Diapers. A whole new world.
Before becoming a parent, one of the things that worried me about having a baby was the horror stories we hear about changing diapers. You'll hear (and probably see online) about every type of apocalypse where it seems that shit literally hit the fan: babies covered from bottom to neck in brown goo while their parents gasp in horror, diapers that are handled like radioactive disposals from a nuclear plant, or bedsheets that are faster to burn than clean.
The truth is much more forgiving. Indeed, the type of goo and amount of diapers that you will face on a daily basis depend very much on every baby, their feeding, and their general health. Things that you control only partially. But there is an important element over which you have full control: the diapers.
“A good choice of diapers will make your life easier”
A good choice of diapers can make the difference between an easy-going fresh-breeze babyhood and a tar pit of brown goo. In our case, we hit the target almost on the first attempt and we only realized later how good the diapers we chose were.
We started pretty much as everyone else: using the most well-known diapers around. In Switzerland, that would be Pampers. They worked fine and there were no complaints on our side, but given the number of diapers that we were expecting to throw away, we searched for a more ecological option. And then the brand Pingo showed up (you can imagine here trumpets and celestial music).
Pingo is a Swiss brand that claims to be climate-neutral. Their diapers have the Oeko-Tex certification, they are super safe for your kids and they are made from sustainable cellulose. The company also compensates for its CO2 emissions. All these were plus points for us, so we tried them.
“Pingo are Swiss-made ecological diapers with a gentler approach to the baby skin”
It turns out that we liked them even more than Pampers. Pingo diapers are a bit more elastic, giving the impression to be more breezy while remaining well adjusted, but without pressing too much on the skin. Pampers seemed more plastic-based and less gentle to the skin.
But, what about holding "contents"? Our girl has indeed put them to the test! After one year, we only had a small leak once during the night and it was because we didn't adjust it correctly. On top of that, and even more important, E. never had a diaper rash. Admittedly, she might be tougher than other babies, but we think that the gentler approach of the Pingo diapers has a lot to do with this.
We tried other brands in Switzerland and Spain, such as Milette, Dodotis, and other less known brands, mostly during the brief times when we run out of Pingo and we don't have replacements yet. None reached the level of comfort and reassurance that we got with Pingo.
What about reusable cloth diapers? This is an even more ecological alternative. We tried the Bambino Mio Mioduo and they do the work. Nevertheless, they require more work in terms of learning how to use them, their maintenance, and cleaning. We tried them a bit too late, just when we both went back to work and turned out too much for us. Therefore, we kept using Pingo, which seemed the perfect middle solution.
