premium diapers with soft plastic fronts

bambinod

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It seems that most of the "premium" diapers we're seeing nowadays either have a hard tape panel or velcro landing sheet on the front. I'm a back sleeper, and I tend to have my hands down on my thighs, with part of my hands usually resting on my diaper. I find the rough tape panels (and often rough tapes also) are uncomfortable, frequently jabbing/poking my wrists throughout the night.

So I prefer diapers with just soft smooth plastic fronts with no tape panel, that also have tapes that are low profile and attach to the back panel without a large sharp kink where they hinge. (I also really like the feel of a soft, smooth shelled plastic diaper on my hands overnight) While these DO exist, there's very few of them that are anywhere near premium capacity. Almost all ofl the best capacity diapers have either velcro or hard plastic tape panels, and most of them have a 1/4" or so fold at the base of the tape that sticks up with a sharp edge.

Last night I slept in a MyDiaper Plus. They came out just before they started selling the Ultra, and were the first time MyDiaper departed from their original model they've made so many different shell designs for in the last few years. It looks like the original base design of the Ultra / PeekABU / Mega, but with no front or rear elastic, no tape panel, and very low profile two-use tapes. I'm not certain, but I think the capacity is the same though, the diapers weigh about the same, 7.2-7.4oz/pc.

I find them much more comfortable to sleep in. When I first got them in I was really annoyed that they didn't have front or rear waist elastic, and was expecting them to be less comfortable as a result, but that was NOT the case. The soft shell without the hard tape panel had a little bit of stretch to it and felt just fine around the hips. I'm not sure, it might not stay up on my hips as well when walking around, but that's not an issue overnight either.

Unfortunately these are expensive to get in the USA, nobody carries them and my only source is ordering direct from SaveExpress in Germany, which of course makes them pretty expensive to get.

So I was wondering, does anyone else want to see alternatives to the current trend of hard tape panels in their premium diapers? There are a few threads going right now discussing shell changes to diapers like SDKs, going from softer to harder, which is what got me thinking about this. What other options do we have right now for good quality diapers with soft front shells? BareBum, Absorbency Plus, BetterDry/Crinklz.... I think that's it? Honestly, XP Medical's Absorbency Plus is the closest, with similar tapes and no front elastic, but they don't have leak guards. BetterDry has the closest option locally but their tapes aren't very low profile and the backs and front edges can be pokey on my wrists.

What do you think?
 
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Definitely Betterdry/Crinklz. They have one of the softest shells out there, yet it still holds up extremely well. The tapes are certainly a lower profile than the prints on Crinklz, and when you need them to be concealed you'd normally have them covered up by pants/onesies/etc anyways, so I'm not sure why that's even an issue. I don't understand how or why the tapes would be poking your wrists either. Can you elaborate?
 
Slomo said:
Definitely Betterdry/Crinklz. They have one of the softest shells out there, yet it still holds up extremely well. The tapes are certainly a lower profile than the prints on Crinklz, and when you need them to be concealed you'd normally have them covered up by pants/onesies/etc anyways, so I'm not sure why that's even an issue. I don't understand how or why the tapes would be poking your wrists either. Can you elaborate?

The only clothing I wear to bed is my diaper - no onesie or jammies or even tshirt. Occasionally if it's quite cold out I might have loose fitting socks on.

I thought it would be easy to find a picture of what I mean with my hands resting position while I sleep, but I cannot find ANY example on google images, so maybe I'm a freak :p So I'll try to describe it better.

I lay on my back, in what is sometimes called the "soldier" position. But with the standard soldier, your hands are laying on your bed also, directly beside your hips. Since I sleep in a recliner, there isn't quite enough room beside my hips inside the arm wrests of the chair, so my elbows are slightly bent and my hands are resting on (not beside) my hips.

To picture this, just place your hands down on your hips as you sit in your chair reading this post. Put your hands down so they are resting on top of where your pockets are, with your thumbs just resting in the fold of your crotch. Now imagine laying down like that.

This places the "heel" of my thumbs directly on top of the lower tapes, and my wrists directly on top of the upper tapes. The biggest problem this causes is that on a lot of the premium refastenable tapes, they don't completely open up away from the back sheet, and this leaves a ~1/4" "kink" in the tape where it unfolds, which often sticks straight up and always has sharp pokey corners. This is really hard on my wrists, pricking them. I usually try to "smooth down" the kink so it's closer to flat. (this is a problem with some two-use tapes tapes too, but seems to affect most of the refastenable tapes)

The other issue is the hard tape panel. It's not a problem unless it gets bunched up between the top and bottom tapes, where it can form a very rough wrinkled pokey mass of crumpled up front tape panel, that usually irritates my thumb heels. Again I can jimmy around with the material to try to smooth it out, but it's a hassle all the same and doesn't always get completely comfortable either. This is only a problem on diapers where I have an inch or more of distance bewtween the upper and lower tapes.

I might take some pictures to clarify all of this.

Crinklz themselves have their own tape issue, along with other diapers that use two-use tapes instead of a landing zone. It's not unusual to unwrap a crinklz and find that the blue (longer) tape has a corner that's been folded over when packaged, and it retains this fold and the sharp corner sticks up after diapering. None of the current velcro offerings seem to have these problems - the corners on the tapes tend to be rounded, except for tykables where they're pretty flexible and not sharp, bambino uses a soft cover material over their tapes too, and the fold kink doesn't seem to be much of a problem. And the front panel on velcro is usually too stiff to form a jagged mass between the tapes. But then again the front panel on the heels of my thumbs doesn't feel as nice as smooth soft plastic. But on most of those, the rest of the shell IS smooth soft plastic (bellissimo, waddler) so at least half of the diaper feels good...
 
bambinod said:
The only clothing I wear to bed is my diaper - no onesie or jammies or even tshirt. Occasionally if it's quite cold out I might have loose fitting socks on.

I thought it would be easy to find a picture of what I mean with my hands resting position while I sleep, but I cannot find ANY example on google images, so maybe I'm a freak :p So I'll try to describe it better.

I lay on my back, in what is sometimes called the "soldier" position. But with the standard soldier, your hands are laying on your bed also, directly beside your hips. Since I sleep in a recliner, there isn't quite enough room beside my hips inside the arm wrests of the chair, so my elbows are slightly bent and my hands are resting on (not beside) my hips.

To picture this, just place your hands down on your hips as you sit in your chair reading this post. Put your hands down so they are resting on top of where your pockets are, with your thumbs just resting in the fold of your crotch. Now imagine laying down like that.

This places the "heel" of my thumbs directly on top of the lower tapes, and my wrists directly on top of the upper tapes. The biggest problem this causes is that on a lot of the premium refastenable tapes, they don't completely open up away from the back sheet, and this leaves a ~1/4" "kink" in the tape where it unfolds, which often sticks straight up and always has sharp pokey corners. This is really hard on my wrists, pricking them. I usually try to "smooth down" the kink so it's closer to flat. (this is a problem with some two-use tapes tapes too, but seems to affect most of the refastenable tapes)

The other issue is the hard tape panel. It's not a problem unless it gets bunched up between the top and bottom tapes, where it can form a very rough wrinkled pokey mass of crumpled up front tape panel, that usually irritates my thumb heels. Again I can jimmy around with the material to try to smooth it out, but it's a hassle all the same and doesn't always get completely comfortable either. This is only a problem on diapers where I have an inch or more of distance bewtween the upper and lower tapes.

I might take some pictures to clarify all of this.

Crinklz themselves have their own tape issue, along with other diapers that use two-use tapes instead of a landing zone. It's not unusual to unwrap a crinklz and find that the blue (longer) tape has a corner that's been folded over when packaged, and it retains this fold and the sharp corner sticks up after diapering. None of the current velcro offerings seem to have these problems - the corners on the tapes tend to be rounded, except for tykables where they're pretty flexible and not sharp, bambino uses a soft cover material over their tapes too, and the fold kink doesn't seem to be much of a problem. And the front panel on velcro is usually too stiff to form a jagged mass between the tapes. But then again the front panel on the heels of my thumbs doesn't feel as nice as smooth soft plastic. But on most of those, the rest of the shell IS smooth soft plastic (bellissimo, waddler) so at least half of the diaper feels good...

Ah, ok I understand now. Yeah I've noticed how the tapes don't lay completely flat as well. And the corners of the tapes are a bit pointy. Most every second chance tapes like this are the same.

I'm also starting understand why you hate having lower tapes on diapers now too. Because that's also where your hands rest as you lay down. And I know changing your sleep position isn't that good of an option either, if it even is an oltion.

That's going to be a tough one. I assume you have nearly identical problems with other diapers like Confidry and Northshore Supreme too then? Aside from adding tape over the tabs, or wearing a diaper cover, I'm not sure how you could overcome that little conflict with the tapes. Hmm, maybe a small stuffie under each arm could change where you rest you hands? I don't know.
 
bambinod said:
The only clothing I wear to bed is my diaper - no onesie or jammies or even tshirt.

You could try, you know, wearing a onesie or an overpant or somesuch...

bambinod said:
Since I sleep in a recliner

...or, you know, sleeping in a bed.

Just sayin'.
 
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