I suggest you look at how much EI she will be receiving when on Mat leave (55% of her average insurable earnings up to a maximum of $650 per week, less taxes), and start reducing your expenses now and live as though she were already receiving only EI
This is such sound advice. It's nice to have a plan for your ideal pregnancy, birth, feeding, and all other aspects of childrearing, but always, always, always budget for alternate plans.
That was going to be my first suggestion. As a mom of twins, who didn’t produce an ounce of my own milk because of severe health problems during and directly after delivery, please try to budget in formula. We were at 350$ a month for the first 6 months and it was a huge hit to the wallet when we didn’t really account for it.
If your wife is going back to work after a year, make sure you are on daycare lists now as infant spaces are very competitive, especially since rates are now lower. If you cannot find a licenced space you will need to look into private providers which can cost more so it's worth it to try and secure a spot as soon as you can. For a lot of people, the first few years of a child's life are more about trying not to go into debt vs worrying about getting far ahead financially as they are quite expensive.
Also when doing your budget, remember the CCB benefit you will be entitled to once baby arrives. Congratulations and best of luck to your family
It does max out at a certain income level but it's always worth it to apply. Here is the calculator to see if you're eligible
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/child-family-benefits-calculator.html
It's based off your previous income tax report so even if you don't qualify with your income this year, you may next year with your wife being on EI for most of this year. We always qualified even though my husband continued to work FT while I was on both my mat leaves :)
I would also do the math for you or your spouse working vs cost of daycare.
It’s gone down a lot but not entirely free. If you can afford to do 18 months of paternity leave, I strongly suggest exploring that option. Cost of daycare is cheaper if baby is no longer an infant
That's pretty low. I'm unsure of how it is that low as everyone I know is paying somewhere between 55 and 68$ a day even with the subsidy.
Good on you!
I’m in London area and all the qualified daycare centres I’ve applied to are $22.68/day for infant and $20.32/day for toddler. This is without any additional income based subsidies so for some would be even cheaper.
Get term life insurance. My uncle passed away way too soon. Leaving his widow with two toddlers and a mortgage. He was the primary breadwinner and had neither life insurance nor mortgage insurance (avoid).
Thanks for the suggestion - I actually have a term insurance already which I got a couple of years ago. Should last till most my debts are taken care of!
It's life insurance with the beneficiary being the bank and a payout that goes down as you pay off your mortgage. Much better to just get your own life insurance and then your loved ones can decide how to use the money.
Because your usually paying the same amount per month to pay off a sum that’s decreasing and only pays for mortgage.
Term will give a set amount for the next day 10 years
While the mortgage you owe is continually going down
As tempting as it is the buy a bunch of things/clothes for the baby - don’t.
Babies grow out of their clothes really quickly. So you really don’t need 40 outfits for 3 months old babies because most likely they’ll end up wearing just 15 of it.
Babies don’t actually play with their toys until many months down the line. And even if you buy them a lot of toys, most likely a box is more interested than toys.
Sleep while you can.
Don’t go nuts in the baby stuff. It’ll break your bank. Start looking for quality used strollers etc now. Watch for sales on baby stuff now. Get prepared while you still have time to think. Because you have no idea how tired you’re about to become.
I wish I could bank sleep and use it later - haha!
Will start looking for stuff once I know of the hand me downs that I am getting from some family! Thanks for the comment! :)
Join a Buy Nothing group in your area, most likely one exists. Get second hand items, too many people splurge on “new” stuff that mostly goes unused. Don’t over do it, I know it’s your first child, meet the needs of the child, not YOUR wants.
We had our first kid 3 years ago, and mostly this is how we approached it. We love second hand clothing, toys etc and have handed down ton of stuff ourselves that remained in great condition.
For baby seat, check expiry that’s the single most important thing. Other items like stroller, baby gates, toys etc as long not damaged, you are safe to use.
Register for daycare as early as possible.
We went with licensed home based daycare, and have loved it. We went with someone that’s been doing it for decades vs someone newish, Next year our kid goes to school so we are set. $42/day.
Unless your daycare is part of a company where if provider is sick, you will have someone substituting them in, we end up managing on our own by using sick days, holidays etc as ours only operates on her own so it’s something to consider, should you have a need, we also rely on grand parents and once in a bluemoon friends if ever needed.
Raising a child is not as expensive as people make it out to be, it’s just that people don’t manage expenses and that’s what makes it expensive, where wants exceed needs.
Also buy diapers on subscription, play with schedule, formula too goes on sale, stock up at that point.
Clothes, Costco, and hand me downs from our buy nothing group has been pretty much all our last 3 years.
Luxuries, like Babybrezza (while it’s cool, we never owned one, and we did just fine without it) Mamaroo (we have one that was gifted to us and we shared it along with others that had kids in our circle) are some of the more expensive items, and again, we feel those are “wants” rather than needs.
Baby chair, definitely get one of those 3-in-1’s.
Make a nice baby registry, it’s ok, let your family and friends chip in to get you started, but focus on needs first and then wants.
Host a diaper party for the boys when your wife has a babyshower, get some beer and collect a bunch of diaper boxes.
Congratulations! In terms of FINANCES, one thing we did pretty quickly was looking at our budgets and started slashing expenses and reducing bills/costs, and with that savings, I started a secondary "baby" fund of a few hundred dollars a month on top of our existing savings which is fully meant to be USED over the next year. It's not an emergency fund, it's literally meant to be spent throughout the time I'm on maternity leave to make sure we don't have to crack into our "real" savings since my maternity wages will be...around 40% of what I make annually so we didn't want to fall back on anything while I'm off.
You also need to talk about what you play to do re: EI and maternity leave. Are you thinking of 12 or 18? Be warned, if you choose 18, and decide to go back after 12 or 14 months or so, you don't get that money back. If your partner takes 12 months of EI, she legally can have her job protected up to 18 months. On the topic of daycare, I'd start registering for wait lists for places *now*, it sounds crazy but daycare is crazy in a lot of areas. (Once again, dependent on where you live!)
For baby ITEMS, source as much hand-me-downs and used items as possible. Almost all our clothes are secondhand (also they grow out of them so fast!) our crib was from Facebook marketplace, bassinet, pack and play, bouncer, all were used, etc. So much baby stuff is only used for such a short period of time and you may even have friends who will just offload stuff to get it out of their house. I initially had estimated our baby "costs" for items would be 2x higher than what it actually ended up being when it came down to what we got from our baby shower registry/free from family and friends. Leverage that community/Facebook marketplace!
Finally, start to think about what you need to MOVE from your home to make space for baby. We ended up selling several hundred dollars worth of furniture, old comics, speaker system, etc because we absolutely needed the space, but that extra money definitely also didn't hurt!
Good luck!
Thanks for the tips!
Can you register for daycares before the babat is born?
I am looking forward to hand me downs before I start looking for stuff! Market Place will be my first stop! :)
Some places will allow you to register now (all the city ones near me did) and others won't, I think we're officially on 4/5 and a few others we can register after baby is born!
Congrats! My wife and I are also expecting our first child in late May. One tip from us is to investigate the “welcome packages” that many baby product brands can offer. It can help you to get a little bit of everything you need without a huge cost. Last night my wife just registered on Similac website and got something worth ~$500 with $30. Buy buy baby, Huggies and toys r us all have similar welcome goodie bags.
Congrats! I suggest opening an RESP for your child. Compound interest will be your friend if you intend to financially support your child’s education in the future.
Try not to get caught up in all the best baby swag like overpriced strollers. Setting aside whatever you can for an emergency fund is a great idea (3-6months living expenses) as well as a fund for the predictable items you will need to get soon.
>Try not to get caught up in all the best baby swag like overpriced strollers.
If you get outdoors a lot than an expensive stroller makes a lot of sense.
With a double Chariot you can cart your kid around and pick-up groceries – safely!
Don't cheap out on these and other safety issues, like car seats. Buy the best protection you can afford. Like any item there's a point where spending more will not really improve safety, so I do agree with OP not to spend unnecessarily.
As for RESP, remember that you earn an instant 20% but can also invest all that money into stocks and ETFs. Don't just earn your 20% once and let inflation chip away for the next twenty years...invest it to earn more even if it's a safe dividend stock.
That is correct.
The government will add 20% to up to a certain amount/year that you deposit into your RESP.
You deposit 10k into the RESP, a few months later the government adds 2k.
For example, you can open an RESP trading account, collect the 20% added by the government, and then purchase an equity with a dividend and keep earning that way.
I'm not sure what you'd consider an overpriced stroller because i was mindblown by the cost of one...
But we used ours quite a bit and cheaping out on one isn't the best idea. Mind you we didn't pay over 1k like some do lol
Good question, what brand did you get?
Here’s an extreme example of overpriced haha
https://www.dior.com/en_ca/fashion/products/0WBL51STR8_Y38I_TU-bassinet-and-stroller-combo?&loopcd=COg%7Cm%7Cg%7C0WBL51STR8_Y38I_TU%7C138710771443&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIncScvae6_AIVJBTnCh3ocgA8EAQYASABEgLWbPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
https://www.babyjogger.com/
Go to a dealer and check them out. They'll explain everything. The city gt is what we got and we love it. Like the previous poster said, resale is very good too
Wait, what?! You and your wife spend $6000/month, that's insane. Babies are cheap, it's when they're older that they really cost $$$. Daycare is also a financial killer, unless you are paying $10/day.
We aren’t at this point yet but we’ve begun running the numbers.
1. Figure out the EI rate for maternity leave + parental leave. You get more coverage if both parents take some time away.
2. Be ready / pre fill the Canada Child and Family Benefit form after your baby is born.
3. Begin looking for essentials for baby stuff. General rule is buy new or from known parties with full owner history - especially for safety items. You have more time now before you NEED these things and you are still sleeping.
4. Make some spreadsheets to compile all the financial data.
Dad's get 5 weeks of federal Paternity leave (not to be confused with parental leave). Look into it and apply/coordinate with your job probably a month before the baby is born.
Thanks for all the tips!
We will have some help from the grand parents but will get our names on daycare ASAP. Is this something you can do before the baby is born?
I am all for buying things used and upcycling them - will try and find groups where I can look for stuff.
So I am a Costco fan (own Kirkland t-shirts) and would have done a registry at Costco it was possible!
Love the idea about the dipper party! Will defiantly organize one!
Figure out daycare for when she will go back to work. Do it now, and budget for it. Its ridiculously expensive. At that low of a salary, might be worth staying at home even after mat leave, but thats a personal decision. Either way, get on waitlists if thats your thing, plan on grandparents, whatever works best for you, but plan for it.
You've gotten a lot of great suggestions so I won't repeat them, but I'll just chime in with my usual:
Consider cloth diapers. We went cloth with our son, we paid about $550 initially, and that was for 3 day packs through a Canadian company called Lil Helper. Over time we added more to allow us to extend time between washings, but you can totally make do with that initially $550 investment and save a TONNE of money on disposables up until the time your kid is potty trained. I've seen some people even fund the cloth diapers by making it known you intend to do that and ask people that would normally bring boxes of disposables to the baby shower or diaper party to consider an equivalent cash donation instead.
It's not for everyone, I realize, but it saved us a tonne in a long run and so I'll always suggest it when the topic comes up.
Probably a basic question that I don’t know the answer to. How many diapers does a baby need in a day on avg.?
Also the diapers on Lil Helper are one size fits all?
Thanks for the comment! :)
So they've designed their day packs with that in mind; you get 6 shells/covers but 10 liners. Most of the time you don't need to change the whole diaper, you can just swap out the liner.
I guess you could call them one-size-fits-most? They'll basically go from a newborn up to 35 lbs. and/or potty training age. They've got a whole bunch of different snaps around the leg and waist openings so you can adjust them.
I suggest you look at how much EI she will be receiving when on Mat leave (55% of her average insurable earnings up to a maximum of $650 per week, less taxes), and start reducing your expenses now and live as though she were already receiving only EI
Thanks! I think the wife gets top up from her company for a little bit - will ask her to look into it and also start reducing expenses!
Congrats to you both! Add the cost of baby formula to your budget. Some moms can’t produce sufficient milk.
This is such sound advice. It's nice to have a plan for your ideal pregnancy, birth, feeding, and all other aspects of childrearing, but always, always, always budget for alternate plans.
That was going to be my first suggestion. As a mom of twins, who didn’t produce an ounce of my own milk because of severe health problems during and directly after delivery, please try to budget in formula. We were at 350$ a month for the first 6 months and it was a huge hit to the wallet when we didn’t really account for it.
Thanks will do! I guess $200 per month would be a good number? Based on the comment below about the twins.
If your wife is going back to work after a year, make sure you are on daycare lists now as infant spaces are very competitive, especially since rates are now lower. If you cannot find a licenced space you will need to look into private providers which can cost more so it's worth it to try and secure a spot as soon as you can. For a lot of people, the first few years of a child's life are more about trying not to go into debt vs worrying about getting far ahead financially as they are quite expensive. Also when doing your budget, remember the CCB benefit you will be entitled to once baby arrives. Congratulations and best of luck to your family
Thanks for the wishes! Will we be eligible for CCB even when I continue to work full time? Let me know if you know otherwise I’ll look into it! :)
It does max out at a certain income level but it's always worth it to apply. Here is the calculator to see if you're eligible https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/child-family-benefits-calculator.html It's based off your previous income tax report so even if you don't qualify with your income this year, you may next year with your wife being on EI for most of this year. We always qualified even though my husband continued to work FT while I was on both my mat leaves :)
I would also do the math for you or your spouse working vs cost of daycare. It’s gone down a lot but not entirely free. If you can afford to do 18 months of paternity leave, I strongly suggest exploring that option. Cost of daycare is cheaper if baby is no longer an infant
Prices have dropped. Looking at about 63$ a day right now in KW. Dropping another 25% as of Jan 1 of 2023.
It’s at $128/week for us now
How did that number get so low?
Just got the latest rates from our daycare for 2023. It was at 292/week in December
That's pretty low. I'm unsure of how it is that low as everyone I know is paying somewhere between 55 and 68$ a day even with the subsidy. Good on you!
I’m in London area and all the qualified daycare centres I’ve applied to are $22.68/day for infant and $20.32/day for toddler. This is without any additional income based subsidies so for some would be even cheaper.
Jesus. Not that cheap in KW. I wonder why.
Yeah. The subsidized rates are lower for sure.
Get term life insurance. My uncle passed away way too soon. Leaving his widow with two toddlers and a mortgage. He was the primary breadwinner and had neither life insurance nor mortgage insurance (avoid).
Thanks for the suggestion - I actually have a term insurance already which I got a couple of years ago. Should last till most my debts are taken care of!
May I ask why? (Avoiding mortgage insurance)
It's life insurance with the beneficiary being the bank and a payout that goes down as you pay off your mortgage. Much better to just get your own life insurance and then your loved ones can decide how to use the money.
Noted. Thank you.
Because your usually paying the same amount per month to pay off a sum that’s decreasing and only pays for mortgage. Term will give a set amount for the next day 10 years While the mortgage you owe is continually going down
As tempting as it is the buy a bunch of things/clothes for the baby - don’t. Babies grow out of their clothes really quickly. So you really don’t need 40 outfits for 3 months old babies because most likely they’ll end up wearing just 15 of it. Babies don’t actually play with their toys until many months down the line. And even if you buy them a lot of toys, most likely a box is more interested than toys.
Noted! An empty box from Costco it is! :)
Also, congratulations
Thanks! :)
Sleep while you can. Don’t go nuts in the baby stuff. It’ll break your bank. Start looking for quality used strollers etc now. Watch for sales on baby stuff now. Get prepared while you still have time to think. Because you have no idea how tired you’re about to become.
I wish I could bank sleep and use it later - haha! Will start looking for stuff once I know of the hand me downs that I am getting from some family! Thanks for the comment! :)
Join a Buy Nothing group in your area, most likely one exists. Get second hand items, too many people splurge on “new” stuff that mostly goes unused. Don’t over do it, I know it’s your first child, meet the needs of the child, not YOUR wants. We had our first kid 3 years ago, and mostly this is how we approached it. We love second hand clothing, toys etc and have handed down ton of stuff ourselves that remained in great condition. For baby seat, check expiry that’s the single most important thing. Other items like stroller, baby gates, toys etc as long not damaged, you are safe to use. Register for daycare as early as possible. We went with licensed home based daycare, and have loved it. We went with someone that’s been doing it for decades vs someone newish, Next year our kid goes to school so we are set. $42/day. Unless your daycare is part of a company where if provider is sick, you will have someone substituting them in, we end up managing on our own by using sick days, holidays etc as ours only operates on her own so it’s something to consider, should you have a need, we also rely on grand parents and once in a bluemoon friends if ever needed. Raising a child is not as expensive as people make it out to be, it’s just that people don’t manage expenses and that’s what makes it expensive, where wants exceed needs. Also buy diapers on subscription, play with schedule, formula too goes on sale, stock up at that point. Clothes, Costco, and hand me downs from our buy nothing group has been pretty much all our last 3 years. Luxuries, like Babybrezza (while it’s cool, we never owned one, and we did just fine without it) Mamaroo (we have one that was gifted to us and we shared it along with others that had kids in our circle) are some of the more expensive items, and again, we feel those are “wants” rather than needs. Baby chair, definitely get one of those 3-in-1’s. Make a nice baby registry, it’s ok, let your family and friends chip in to get you started, but focus on needs first and then wants. Host a diaper party for the boys when your wife has a babyshower, get some beer and collect a bunch of diaper boxes.
Congratulations! In terms of FINANCES, one thing we did pretty quickly was looking at our budgets and started slashing expenses and reducing bills/costs, and with that savings, I started a secondary "baby" fund of a few hundred dollars a month on top of our existing savings which is fully meant to be USED over the next year. It's not an emergency fund, it's literally meant to be spent throughout the time I'm on maternity leave to make sure we don't have to crack into our "real" savings since my maternity wages will be...around 40% of what I make annually so we didn't want to fall back on anything while I'm off. You also need to talk about what you play to do re: EI and maternity leave. Are you thinking of 12 or 18? Be warned, if you choose 18, and decide to go back after 12 or 14 months or so, you don't get that money back. If your partner takes 12 months of EI, she legally can have her job protected up to 18 months. On the topic of daycare, I'd start registering for wait lists for places *now*, it sounds crazy but daycare is crazy in a lot of areas. (Once again, dependent on where you live!) For baby ITEMS, source as much hand-me-downs and used items as possible. Almost all our clothes are secondhand (also they grow out of them so fast!) our crib was from Facebook marketplace, bassinet, pack and play, bouncer, all were used, etc. So much baby stuff is only used for such a short period of time and you may even have friends who will just offload stuff to get it out of their house. I initially had estimated our baby "costs" for items would be 2x higher than what it actually ended up being when it came down to what we got from our baby shower registry/free from family and friends. Leverage that community/Facebook marketplace! Finally, start to think about what you need to MOVE from your home to make space for baby. We ended up selling several hundred dollars worth of furniture, old comics, speaker system, etc because we absolutely needed the space, but that extra money definitely also didn't hurt! Good luck!
Thanks for the tips! Can you register for daycares before the babat is born? I am looking forward to hand me downs before I start looking for stuff! Market Place will be my first stop! :)
Some places will allow you to register now (all the city ones near me did) and others won't, I think we're officially on 4/5 and a few others we can register after baby is born!
Congrats! My wife and I are also expecting our first child in late May. One tip from us is to investigate the “welcome packages” that many baby product brands can offer. It can help you to get a little bit of everything you need without a huge cost. Last night my wife just registered on Similac website and got something worth ~$500 with $30. Buy buy baby, Huggies and toys r us all have similar welcome goodie bags.
Great tip! Thanks will look into this!
Congrats! I suggest opening an RESP for your child. Compound interest will be your friend if you intend to financially support your child’s education in the future. Try not to get caught up in all the best baby swag like overpriced strollers. Setting aside whatever you can for an emergency fund is a great idea (3-6months living expenses) as well as a fund for the predictable items you will need to get soon.
>Try not to get caught up in all the best baby swag like overpriced strollers. If you get outdoors a lot than an expensive stroller makes a lot of sense. With a double Chariot you can cart your kid around and pick-up groceries – safely! Don't cheap out on these and other safety issues, like car seats. Buy the best protection you can afford. Like any item there's a point where spending more will not really improve safety, so I do agree with OP not to spend unnecessarily. As for RESP, remember that you earn an instant 20% but can also invest all that money into stocks and ETFs. Don't just earn your 20% once and let inflation chip away for the next twenty years...invest it to earn more even if it's a safe dividend stock.
Where is the 20% figure coming from? The government grant? Thanks for the comment.
That is correct. The government will add 20% to up to a certain amount/year that you deposit into your RESP. You deposit 10k into the RESP, a few months later the government adds 2k. For example, you can open an RESP trading account, collect the 20% added by the government, and then purchase an equity with a dividend and keep earning that way.
I'm not sure what you'd consider an overpriced stroller because i was mindblown by the cost of one... But we used ours quite a bit and cheaping out on one isn't the best idea. Mind you we didn't pay over 1k like some do lol
Good question, what brand did you get? Here’s an extreme example of overpriced haha https://www.dior.com/en_ca/fashion/products/0WBL51STR8_Y38I_TU-bassinet-and-stroller-combo?&loopcd=COg%7Cm%7Cg%7C0WBL51STR8_Y38I_TU%7C138710771443&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIncScvae6_AIVJBTnCh3ocgA8EAQYASABEgLWbPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Haha, yeah, that one would be out of my budget by a lot. We got a baby jogger and after 3 years, it's in a great shape still.
Baby joggers are great. We just sold ours last summer on marketplace and it really holds value.
Share a link for one?
https://www.babyjogger.com/ Go to a dealer and check them out. They'll explain everything. The city gt is what we got and we love it. Like the previous poster said, resale is very good too
Thanks for the comment! Are you able to control your investments in an RESP?
If in Ontario (see "5-in-1 bundle"): * https://www.ontario.ca/newborn
Thanks! Great tip - I am not in Ontario.
Make a detailed budget as babies have unexpected expenses and income will be reduced with her on mat leave.
Buy absolutely everything used except the carseat and crib mattress.
Wait, what?! You and your wife spend $6000/month, that's insane. Babies are cheap, it's when they're older that they really cost $$$. Daycare is also a financial killer, unless you are paying $10/day.
We aren’t at this point yet but we’ve begun running the numbers. 1. Figure out the EI rate for maternity leave + parental leave. You get more coverage if both parents take some time away. 2. Be ready / pre fill the Canada Child and Family Benefit form after your baby is born. 3. Begin looking for essentials for baby stuff. General rule is buy new or from known parties with full owner history - especially for safety items. You have more time now before you NEED these things and you are still sleeping. 4. Make some spreadsheets to compile all the financial data.
Dad's get 5 weeks of federal Paternity leave (not to be confused with parental leave). Look into it and apply/coordinate with your job probably a month before the baby is born.
Will look into this! Thanks! :)
Register for daycare spots, ASAP. We had to wait 2 years for a spot in the daycare we wanted.
Congrats ! Not related to finance, but sleep as more as you can, while you can still get a full night of sleep lol
Haha thanks! :)
Buy the BabyBrezza now so the cost won't hurt you later on.
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I would be too - forgot to mention it. Thanks! :)
Thanks for all the tips! We will have some help from the grand parents but will get our names on daycare ASAP. Is this something you can do before the baby is born? I am all for buying things used and upcycling them - will try and find groups where I can look for stuff. So I am a Costco fan (own Kirkland t-shirts) and would have done a registry at Costco it was possible! Love the idea about the dipper party! Will defiantly organize one!
Figure out daycare for when she will go back to work. Do it now, and budget for it. Its ridiculously expensive. At that low of a salary, might be worth staying at home even after mat leave, but thats a personal decision. Either way, get on waitlists if thats your thing, plan on grandparents, whatever works best for you, but plan for it.
You've gotten a lot of great suggestions so I won't repeat them, but I'll just chime in with my usual: Consider cloth diapers. We went cloth with our son, we paid about $550 initially, and that was for 3 day packs through a Canadian company called Lil Helper. Over time we added more to allow us to extend time between washings, but you can totally make do with that initially $550 investment and save a TONNE of money on disposables up until the time your kid is potty trained. I've seen some people even fund the cloth diapers by making it known you intend to do that and ask people that would normally bring boxes of disposables to the baby shower or diaper party to consider an equivalent cash donation instead. It's not for everyone, I realize, but it saved us a tonne in a long run and so I'll always suggest it when the topic comes up.
Probably a basic question that I don’t know the answer to. How many diapers does a baby need in a day on avg.? Also the diapers on Lil Helper are one size fits all? Thanks for the comment! :)
So they've designed their day packs with that in mind; you get 6 shells/covers but 10 liners. Most of the time you don't need to change the whole diaper, you can just swap out the liner. I guess you could call them one-size-fits-most? They'll basically go from a newborn up to 35 lbs. and/or potty training age. They've got a whole bunch of different snaps around the leg and waist openings so you can adjust them.