When we left the hospital with our little bundle of diapered joy, I realized a lot of things. The first was that I should have wrapped the entire car in bubble wrap and had the folks at NASCAR install a steel role cage in the car. The second was: What diaper brand should we choose? (not really, but I needed an opening)

Each diaper company vies for our attention with promises of leak protection and comfort, but for me it ultimately came down to personal preference on one item — the tabs that secure the diaper. Our own debate was between Pampers and Huggies once we moved past the Pampers Swaddlers, which we really did like. (even though I am a store brand shopper for most things).

We heard the stories from our parent friends — this brand is horrible, that brand is horrible — there was no consensus. “Don’t buy that brand! They leak!” we heard. (Vance Packard wrote a book called The Hidden Persuaders on this concept)

There were only a couple times when leaking was an issue for us. The first was the morning diaper. With our son still on bottles and sleeping through the night, the combo led to some wet onesies that I can’t blame on product failure. The second was a little messier since the issue was due to moving up a size a little too quickly (he needed chubbier legs). Solutions: Use nighttime diapers at night (duh) and make sure to use a properly sized diaper for your properly sized kiddo. When we went back to the haters, we got a lot of “oh, yeahs” — meaning the product wasn’t bad, it was just a user error.

In the end, the choice was simple: Huggies has bigger tabs to secure the diaper. I only like the bigger tabs because they keep the diaper top from rolling over the top of the tabs — this is most important at night when the diaper is fuller than normal. The rolled top ends up getting the onesie wet and/or the pajamas and possibly the crib sheet.

So, The Daddy Blogger says…Huggies wins!