by Tina Callison

Created on: May 25, 2007

Finally, your new baby has arrived, and you've brought her home from the hospital. The nursery is set up and all the cute little baby clothes are folded. It doesn't take long for reality to set in and you realize that your baby goes through a dozen or more diapers a day, and you begin to wonder whether there are really any differences between the brands. What if there is a huge difference and you've chosen the wrong kind ? Well, Huggies Supreme Gentle Care and Pampers Swaddlers are put to the test, and the results may help put your questions and fears to rest.

First, let's look at the most important thing: price. When it comes to price, Huggies Supreme, and Pampers Swaddlers are pretty much equal. Typically, a package of 40 newborn diapers, either Huggies Supreme or Pampers Swaddlers, costs around $9. Depending on the day, sometimes one or the other offers something a little extra, like 6 baby wipes along with the diapers, but generally there is no significant difference in the price.

Next there is the other crucial thing to consider: leakage. No one likes leaky diapers, but sometimes they are unavoidable. It's true, sometimes both Pampers Swaddlers and Huggies Supreme diapers leak all over the place. But, as anyone with a baby knows, there are different levels of leakage. So, the first comparison is on wet diapers. Huggies Supreme tended to leak a little more often than Pampers Swaddlers when it comes to wet diapers, but there wasn't really a significant difference. And then there are the nasty, smelly, complete blow out dirty diapers to consider. When it comes to messes like these, nobody wins. Both Pampers Swaddlers and Huggies Supreme diapers have major problems when it comes to handling the super dirty disasters, but then, in all fairness, some messes just can't be contained. Pampers and leaked through just as often and just as quickly as Huggies.

Finally, there are all of those little extra things to consider, like special features. Huggies Supreme's claim to fame is their cord care design. On their newborn diapers, Huggies has included a rounded cut out area designed to fit around a newborn's healing belly button. Perhaps their design properly fits on some babies, but on my 8 pound newborn, the diaper still had to be folded down to avoid the belly button, so the niche didn't accomplish anything other than giving an extra helpful hint as to where the front of the diaper is. Speaking of distinguishing front from back, Pampers wins that one by only putting their cute little design on the front, rather than having pictures on both the front and the back as Huggies do. This is helpful in the middle of the night when you may not be fully conscious while changing your child's diaper. Pampers Swaddlers special feature is the soft fabric-like feel of the diapers. This may seem insignificant, but during those long stretches of sleep at night, Pampers Swaddlers caused less chaffing around the legs than Huggies Supreme did. (Neither brand caused lots of chaffing, but there Pampers still caused less.)

So, the final verdict is that it doesn't really matter whether you use Huggies Supreme, or Pampers Swaddlers because they were close to equal on all major points. If you want to get really picky, Pampers Swaddlers wins by a hair, but if you're still using Huggies Supreme, you haven't failed as a parent.

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