Answering the question of older children in diapers.

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w0lfpack91

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This seems to be a common enough topic on this site as to why parents don't just let kids wear diapers as long as they what or when they want. The discussion usually ends up between the vivid fantasy we all enjoy and the parents who have felt the reality of the situation. So recently I had to do a medical expense form calculating rough estimated costs of all "medical" expenses on each house resident and one segment under child care had to include diaper expenses both estimated pre-potty train and any recurring diaper related issues (bed wetting or special needs)

*NOW BEAR IN MIND THESE FIGURES ARE ROUGH ESTIMATES BASED ON CURRENT RETAIL PRICE OF EACH BRAND MY BROTHER AND SON HAVE USED IN THE PAST 15 YEARS BETWEEN THE TWO OF THEM THESE ARE NOT EXACT DEFFINITIVE FIGURES*

Brands include Luvs diapers, huggies pull ups, and Pullups Goodnites brand.

My little brother who is 15 as of this year has used diapers off and on a grand total of 13 years consistently for a total of 12.5 years.

My son who is going on 9 is still in them @ night and during his sporting events. so the overall total still grows by the week.

But the average breakdown was on 2 cases of diapers a week pre-potty trained and 2 Pull ups a day there after. On both boys. For the duration of their time of use.

The total for my little brother over 13 years came to about $22,984. That's higher than some people's annual income.

My son comes in at about $8533 and growing over almost 9 years.

The grand total between two boys is $31,517 and growing in 15 years averaging out to about $2101 rounded to the nearest dollar per year in just diapers. And that's not even full time. That's averaging on 2 Pull ups a day during the boys bed wetting tenure and 2 cases per week during their pre-potty training tenure. Obviously due to factors such as illness, travel, special occasions and lazy days they have gone through more diapers and Pull ups than accounted for but it's not more than a few hundred dollar difference.
The idea of kids staying in diapers longer is appealing but the reality of financial burdens often outweigh any convenience gains.

This is why while it's a cool idea it's not a practical one. These figures only accounted for 24/7 diapers for 5 years on my son and 4 on my brother the rest and bulk of it was just night time only. If all 15 years were counted @ 24/7 we would be closing in on near $90,000 over 15 years adjusting for size and cost increase as both boys got bigger.

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And because my mother is also in the household and my childhood diaper expenses were accounted for as well but since I am just counting one generation in this my usage does not reflect in this. Being partially incontinent during the better part of elementary school and middle school my usage alone racked into the $110,000 range in 1996-2005 decade prices.

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w0lfpack91 said:
The idea of kids staying in diapers longer is appealing...

Really? I'm not sure I follow. Why is the idea of kids staying in diapers longer appealing? I wonder if this is fantasy and reality getting tangled up a bit. Maybe?

I've potty-trained two kids, and while there were a handful of instances where public accidents had me thinking, "Ugh! I wish I could have just put this kid in a diaper!" the reality was that those occasional inconveniences were nothing to the awesomeness of having my kids out of diapers and using the toilet on their own.

Changing an infant's diapers is, according to some, an important bonding time for parent and child. But it's not long before all those diaper changes start adding up to a lot of time and money that are better spent in other ways.
 
It's a trend I noticed Just within the ABDL community That I think is just rooted within the idea of roleplay

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Well if I had any kids, I wouldn't want to keep them in diapers, but if any of them truely needed them, well I would still use diapers. Same as you do for your son.
 
12srepaid said:
Well if I had any kids, I wouldn't want to keep them in diapers, but if any of them truely needed them, well I would still use diapers. Same as you do for your son.
Yes but this was more targeted at the younger members of the site who often comment that they see no real down side and that it would be a good idea. While most of their reasoning may be sound when the topic is brought up most don't seem to comprehend the financial burden of kids in diapers. They see it from the ABDL side of it, it's a bit different when you have to make the decision between Diapers for a week or food for a month.

My little brother choked on his soda when he read just how much his bed wetting expenses cost us over 13 years. Being 15 he may not comprehend money in the way us as adults do but he does know that almost 23,000 is a huge amount I even showed him that in perspective we could have bought a Brand-new car for the amount of money that he peed through in diapers Over the course of his life. It's by no means a cheap product.

And I will admit my son probably uses them far more than he should or needs to, And me being what I am fairly lax on the topic of making him use the toilet while he has a Pull up on. If he is wearing it, wetting himself is fair game I've never really gotten on to him about it. And he, like his Uncle, participates in junior motocross As well as soccer and martial arts, I have him wear them during all 3 of those Because of his ADHD but also because 2 of those are full contact sports, If he wrecks his dirtbike or gets hit or kicked hard enough in compitition it could cause him to have an accident it's happened before and a pull up just makes Clean-up much easier.

But back on topic once hes able to control himself at night They will disappear from his underwear drawer. I'll still keep them around for his motocross and martial arts, But he won't have access to them whenever he feels like it.
 
Well, what my instinct tell me is that maybe they could go without the diapers and are capable to some point. And that perhaps that the diapers being there for so long is normal and enables them, and they may not really need them that much.

Of course, I don't know much about the situation. If the cost is too much then it's time to start weening them off diapers.
 
MickeyM said:
Well, what my instinct tell me is that maybe they could go without the diapers and are capable to some point. And that perhaps that the diapers being there for so long is normal and enables them, and they may not really need them that much.

Of course, I don't know much about the situation. If the cost is too much then it's time to start weening them off diapers.
No one's completely out of them Has been for 2 years I just had to fill out that medical Survey form And we actually got to calculating it. I knew it was expensive but I didn't actually anticipate it being over $30,000 I just figured since I had done the math I would put it out there as a PSA Because this thread normally pops up once or twice a year anyway

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if he bed wets put him back in diapers, I have done the expense study for my self but using that logic to force some one out of diapers would not fly with me, I think your kids wellbeing out weighs the cost of the diapers, there are a lot of ways to lower expenses, good nights are almost a buck each the last I checked and off brand name diapers come out to about 10-20 cents each. Stop buying premium diapers and ditch the goodnights

we all know diapers are expensive but there are ways to reduce the cost and I would never use cost as a reason to force a kid out of diapers, I would use cheaper diapers and skip the expensive ones

I know for my self I could have bought a car with what I have spent on diapers but for me, my wellbeing is more important and to lower cost I buy in bulk or only when they are on sale, my average year to year cost is about $480, I went 24/7 about 20 years ago and for that 20 years I spent $9600
 
Yeah, parents can't wait until their kids are out of the diaper stage. I know my wife and I were ecstatic as each child became potty trained. Yes, it was the expense which we could ill afford. We were also paying for child care when my wife went back to work, something that was necessary if we wanted to pay all our bills.

Speaking as a father, it was a pain in the butt changing diapers, especially messy, poopy diapers. There was no joy or fun, just yuck! It may be fun to fantasize about being a kid and wearing diapers, but the reality of that is very different.
 
DracoAmericanus said:
if he bed wets put him back in diapers, I have done the expense study for my self but using that logic to force some one out of diapers would not fly with me, I think your kids wellbeing out weighs the cost of the diapers, there are a lot of ways to lower expenses, good nights are almost a buck each the last I checked and off brand name diapers come out to about 10-20 cents each. Stop buying premium diapers and ditch the goodnights

we all know diapers are expensive but there are ways to reduce the cost and I would never use cost as a reason to force a kid out of diapers, I would use cheaper diapers and skip the expensive ones

I know for my self I could have bought a car with what I have spent on diapers but for me, my wellbeing is more important and to lower cost I buy in bulk or only when they are on sale, my average year to year cost is about $480, I went 24/7 about 20 years ago and for that 20 years I spent $9600

Well said. I hope to care more about a person or even a pet as more valuable than the price of a product.

Also I'm not fanticizing over keeping a child in diapers in some ABDL kind of way. I just wish that I could
have worn diapers instead of wetting the bed back when I was a kid/teen.
 
DracoAmericanus said:
if he bed wets put him back in diapers, I have done the expense study for my self but using that logic to force some one out of diapers would not fly with me, I think your kids wellbeing out weighs the cost of the diapers, there are a lot of ways to lower expenses, good nights are almost a buck each the last I checked and off brand name diapers come out to about 10-20 cents each. Stop buying premium diapers and ditch the goodnights

I don't know why I bother but here goes round 3

I don't have financial issues nor is it too expensive of both boys one has been dry 2 years and the other still yet to make it there. I simply posted the figures and math based on the cost of diapering two bed wetting boys over the span of 15 years to give actual numbers to the answer for the question of why parents don't just let their kids wear diapers as long as possible, which is an actual recurring thread that is posted several times a year by newer members.
 
And I only did the math because it was a question on our health insurance survey

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well it sound like a rant and that's why I had responded in the way that I did
I apologize if I was in error
 
While I do appreciate the insightful view on the expenditure of your personal experiences with diapers/pull ups, of all the reasons to not let kids stay in diapers past their particular potty training age, cost is the least likely deciding factor for me.

We should consider health. Anyone in diapers for extended periods of time runs the risk of UTI or diaper rash if they're not 100% consistent on their cleaning.

And for people who are consistently busy diaper changes can become an inconvenience. Having to carry around supplies, find a bathroom that doesn't look terrible to change in, and perform the actual changes is certainly doable, though not as easy or ideal compared to finding a bathroom and just going.

Then consider environmental damages due to large increases in non biodegradable disposables. People could do the cloth route, but then we increase the inconvenience factor. And the more children there are partaking in extended diaper wearing, the larger exponential increase of waste.

And speaking of degradation, while some kids may feel comfortable in diapers at home or if they need it for protection, the harsh reality is that most kids want to be like their peers and feel empowered and independent. Seeing all your friends being capable of that when you're not as a child makes children so self conscious. Allowing them to partake during free time if they aren't abusing the privilege is one thing, but robbing them of the opportunity to learn how or making them feel like they can't is something entirely different.

I don't think it's a good idea developmentally to allow a child to continue wearing past potty training age unless it's a medical necessity or done in moderation as a privilege so the child still has the ability to maintain a useful skill.
 
peer pressure will have an effect but in my case I did not care and I turned out fairly well, kids should be left to grow out of it at there own pace, but past a certain age I would teach the kid change them self to teach them that it has it's down sides.

"I don't think it's a good idea developmentally to allow a child to continue wearing past potty training age" I strongly disagree with that, wearing a diaper does not stunt your development, provided that moderation is in use
But I do like your idea of using them as a reward, I wish my parents did that, I might have avoided a few incidents where police where involved, lol

And the environmental impact is over blown, only the spun polyester shell and inner liner are non biodegradable, the fluff in diapers is mostly wood pulp and that does decay, and it's not like we are talking about a lot of kids, the percent is fairly low that want to wear at older ages, and since you mentioned the environmental impact think about our group, it's hypocritical coming from a group like ours. disposables or cloth have an impact on the environment. and the last figures I saw it came out as a draw, for cloth, washing them uses water, electrical power and cleaning chemicals a disposable in mass production uses less energy then cleaning a cloth one but the shell does not degrade, they can be burned to generate power, I know of one experiment where they gather up "spent diapers" from nursing homes and burn them in a power plant to generate power, the wood pulp for disposables and the cloth for cloth diapers are both renewable.

but this coming from a group where a lot of us wear for non medical needs, need not argue about the environmental impact of diapers
 
Two points: Cloth diapers are a more cost effective alternative than disposables and second, do not underestimate to potential for bullying if the child is in diapers longer than the societal norm.
 
This is a very complex subject. I think being toilet trained is a basic life skill which should be achieved as effectively as possible without the stress of over-expectation that marked previous generations. At the same time for kids where - for whatever reason "it doesn't work" diapers are fine and necessary. What I don't like are parents who are too lazy to train carefully and keep their kids in diapers because "it's easier".
 
when you include the cost of power, water and chemicals then it's a draw.
and I did mention peer pressure, I hate bullies but going to school in a diaper and you will have there wraith, believe me I know that hell all too well, I think the topic would be just wearing at home and not at school, I was forced out of diapers too early, one time I wet the bed I was forced to sleep on the floor, my grand mother always threated to show my wet sheets to my friends, It was not a fun period to go though and it would have been solved by just being allowed to wear a 10 cent diaper, if even only at night.
total hell just because of an outdated f***ed up idea that kids should not wear a diaper past a certain age, I find the idea absurd and outdated

Have you had to sleep on the cold floor before? or have your sheets hung out a window for all to see?
This stigma and the idea of a certain age a kid needs to be out of diapers is f***ed up and needs to just plain die

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dayannight said:
This is a very complex subject. I think being toilet trained is a basic life skill which should be achieved as effectively as possible without the stress of over-expectation that marked previous generations. At the same time for kids where - for whatever reason "it doesn't work" diapers are fine and necessary. What I don't like are parents who are too lazy to train carefully and keep their kids in diapers because "it's easier".

I am by no means suggesting that potty training not taught when your child shows signs of being ready, and then train them, my point I am on is being forced out of them. one of my neighbors would not let her son out of the house in a diaper but in side there house he would wear them if he wanted to or not, you can still effectively potty train with out forcing your kids out of diapers. I also get sick of parents that insult there kids because they may want a diaper from time to time
 
DracoAmericanus said:
when you include the cost of power, water and chemicals then it's a draw.

Really? There have been a few studies, most with obvious biases, that have tried to compare the environmental impacts of cloth diapers and disposables. But I have yet to hear of a single, even semi-credible study being done that compares diapers and toilets. It would be mildly amusing from an academic standpoint, I suppose, but I doubt it will ever be done because it wouldn't inform any actual decisions. Or did I misunderstand you?
 
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