CONTRIBUTED BY KAHO
I buy Japanese diapers not only because I think that they are well made, but also they are cheaper than American diapers. I also like that Japanese diapers have a stripe to shows if the diaper is wet or not. This helped me especially with my new born baby. Usually the stripe is yellow with a dry diaper and when the diaper is wet, the color turns into blue. It saves the hassle to take off the diaper to see if the baby wet the diaper or not.
Now I have two kids and my younger daughter is 4 months old. She uses the one on the photo posted above. She weighs 5.2 kg, so I use size S. The big Merries’ size S package comes with 80 diapers and the price that I paid at “Drug Eleven” (“Doraggu Irebun”) was 1,280 yen. Each diaper costs 16 yen. This is much cheaper than the price of brand diapers from the States.
I hear that Japanese Pampers’ diapers and American Pampers’ diapers are not the same. In Japan Pampers’ diapers are the most expensive brand. I switched to Pampers for a while with my second child since she had terrible diaper rash. I used 3 different kinds of cream, but none of them worked and I wanted to solve her problem as naturally as possible. I washed her bottom every single time I changed her diaper. Even during the night. She pooped almost every 2 hours. It was basically every time I changed her diaper. Her bottom was always wet, so I wanted to try some good quality diapers and I remembered that one of my friends told me that the only brand she was able to keep her son diaper rash free was Pampers. So, I did the same. I don’t know if Pampers helped or not, but her diaper rash went away around the time I finished a package and I switched back to Merries. I think it might have helped. As my daughter grew, the frequency of her pooping went down, so that seemed to help a lot. Ironically, she moved from one extreme to another. At 4 months, she only poops once every 7 or 8 days. Excuse me for talking so much about the excrement….
When my older daughter started walking, I switched to a pull-up style diapers. Merries have “Merries パンツ (pantsu) のびのびwalker (nobinobi)” These are NOT training diapers. They are like Pampers Cruisers except for the snaps. I think that these are so much better for kids who become active and they are easier to put on kids. These are not training diapers. I loved those “pantsu” style better. You can just rip the sides to change diaper.
When my older daughter started potty training, I used “Torepanman” These are like Pampers Easy Ups. This helps kids to feel the diaper wet. Regular diapers are so well made that kids don’t feel that it’s wet. If your kid is not ready for potty training, I don’t recommend using these. I bought them when my older daughter was about 20 months old, thinking that she would be potty trained by feeling the wetness, and I failed it. She didn’t care. She got used to wearing a wet diaper and if I didn’t notice that she went in her training diaper, the pee went through the diaper and eventually soaked her clothes. However, when she was almost potty trained, which was around her 2 and a half years of age, the training diapers were a savior to me because if she accidentally wet her training diaper a little, the diaper made her feel uncomfortable, and she came to tell me that she needed to go to the bathroom. The diaper would be wet inside only, and it would prevent the mess to happen.
After my daughter was potty trained, I used night diapers. It’s called “Oyasumi man”. Oyasumi means “good night” in Japanese. My daughter loved the princess characters on the diapers. It’s a thick diaper, so if your child has an accident during the night, it would not wet the bed. I think that you can find the same type of diapers at the base Commissary. Oyasumi man with 24 night time diapers was about 1,500 yen (US$15).
You can buy diapers at Exchange or Commissary, but if you are looking into purchasing some diapers online, I recommend this Diapers.com site to buy diapers from. I wrote this and then saw a comment which said that Diapers.com would not ship to APO. I tried to order and checked it myself. No!!! It wouldn’t. Please let us know if you know of any company that would ship diapers to APO/FPO! The current dollar and yen exchange rate makes shopping locally slightly more expensive, but even with the bad exchange rate, you save some money by buying Japanese diapers. By the way, I DON’T work for a Japanese diaper company. You’re welcome to put your preference in the comment!