Saving Money on Diapers in Singapore

What are the three biggest expenses once your baby is born? Diapers, formula milk, and healthcare.

I’ll be tackling each of these three and how I save money on them in a 3-part series. Today, I zoom in onto diapers, which are the bulkiest purchase of the lot. Hence, we wanted to find out which would be the most affordable brand to go for.

The cheapest option? Cloth diapers! That is, if you don’t mind washing dirty nappies when you come back from work. I think parents who choose this route are incredibly amazing because I’ll rather spend a little more for convenience, so it frees up my time to spend my baby instead of fretting over dirty diapers that need to be washed.

Tips:

• Compare not in terms of how much a packet cost, but per piece i.e. divide the price by the number of diapers in the pack. Watch out for the larger sizes because the price may be the same but you get lesser diapers now.
• Buy in bulk, as those usually have more cost savings.
• Look out for sales on websites like Qoo10, Shopee or Lazada.

Diaper Review

From the bottom left, clockwise: Pee Ka Poo, Rascal and Friends, Sensi, Huggies, Pampers, Onwards, Carefree, Drypers, MamyPoko and Merries. Not all the diapers we tried are featured in this pic, as some, we only managed to get after this pic was taken.

Initially, I had stocked up on Drypers as I was set on using the cheapest brand for him since I thought all brands were the same.

I was wrong. Some leaked and gave him a really nasty diaper rash.

Unlike infant formula milk, when it comes to diapers, there really is a difference in quality among all the brands. But don’t take my word for it; try it for yourself! You can request samples from the different brands (read on where and how here) or buy them during Shopee sales.

Here are my results:

I’ve reviewed the diapers above in terms of comfort – which was measured by how bad a diaper rash my baby got while wearing them – and each brand was tested with at least 6 pieces. While Merries and MamyPoko Air Fit were the softest, they still gave my boy diaper rash, so I decided to change my definition of comfort from “softness” to that of “least rash observed”.

Until I discovered Pee-Ka-Poo, my favourite brand was Rascal+Friends because it could last us throughout the night as long as we got up at 7 am for a diaper change. However, do note that there’s a really pungent urine smell in the morning – strong enough to wake you up. And on days where we slept in till 10 am, we would wake up to Nate’s pyjama pants half-wet from an overly-full R+F diaper (well, our fault really).

So we needed another solution. I tried out Pee-Ka-Poo, which claims to be the only diaper in Singapore that can last for 12 hours…and it worked!

Diapers that were useless against “poonamis”

Poonami = poop explosions

Nate only poops once in several days, but when he does, each poop is MASSIVE. All the brands we tried failed us – even Merries! It would stain through his clothes and cause such a big mess that it was a headache trying to clean it all up.

I won’t be uploading the photos of his stained diapers with the poop literally exploding from the sides, but Merries and MamyPoko were the worst for these. Which was a pity because I loved how soft these two brands were!

Cheapest Diaper Brand in Singapore?

Drypers and Sensi seem to be the cheapest in Singapore, at just $0.20 – $0.26 cents each for each piece in size small. With 6 to 8 diaper changes a day, you’re looking at about $50 a month. However, I’m not a fan of them because I find the cutting quite rough, and baby Nate developed quite a bad diaper rash (we could even see scratches on his butt).

The most expensive brand per piece was Pee-Ka-Poo. As a result, many mummies in my group chat weren’t as keen on it. Neither was I (in the beginning) until I calculated my expenses in the following month and realised that we were saving more money because we were using fewer diapers than usual!

The other surprising discovery was that with Merries, we were changing Nate’s diapers every 3 – 4 hours throughout the day, but he was still getting diaper rash even though we slathered a generous amount of nappy cream with each change. However, with Pee-Ka-Poo, he no longer gets diaper rash anymore!

Most Value-For-Money Diaper

I was always told to compare based on price per piece, which led me to dismiss Pee-Ka-Poo initially… until I calculated our monthly spending and realised that our diaper expenses were in fact lower with them because we no longer needed to use a new diaper every few hours.

You can read more about Pee-Ka-Poo diapers here.
Sidenote: these are prices before discount. By stacking promo codes and cashback tools, I’ve been able to stock up on my Pee-Ka-Poo diapers for 26 cents on some occasions as well!

From what I can see, Pampers Pure has been highly advertised by many mummy influencers, but if you want a similar alternative, I’ve found that Rascal + Friends does the same for cheaper. They both have the same USP but at different price tags, so go figure!

My diaper of choice? Pee-Ka-Poo.

Ever since switching to Pee-Ka-Poo, we also no longer need to wake up in the middle of the night to change baby Nate’s diapers, especially now that he’s able to sleep through 9.30 pm – 7.30 am. This has seriously saved our sanity and allows us to be more rested for work the next day.

If your baby is like mine and only poops once every 3 – 5 days, then I think Pee-Ka-Poo diapers will definitely help you save money in the long run. But if your baby poops multiple times in a day, then you might want to get a cheaper brand as long as it doesn’t leak through the sides. (Please do not make your baby continue to wear a poopy diaper, it’s bad for their skin.)

I’m absolutely blown away by the quality of Pee-Ka-Poo diapers and how much they’ve helped me save on total diaper costs ever since, and being able to have a good night’s sleep without having to wake up for a diaper change is just PRICELESS. I know their cost per diaper can appear like a turnoff at first glance, which is why I felt writing this unbiased review was important because we need to look beyond the price per diaper and focus on the price of total diapers used instead. The former involves buying cheaper diapers and using more of them, whereas the latter uses fewer diapers and money in total. So which one is better? You decide.

Hopefully, my review will help you to determine which diaper brand is best for you, your baby, and your wallet!

Note: No company sponsored this review, although I wish one did! 😛 This was done as an independent comparison after I realised we were spending a lot on diapers each month. In the name of full disclosure, I did, however, receive some free samples from several brands (which anyone can apply for online! Just read my post here on how I did it.) and two packets (24 pcs) of Rascal + Friends from their marketing team to try. You can also buy the Pee-Ka-Poo sample set I initially got from here.

P.S. My church friend is laughing at me right now because she introduced Pee-Ka-Poo to me right from the start but I had said no because I looked at the price (per piece) and immediately brushed it off. Well, Estee, turns out you were right after all! Haha!