Disposable diapers and training pants. AAARRRGGGHHH!

[PartyPooper]

Is that all there is nowadays?

I don't have children. I grew up in the 1950's. But, in those days everyone used diapers.

Now everyone seems to use disposable diapers and "training pants". I only see ads for the disposable ones.

Why is this? What's happening to our landfills?

Don't they even make reusable diapers anymore?

:D

:hi:

[rawtribe]

1. You don't have to play

http://www.diaperaps.com/

[PartyPooper]

4. Great link! Thank you.

:D

:hi:

[PennyK]

2. Yes, but...

Do you use cloth napkins? Do you clean with rags or paper towels? They do still make real diapers, and I will bet a lot of Greens use them, but cleaning dirty diapers is a truly thankless and disgusting task. I remember my mom dealing with my baby sister's...they have to be scraped and soaked and wash with bleach. Just like menstruating women use disposable products these days, I am more than fine with admitting that I used disposables for both my kids.

[hickman1937]

12. Bleach causes diaper rash big time.

You have to bleach them, then soak them, then rewash them in Ivory Snow. Usually only the ones that will be seen at church, or other public places. The rest just get dingy.

[Momgonepostal]

13. I never used chlorine bleach

nor Ivory Snow.

When the weather permitted, I hung mine to dry most of the way, then fluffed them for a few minutes in the drier. The sun is a great, natural whitening tool.

[hickman1937]

23. I did exactly once.

My poor Kate, she got the benefit of all my mistakes. Took me two weeks to clear that mess up.

[DemBones DemBones]

19. Actually, I do use cloth napkins, and rags for cleaning.

Not that I don't use paper products, but I prefer cloth to paper.

I doubt anyone ever enjoyed dunking dirty diapers in the toilet bowl but I never found it to be that disgusting. Never had to scrape a diaper, either. If the poop is stuck to the diaper, you leave it to soak in the toilet bowl for a few minutes, come back and flush the toilet, holding on to a corner of the diaper. (You drape a clean, dry corner up over the rim. It does encourage you to clean your toilet!) If it's still poopy, you repeat the process. Then you put the diaper in the diaper pail, which contains water with bleach in it, until time to wash diapers. A thankless task? Well, my husband was certainly thankful that I did it most of the time! :7 But he pitched in and did the nasty deed when necessary.

[liberalhistorian]

26. When my son was a baby

(he's now a smart-mouthed teenager, but that's another thread), I tried to do the right thing and use cloth diapers through a diaper service that would deliver and pick up once a week. But it just got to be too overwhelming and too much, especially since I was a new mother and a single one at that. So, I finally gave up and used disposable diapers.

I was told later that cloth diapers were almost as bad environmentally, because of the tremendous amount of water and detergent used to clean them.

[LynneSin]

3. I swear kids are wearing some form of diapers into ages 5 and 6

Seriously! Diapers are the biggest money racket out there. I was with a friend who was shopping for diapers and they have them for kids up to 75lbs!!! And the commericals make it seem like these kids should be wearing diapers forever.

My mother said I was out of diapers real early. She bought a plastic mattress cover and a few mornings with a wet bed got me sleeping through the night without a problem.

Nowadays I think the Pediatricians are getting kickbacks from the Diaper industry because parents are told not to rush their kids into pottytraining for fear of permamently scarring them for life. That kind of advise keeps parents buying diapers up until the kid gets into kindergarten

[mopinko]

11. parents are told not to rush their kids into pottytraining

this is a very good thing. poo is a very visceral thing. many a 2 or 3 year old child has been beaten to death for not being potty trained.

your mom was lucky.

[Cobalt Violet]

5. Elderly use them too.

So add that to the land fill as well. :shrug:

I don't know if reusable diapers would go over too well with the elderly.

[proud patriot]

6. I had Diaper Service when my son was a babe

that was eight years ago

[shesemsmom]

7. Yes they do make reusable diapers

16 years ago I bought them and like you thought I would use them and I did until I went back to work. I thought I'm not going to pollute the earth with disposables and well that lasted until I had been back to one week and I thought this is crazy. I work 12 hours and come home to house work and diapers that need washed. Those reusable one made great burp rags and were great for house cleaning after she became a toddler

[fleabert]

8. Here's some more...these get raves on the mommy boards I spend time on...

http://www.thanksmama.com/Fuzzi_Bunz_Diapers_p/moe-001.htm

[seriousstan]

9. "I don't have children." I think that says it all.

[PartyPooper]

15. Does it really matter if I have children or not to ask this question?

There have been some really serious and revealing responses to the original question from those who have had children.

I hope others besides me appreciate their input.

:-)

[seriousstan]

18. I think post #2 says it all.

[Momgonepostal]

10. They do, but they're harder to find

I have two kids, and we used a combination of disposable and reusable with each. With the first, we used a diaper service, and then disposable if we went out of town.

With the second, we had moved to an area with no diaper service so I ended up buying a lot of cloth diapers and doing the washing myself. There are lots of small, home businesses that sell a variety of cloth diapers, many with snaps or velcro closures...way more fancy than what I wore as a child.

I live in the West though, were we have more landfill space but are frequently short of water, so I'm not sure cloth is that much more of an environmentally superior choice. I don't know. ::shrug::

In the end, I just liked cloth better, and since I don't wear paper and plastic underwear myself, thought cloth seemed like a more comfortable choice.

[fortyfeetunder]

14. I hate disposables

I avoided them the first couple of years, except when the kid was in daycare. Then we had to use them there. When I was at home I only used cloth diapers.

The problem with disposables is they wick all the moisture away from the skin, therefore the children wearing them can't tell if they are wet or not.

[DemBones DemBones]

17. So does that affect toilet training? The kids not being able

to tell when they're wet?

[Pithlet]

20. During training, I think it does.

I don't think that's so important until then, though. Disposable training pants are a disaster. It can delay traiing up to a year.

[seriousstan]

21. I used a book called "potty training in one day"

for both my kids. Incredible. It works but you go insane. lololol

[fortyfeetunder]

22. Yes it does.

Kid can't tell wetness, then can't feel uncomfortable. And no urge to go potty.

But it's easier to train for #2 because they definitely can feel the lumps, so to say...

[DemBones DemBones]

16. I'm not for pushing kids to potty train too early but it does seem that

the diaper industry may be encouraging parents to leave their kids in diapers too long. The worst thing to me is people who throw dirty diapers out car windows or leave them in public restrooms, not bothering to fold them up and get them into a trash can. The convenience of having disposables has led to irresponsibility among some parents.

As a parent myself, I used cloth diapers and washed them myself but I was a stay-at-home mom for many years, including the diaper years. Disposables were only for travel and were expensive -- like you, I grew up in the fifties. By 1970, Pampers were a big improvement over the cardboard-like disposables my mom had my younger sibs in on long trips in the mid-fifties but high-priced. I counted myself very lucky to have a washer and a dryer for diapers, remembering my mom hanging diapers outside in Illinois, bringing them in frozen stiff and thawing them in the oven!

[hatredisnotavalue]

24. My two cents

I too was environmentally conscious about the whole diaper issue. I read that if water availability was in short supply in your area and, land was in large supply , then use disposables. And vice versa, use cloth. Also our trash went to a regional "waste to steam plant" and those diapers are like plutonium.

When they were about two, I didn't put diapers on them when they played outside. Let the old air get to their nethers. In fact, as soon as they could walk, if I knew they had just peed or pooped, I didn't put a diaper back on for about 20 minutes.

I had both kids trained by 2 1/2 because they could equate the pee running down their legs with the urge.

As an aside, I got a 7 week old puppy in June and only had two mistakes in the house. When he woke up, I took him outside, praised him on his pee or poop.

I never made it an issue with the kids or dog, like "you just made a nasty" whatever. To to this day, my 15 yo son, lets me know when he has just taken a poop.

[Blue State Blues]

25. there are lots of cloth diaper options out there

Most made by work at home moms, or sold by them online. A lot has changed in cloth diapers in recent years.

New fabrics such as microfleeece are good at keeping moisture away from baby's skin and can be used as liners for the traditional folded diapers, or as part of nifty all-in-one or pocket diapers -- they go on like disposables, no folding, no pins.

Instead of dunking the dirties, there is a nifty spray gadget called a mini-shower that attaches to the toilet. Bleach isn't recommended anymore. Even though diaper services do as many as 13 washes, most cloth diaper users do only 1-3 wash cycles to get diapers clean.

I think one reason many parents don't try them is that they don't know where to get them or how to use them. It helps to know someone else who uses cloth, but there are lots of resources online. I made the switch to cloth for my baby and never regretted it.

Cloth diapering links:

http://diaperpin.com

http://www.punkinbutt.com/cloth_diaper_faq.asp

http://www.realdiaperassociation.org/

[underpants]

27. I think al hedges agrees with you and has already addressed this

Sorry......can't find a link.