Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard Spill the Poop on Diapering—and Helping More People Afford Those Pricey Diapers

Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, cofounders of the Hello Bello brand, have different memories of diapering now that their girls are school-age. Bell is a little scarred from the low moments. "All the road-trip blowouts," she remembers. "There's just no way to fix them. If you didn't bring a spare outfit and you're stopping at a gas station and the baby's screaming, it's rough." But Shepard remembers the cuteness. He says now, "I miss cleaning little butt cheeks. They were so tiny I could clean a whole baby butt with one wipe. I don't want to do it more, but I miss it."

The celeb pair just celebrated the opening of a Hello Bello diaper factory in Waco, Texas, which is already cranking out some 13 diapers a second for the diaper-subscription service, now the most popular one in the country. The diapers are also sold at more than 25,000 retail stores including Walmart and CVS.

Asked if they have any lessons learned for getting kids out of diapers, the "Mom & Dad" faces of the brand confess they have zero insight. "We had both ends of the potty training spectrum and we didn't do a single thing differently," Bell says. Their oldest, Lincoln, 8, is an "unbelievably responsible" kid and back in her toddler days, potty-trained herself at age 2. "I took her to pick out a potty, which was my mother's suggestion," Shepard says. "We said, 'Hey, that's your potty if you ever want to use it.' She was in her high chair and she said 'potty.' We took her over there and she took her diaper off. We thought we were geniuses."

The comedy came with their youngest, Delta, 6, who is more of a free spirit. "We did the same thing, but she did not want to get out of the diaper. So it just depends on the kid," Bell says. Even now, Lincoln will take herself into the shower (yes, she bathes regularly) but Delta does better when her parents let her take plush friends into the bath with her. "She'll take a dozen stuffies in there," Bell says. "So my wrists are kind of shot from ringing them out."

The celeb pair cofounded Hello Bello with an aim of making premium baby products affordable for the masses. Now that the pandemic has made affording diapers more difficult (last spring, it was reported that 1 in 3 families struggle to buy diapers, now Bell and Shepard fear it is half of all families), Hello Bello has launched a Diaper Doody Fund on their site. People can be charitable and give, and families or organizations can start a fund, asking for donations, like a GoFundMe for diapers. A family needs to raise about $800 for one year's worth of diapers, shipping not included (shipping is about $2 to $6 per order).

Bell shared that she's also giving away a year's worth of diapers to one family every Tuesday, via the Hello Bello Instagram, and that she lets the family choose a second family to receive the same. "I give everything away," she jokes, but in all seriousness, it's why we chose her to help judge our Kindest Families in America contest.