How We Calculated the Costs
In our calculation, we consider the average diaper price (across all sizes) of the following brands:
- €0.27 (Pampers)
- €0.34 (Eco by Naty)
- €0.31 (Lillydoo)
- €0.35 (Lillydoo Green)
*As of 06/05/22 at dm.
The average price of these diapers is 32 cents. We will base our following calculations on this diaper price.
Children should be changed every 2-3 hours, thus we base our calculation on 7 diapers per day (over 24 hours). We also assume that children using disposable diapers need to be changed for an average of 3 years.
Based on these assumptions, the following calculation arises:
3 years x 365 days x 7 diaper changes at €0.32 each = €2434.
In addition, we must calculate the costs of a diaper pail (€15), refill cartridges (approximately €67 per year), wet wipes (approximately €98 per year), and changing pads (approximately €17 per year). In our calculation, we assume that 9 wet wipes are used per day at €0.03 each (average price). This results in a total cost of €561 for disposable diaper accessories.
The total cost of disposable diapers and accessories amounts to €2995 after 3 years of diaper-changing.
This means that approximately €1000 in costs for disposable diapers arise per year. However, many children require disposable diapers for longer than 4 years (about 25% of children). Thus, using disposable diapers can become a cost trap.
We also did a calculation with an extremely inexpensive disposable diaper option:
Even if we consider the cheap Babylove diapers (dm's own brand), after the calculation above we arrive at €996. Added to this are also the costs for diaper accessories, which amount to €561. In this extremely inexpensive case, we arrive at a total cost of €1557.
In our calculations, we have not taken into account that Judes can be used for multiple children or resold as pre-owned (you can expect to get about 50-70% of the original price on resale of Judes).
We have also not included the societal costs of disposable diapers through waste disposal (approximately €150 - paid by the community) and environmental pollution (costs unknown).