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How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

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Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#31

Post by gazook89 »

abustamam wrote: post #5

We're using cloth diapers for our daughter (6m). She's still exclusively breastfed so no solid poops but so far I estimate we've saved over $100/mo by this decision. The story may change when she starts on solids but I recommend everyone to try out cloth diapers, just make sure you have a routine and system in place to make it less overwhelming (we have two diaper pails next to the changing table, one for disposable…

My experience with two kids is that solids are easier. With good diet, the poop has a good chance of just being a “roll off” and into the toilet. Get a spray wand/ hand held bidet attachment for toilet to help rinse it off before it goes in wash.

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#32

Post by abustamam »

josh_p wrote: post #14
abustamam wrote: post #5

We're using cloth diapers for our daughter (6m). She's still exclusively breastfed so no solid poops but so far I estimate we've saved over $100/mo by this decision. The story may change when she starts on solids but I recommend everyone to try out cloth diapers, just make sure you have a routine and system in place to make it less overwhelming (we have two diaper pails next to the changing table, one for disposable…

We tried with "hybrid" diapers for all three of our kids, a cloth shell with a disposable liner. They worked, but they're still a lot of extra work. We always kept disposables on hand for when we couldn't keep up. Our second and third kids are twins (2 for 1!!) and that was a lot harder to keep up with. And I ran into problems where I didn't set the diaper right and they would leak overnight, making more work. We had…

Yep, absolutely! Everyone's situation is different, and I'm not gonna be on a high horse and tell people to think of the environment or their wallets. It's hard to think of the environment when you're dealing with literal shit in your house.

Twins... God bless you

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#33

Post by joenot443 »

Have any parents tried Elimination Communication? Basically teaching your baby to inform you that they’re ready to go, and taking them to the toilet immediately.

This is something my partner wants to try when we eventually have kids. Something I’d never heard of until last week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elimination_communication

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#34

Post by allturtles »

noemit wrote: post #15

My mom toilet trained me at 3 months. She had me on a schedule and she would hold me one toilet during the determined times and I would go. This was right after communism fell so she only had access to cloth diapers, and cleaning them was so annoying she did it as early as she could. She was shocked at how long my kids stayed in diapers. I asked her how, and well there is a slight difference between us. She had 2 yea…

> My mom toilet trained me at 3 months.

Is this a typo? I don't see how it could be physically possible for a three-month-old to be toilet trained. Among other things, they can't sit up on a toilet seat or walk to the bathroom.

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#35

Post by rustyhancock »

stevehawk wrote: post #28
echelon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern American middle class norms are that babies cost a fortune. The best nutrition, daycare, early childhood learning, classes, tuition, etc. Extreme expenses. All throughout history, children have been cheap, and if you look back far enough - disposable. And even parents viewed kids as a free source of labor. Kids used to be left to roam the woods, streets, and neighborhoods. Now a lone child will get a call from…

> We did okay for hundreds of thousands of years. Did Big Advertising get the best of us and make us needlessly devote expenses and energy? ever since my wife was pregnant i've actually started paying attention to the advertising targeted at women. Holy shit, I feel so bad for them. It's easy for me to laugh at and ignore the "if you buy (this product) then this sexy woman will be attracted to you" ads (spoiler: she…

The vast majority of advertising is laser focused to push women's buttons it's alarming.

Interestingly, I was at the cinema and saw back to back adverts for monitoring where a woman is all the time is coercive control and abuse.

Then an app for a mum to monitor where their adult daughter is at all times as a positive.[1]

Both are abuse AFAIC and that helicopter parenting is encroaching on adulthood is alarming. In sure we'll soon have diaper sizes newborn through 25 years old eventually.

[1] https://youtu.be/37w6DeEUbVg?is=lOnp2PhSYzydkK51

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#36

Post by shrubhub »

joenot443 wrote: post #33

Have any parents tried Elimination Communication? Basically teaching your baby to inform you that they’re ready to go, and taking them to the toilet immediately. This is something my partner wants to try when we eventually have kids. Something I’d never heard of until last week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elimination_communication

it must have made a big impression on you!

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#37

Post by abustamam »

gazook89 wrote: post #31
abustamam wrote: post #5

We're using cloth diapers for our daughter (6m). She's still exclusively breastfed so no solid poops but so far I estimate we've saved over $100/mo by this decision. The story may change when she starts on solids but I recommend everyone to try out cloth diapers, just make sure you have a routine and system in place to make it less overwhelming (we have two diaper pails next to the changing table, one for disposable…

My experience with two kids is that solids are easier. With good diet, the poop has a good chance of just being a “roll off” and into the toilet. Get a spray wand/ hand held bidet attachment for toilet to help rinse it off before it goes in wash.

That's good to know! Makes me feel a bit better.

We do have a bidet but it's a toilet seat bidet so we may need to rethink our system.

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#38

Post by jonhohle »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #9
abustamam wrote: post #5

We're using cloth diapers for our daughter (6m). She's still exclusively breastfed so no solid poops but so far I estimate we've saved over $100/mo by this decision. The story may change when she starts on solids but I recommend everyone to try out cloth diapers, just make sure you have a routine and system in place to make it less overwhelming (we have two diaper pails next to the changing table, one for disposable…

Looking back my wife and I have said that we could probably have done cloth diapers during the breast-feeding phase but man… Definitely not with solid foods. I don’t know how people did it. Like yes of course if we didn’t have an option we would do it, but with disposable diapers right there… There’s no way I’m ever choosing cloth diapers and solid foods lol

I never thought solid was too bad, if it was solid. We had a sprayer on the toilet and typically everything would spray right off. There are worse kid messes that I’ve had to deal with (and >10 years later, still do).

At least one of my kids would get bad diaper rash, though, in cloth. We had to make sure the were constantly checked and changed even when it wasn’t obvious.

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#39

Post by bloomingeek »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #9
abustamam wrote: post #5

We're using cloth diapers for our daughter (6m). She's still exclusively breastfed so no solid poops but so far I estimate we've saved over $100/mo by this decision. The story may change when she starts on solids but I recommend everyone to try out cloth diapers, just make sure you have a routine and system in place to make it less overwhelming (we have two diaper pails next to the changing table, one for disposable…

Looking back my wife and I have said that we could probably have done cloth diapers during the breast-feeding phase but man… Definitely not with solid foods. I don’t know how people did it. Like yes of course if we didn’t have an option we would do it, but with disposable diapers right there… There’s no way I’m ever choosing cloth diapers and solid foods lol

Indeed, we tried it back in the early 80's. When they started on solid foods, it was simply terrible and unsanitary. With our first child we had to use a laundromat, they almost banned us. With our second, we had a own washer and we banned ourselves!

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#40

Post by antonymoose »

cowpig wrote: post #24
echelon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids should have jobs in high school. It's a fantastic way to learn budgeting, work ethic, entrepreneurship, and gives them a drive to study harder. For kids without two stable parents, it soaks up their time and keeps them out of trouble. Since when did we start viewing this as bad? I worked at 14 doing lawn work for neighbors to save money for video games. It taught me a lot. There's nothing wrong with that.

Your comments are just totally out of touch with the realities of being a parent today. The average person can't afford to raise a kid because of the time demands of constant work to make rent and afford food. We're discussing an article about diapers.

The average person can absolutely afford children!

I’ve got a buddy, his wife works at a daycare and he does network installs. They’re right around the median household income of 80k or so in a middle-low cost of living area. They have 6 kids.

Perhaps ironically, I have a household income of roughly 200k. I have three kids and wonder how does he do it, I can’t imagine having three more kids and the expense of it all. Yet somehow they do it.

I think the reality of it is folks don’t want to make sacrifices to have kids, or have many kids. My observation lately is that couples will go have one kid and look at the expenses and struggles and say they’re done. A while back my wife and the kids and I were walking down by the boardwalk and an old man fishing stopped and said “Look at that, a real family with three kids! You don’t see that anymore!” Kind of strange, but I look at my big Irish-Catholic side of the family with 13(!) aunts and uncles in the same astonished way I guess

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