Traveling to Costa Rica with your children could be a very interesting experience, considering all the things the country has to offer including: beaches, mountains, forests, etc. But of course, bringing a baby to a foreign country means you also need to be prepared. If you´re wondering where you can buy all the basic stuff, this article will give you some tips to save money and find high quality diapers or food for your son or daughter.
First things first, it all depends about your location. You´ll want to stock on the supermarkets in San Jose before you go to the coasts, it´ll be easier for you because stores are more accessible in the capital city, there´s some baby specialized stores like Bebemundo where you can buy anything baby-related . If you´re already in the beaches, places like Quepos or Puerto Viejo, avoid the small groceries stores and supermarkets, they tend to be quite expensive and don´t have a lengthy variety of goods.
Try look up for the big supermarket chains like Pali, Maxipali and Mega Super. These places are cheaper and offer a considerable variety of items. For example, Pali is a Wallmart-owned supermarket chain, widely recognized for its low prices. The biggest Diaper brands in Costa Rica are Huggies and Pampers, you can find these two at almost every store in the country in all sizes, ranging 5,000 colones (aprox $8.7 as of 2020) the small pack to the 20,000 colones (aprox $35 as of 2020) big size back with 120 diapers. Cloth diapers are scarce, people in the country prefer the disposable diapers, also generic brands of inferior quality crowd to shelves and it´s best to avoid them.
While it´s not a bad idea to carry over your own milk, there´s always the opportunity to buy baby food in the country. If what you´re looking is baby formula, there´s plenty of options in the market. Nestle´s Nido offers baby food from ages 1-5, you can find special products like lactose intolerant milk and special protection formula, it´s available at almost every store and prices range from 3,000 (aprox $5.2 as of 2020) to 9,000 colones (aprox $15.8 as of 2020). Perhaps you´re keen to a higher quality product, then Nutrigen is the choice for you, a hypoallergenic formula like no other in the country, but is more expensive 18000 colones (aprox $31.5 as of 2020).
Finally, in Costa Rica there´s a popular supplement called sustagen, it helps the toddler growth, recommended for ages from 3 to 5 years. If you want to try it, the product comes in three flavors: chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, it´s proven to aid in the child´s health and development.
Are you still worried? No problem. If the diaper or formula that your baby/toddler uses was not mentioned on this article please ask about our concierge service emailing us at info@mybabyvacationcr.com, we will do our best to identify were to source your specific product needs. We can even get them ready for you at your arrival.
With this article hopefully you´ll have a better idea of which products are the best in Costa Rica, it´s important to give your baby only the best so you need to know where to go and what are brands are more trustful.