in contact with the genitals, so urine cannot be absorbed effectively. Mommy's verdict: Lousy! Has design flaw!


Tesco Choice: Mommy bought one pack (L72) to try (but haven't opened the packaging yet) because the price was cheap at RM27.90 per pack. Over time, the price has increased to RM31.90 and during baby fair promotions, it only went down as far as RM28.90 only. On physical observation, this diaper looks not bad for its price because it has breathable cloth-like outer layer and also gartered waistband. Quality-wise, Mommy can't comment yet because Juan Or has not yet started using it.
Huggies Dry Comfort (the red-blue packet): Can't comment yet because Juan Or has not yet used them. Mommy bought one L60 from Tesco Extra Cheras during 3-day sales for RM34.98 minus approx. 10% discount by using the Tesco Clubcard discount coupon, then later bought another one pack of L60 for RM34.99 in another Tesco 3-day sale. Last week Friday, Mommy bought another 2 packs of L60 from Giant Taman Connought which was selling for RM33.49 per pack in their 3-day sale. Mommy hopes that Juan Or will not encounter the same kind of urine-leaking problem due to design flaw as encountered in the Huggies Dry (the all-blue packet).
To date, Mommy has spent RM 492.43 on disposable diapers. And that's with the babysitter using the cloth diapers on Juan Or during normal days. If not, Mommy would have to spend even more....

3 comments:

Brittany Liu said...

Goodday! I'm a mama of 2, have been using Huggies brand for the past few years.
Huggies Dry actually doesnt mean for overnight use, it means for 4-6 hours fun time only. Where by Huggies Dry Comfort can last for 6-8 hours long. Only Huggies Ultra means for 12 hours overnight period.
Huggies has good ventilation, that normally for those baby with sensitive skin like mine.
But if you can efford Huggies Ultra, you would better go for Mamy Poko (It's cheaper during sales)!
Above just a few opinion of mine, actually all baby has their "own"(unique)preferable diaper which mama shld look for the best for them! Best regards!

Alice Phua said...

Brittany, thanks for sharing! Really appreciate that.

Now that Juan Or has already used Huggies Dry Comfort, I find its absorbency capacity to be a little more than Huggies Dry. So far no urine or faeces leak experienced from Huggies Dry Comfort. Have even stretched its usage to 10 hrs with no problems.

As for Huggies Dry, Juan Or no longer experiences urine leaks after the incident mentioned in the posting. Perhaps when I first started wearing it on Juan Or, maybe he was a little undersized for the L size diaper. So maybe the diaper material was not really in contact with his genitals, so the urine did not managed to be absorbed in time. Have even stretched its usage to 10 hrs - very expanded but didn't leak.

As for Tesco Choice diapers, I found it good and reliable. Have even stretched its usage for close to 8 hrs.

Unknown said...

There square measure such a big amount of nice widgets out there, it's nice that there's a an enormous list currently Adult Disposable Diaper Manufacturer