I'm a big fan of Pampers. Not going to lie. My sisters used them with their kids and I used them with mine. I tried switching to another brand. We tried Huggies for the newborn stage. We tried generic and it was not worth the blow outs.
As you will soon learn, little babies have MASSIVE blowouts. I remember with my oldest, having her have such a blow out (while i was changing her) that her poop went all over me and all over my clothes and the wall. Now just think about that happening in a diaper that doesn't stay on right. It's messy. I have actually had to CUT her out of a onesie before because I didn't want to lift the poop filled onsie over her head and get it in her eyes or her face. One thing I stopped doing early on, is worrying about cleaning lots of poop off of onesies. Now I just toss them. No longer a worry of mine. They are not worth it to clean the poop out and put the poop in my washing machine. Out it goes.
So for this baby, I have a closet full of Pampers size 1 diapers and a few newborn ones. Just remember, that little guy or girl will only be in size newborn for a few weeks. It might not even be worth it to buy size N. Also they will give you some in the hospital. I just stocked up on those.
As for shopping for diapers, the stores have come along way since my oldest was born. We have Diapers.com and Drugstore.com and the new Amazon Mom program where you get 20% off the Amazon price, free shipping and auto shipment. I look for coupons (Huggies coupons are more available to the public I hear but Pampers diapers are regularly cheaper so it depends on what I find). I actually like to have my diapers auto-shipped to me. Amazon Mom used to have a 30% deal but of course they realized they were losing money so back to 20%. I also have an Amazon Prime membership so I get free shipping 99.9% of the time at Amazon. Well worth the $75 I pay each year. I get all my baby supplies on Amazon. And household supplies too.
With my first daughter, I actually did a coupon swap on Craigslist. I would find someone who uses a brand that I didn't use and who had coupons for me. We exchanged mailing addresses and just mailed them to each other. It actually worked! Did that for diapers, wipes, and formula.
Now I have friends who SWEAR by Target diapers. My suggestion is to try it out. I never tried any new diaper in the first three months because I knew I was going to need the good ones in the first stage. But once they get older... try Huggies, or Up & Up by target. Even Luvs. Luvs and Pampers are made by the same company. I hear Luvs is just old Pampers technology so I would do those too. I have used them all. You just have to experiment!!!! We really liked Kirkland brand (from Costco) for a long time. We no longer belong there so we don't get them. I do know that diapers.com does sell them from their site if you need them. We also used Kirkland wipes. You can order them there too. I like them as well.
So bottom line for diapers for me, it's not worth my time or money to buy cheap diapers. Now that is just my opinion and some of my friends disagree. I did it for a while and I spent more time cleaning up blowouts or changing sheets etc. Not worth it anymore. I ruined too many outfits. I will do Pampers until the baby is much bigger. I just think they are better. Some moms say that Pampers didn't work for their kids due to their shape, caused leaks and maybe they are right but for my kids they did work. If that is your case, try another brand.
Remember, it's baptism by fire over here in MommyWorld. Just gotta try new things.
*********UPDATE******
I have sinced switched to Pampers Sensitive. They are not that much more expensive than the regular Pampers. I like the feeling better. Might be worth a try for your little one!
