When did disposable diapers become commonplace?

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I 'm going to saying something similar to Ade and say from reading this thread I think things were slightly different in the UK compared to the US. I know with me my mum used disposables exclusively but I was born in the late 80's, but I believe my parents used cloth with my sister who is a few years older than me and was born in the mid 80's. I know my mum definitely preferred the convenience of disposables and another thing to consider could be there was more of a disposable income (Pun not intentional) in the UK as the 80's progressed.
 
I believe that disposables became more commonplace before Britain in other parts of Europe, as well as North America.

I'm talking about places like France, West Germany, Norway, Sweden etc.
 
In America disposable diapers were becoming commonplace in the 1960's and 1970's as more women were going back into the workforce the didn't have the time for the hassle of washing cloth diapers and plastic pants all of the time
Also disposable were more convenient :educate:
 
when my son was getting potty trained, about 1968, the Dr. praised new product PAMPERS. He wore them once, and that did it !
 
Born 1970 cloth and plastic pants. Same as my sister 4 years younger. We moved into a brand new estate in the ealry 80's and can still remember all the new families there with most having cloth and plastic pants on the clothes line. I did not come across a disposable until I was around 16 where they were common on a supermarket shelf
 
Early 1970s
 
sloth said:
Born 1970 cloth and plastic pants. Same as my sister 4 years younger. We moved into a brand new estate in the ealry 80's and can still remember all the new families there with most having cloth and plastic pants on the clothes line. I did not come across a disposable until I was around 16 where they were common on a supermarket shelf
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Quite interesting. Where are you from?

It's just that people seem to be giving different answers based on where they are geographically.

People from the United States seem to give answers around the mid-70's area, whereas those in the UK put the date for the switch to disposables at around the mid-80sz
 
Kieran said:
Quite interesting. Where are you from?

It's just that people seem to be giving different answers based on where they are geographically.

People from the United States seem to give answers around the mid-70's area, whereas those in the UK put the date for the switch to disposables at around the mid-80sz
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Sloth's Australian. he's got a few years under his belt, so i'll let him detail the Aussie experience (from what i've seen, it's been quite an interesting transitioning over the past 5 decades).

meanwhile, back in Blighty....
you have to remember that America won WW2; yes, we beat the armies of Nazi Germany, but we lost everything doing so. Britain was broke. and if that wasn't bad enough, we also had to help rebuild Germany and Europe, create a home for the Jews and transform the Empire into the Commonwealth, all the while maintaining a political and military counter to Soviet expansionism. oh, and rebuild the home economy. PHEW!!!

sounds a lot just to explain a disposable diaper, but it gives some of the context to how America invented the all-in-one dispy and how American manufacturers forged their way into markets around the world. America had oil. Britain's oil and gas boom came mainly in the 1980's, which is why so much changed in that decade.
in fact, when you think about it, it's amazing that we're typically only 10-15 years behind America.
 
Australia
 
ade said:
Sloth's Australian. he's got a few years under his belt, so i'll let him detail the Aussie experience (from what i've seen, it's been quite an interesting transitioning over the past 5 decades).

meanwhile, back in Blighty....
you have to remember that America won WW2; yes, we beat the armies of Nazi Germany, but we lost everything doing so. Britain was broke. and if that wasn't bad enough, we also had to help rebuild Germany and Europe, create a home for the Jews and transform the Empire into the Commonwealth, all the while maintaining a political and military counter to Soviet expansionism. oh, and rebuild the home economy. PHEW!!!

sounds a lot just to explain a disposable diaper, but it gives some of the context to how America invented the all-in-one dispy and how American manufacturers forged their way into markets around the world. America had oil. Britain's oil and gas boom came mainly in the 1980's, which is why so much changed in that decade.
in fact, when you think about it, it's amazing that we're typically only 10-15 years behind America.
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I think that's a pretty good explanation. Although it doesn't really explain how disposables became commonplace earlier in places like France, West Germany and Scandinavia than they did in Britain...

I think that we invented the first disposable...? Do you know anything about it?
 
I babysat by a person that was testing disposable diapers at the time.
It was around 70 71 most babies would wear cloth diapers and plastic pants
And I remember they were really enthused about a reusable pant that you tucked a disposable diaper into and then snapped it on the baby.
No pins.
At the time disposables could still leak Bad so you kind of had to wear something over them.
Most kids were in cloth.
In the 80s you saw the plastic pants disappear from all the stores and drug stores And most cloth diapers too.
Just Walmart has them now that's for pottie training the kid learns he is wet so you train faster.
 
I spoke to someone born in 1983 (UK). He says that he wore disposables.
 
I was born in -87 and wore cloth. Mom tried to be a good parent and went the hard way, apparently. My siblings were put in disposables tho, cloth was too much work :p
 
TyphaHare said:
I was born in -87 and wore cloth. Mom tried to be a good parent and went the hard way, apparently. My siblings were put in disposables tho, cloth was too much work :p
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I understand that you are from Finland. Were disposables easily available in your part of Finland in 1987? Did most children wear them?
 
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