Huggies Little Swimmers Disposable Swim Pants pride themselves on the fact that they don't swell in the pool like regular disposable diapers do. That is the big selling point that they emphasize in all of their advertisements. Unfortunately, I am afraid that is one of the only good things about these disposable swim pants. They are well made with lots of good features, but the bottom line can be summed up in two words: Poop Soup.

Huggies Little Swimmers Disposable Swim Pants don't use the same absorbent gel material that regular disposable diapers do. This is what keeps them from swelling up in the water like regular disposable diapers. Unfortunately, that is also what keeps them from absorbing more than a small amount of urine. When I take my son to the waterpark, we usually stay for several hours. Half way through our visit, if I take a peek in his Huggies Little Swimmers Disposable Swim Pants, there is a pool of urine that he is just sitting in. That cannot be good for his skin, and it certainly can't be healthy.

They have a feature called "Leak Guards." Basically, this is the elastic around the leg openings that is designed to keep the contents of the diaper in the diaper and to prevent said contents from leaking into the pool. For a while, I thought this feature was working very well. Those "pee puddles" in my son's swim pants were evidence that at least some of the urine was staying in. Of course, it is difficult to tell when small amounts of urine are leaking out of the swim pants and into the pool. But, when my son made a bowel movement in the swim pants I realized that these things are far from leak proof. One day, while playing in the pool and patio area at our house, Danny made a bowel movement. How did I know? Did I see him make that "poop face" that we mommies are so familiar with? No. I saw a brownish liquid running down his leg as he walked across the patio. When I checked his swim pants, there was a nice firm bowel movement in a puddle of poopy urine (hence the term "Poop Soup") and half of it was leaking through the "leak guard," down his leg, and onto the patio. This upset me as I don't want him swimming in the drippings from other children's poop soup when we are at the waterpark or in public pools. You may wonder if were using the correct size. We wondered the same thing...so we bought the next smaller size, hoping for tighter elastic on the legs. Once again (luckily, again at our own pool) I saw that telltale brownish liquid running down his leg. So much for the "Leak Guards."

Now for the basics about this product...

Huggies Little Swimmers Disposable Swim Pants are available in three sizes:
S/P (16-26 lbs) - comes in a 12 count package
M/M (24/34 lbs) - comes in an 11 count package
L/G (32+ lbs) - comes in a 10 count package
Regardless of the size, the price is the same (between $6.99 and $7.99), so as your child gets bigger, you get less swim pants for your dollar).

There are four color combinations available:
Turquoise with purple sides
Purple with turquoise sides
Fuschia with purple sides
Blue with turquoise sides

They all have little illustrations of suns, buckets, shovels, starfishes, and footprints. They also have the size printed on the inside back of the swim pant so you can tell front from back, and so you can differentiate sizes if you have several swim pants in your bag. The colors do not bleed when wet so you need not worry about messing up swim trunks or bathing suits if you choose to put either one over your child's Little Swimmers Disposable Swim Pants. Wearing a bathing suit over the Little Swimmer is unnecessary, as the Little Swimmers Disposable Swim Pants are made with a strong outside covering material that will not tear when your child is playing on a concrete pool patio. With regular disposable diapers, if the outer cover tears while in the pool, the absorbent gel material will leak and can do major damage to the filtration system of the pool. You can go to http://www.littleswimmers.com/underchall.asp to see a demonstration of the way regular disposable diapers swell and Huggies Little Swimmers Disposable Swim Pants do not.

The Huggies Little Swimmers Disposable Swim Pants have stretchy, tear-away side panels that serve two purposes. They allow for growth and freedom of movement by stretching nicely when the child moves. They also make it easier to change the child, as it is not easy to pull a wet swim pant up and down over chunky little thighs...and you certainly don't want to pull a wet and full swim pant over chunky little thighs. You simply tear the side panels when you need to change the child. Due to the stretchiness factor, the "tear-away side panels" are not always easy to tear, though.

I am not thrilled with the performance of the Huggies Little Swimmers Disposable Swim Pants, but for a long time they were the only disposable swim pant on the market. Recently Luvs came out with a disposable swim pant, but they have gotten poor reviews here at Epinions, so I have decided to stick with Huggies - they're familiar. Besides...potty training is right around the corner, so I won't have to worry about this stuff much longer (I hope!).







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