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How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

thehustle.co

211–220 of 311 posts

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

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming cloth diapers cost an extra 10 minutes a day, the time savings of disposable diapers are "worth" 60 hours a year. What do you value more - $1000 or 60 hours of your time?

I's estimating like 30 minutes per day. It's not only the time to change them, also wash, dry, fold, store. Each part adds like 1 or 2 minutes for all the diapers, in particular folding can't be done in bulk. Probably wash the diapers with shit twice once to remove most of it manually (+ 1 or 2 minute) and one in the washing machine. The 10 minutes go away too fast. An I remember my mother talking about boiling or bl…

YMMV but we usually fold diapers while watching TV or during Zoom meetings or whatever. It does take time, but it's not like we'd magically get more sleep if we used disposable diapers, since we usually sleep at a predefined time and wake whenever the little one wakes us. Maybe we get a few more minutes to watch TV or whatever. Not a huge deal IMO. But again, YMMV. If it doesn't work for your lifestyle, it doesn't work! Nothing wrong with it. My comment is merely for folks to not knock if before they try it. We certainly wouldn't have if someone didn't gift us a pack.

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

#212
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent of three teens headed to college/trades in the next year. While I completely understand your positivity nihilism, this kind of parent as victim mentality needs to stop altogether. I’m looking around where I live and literally zero of these people have to raise their children because they didn’t have the access to abortion, contraception or public services.* 99% of parents decided to keep and raise a child. It…

It's also objectively none of your business?

It can not be your business and you're allowed to still have opinions on it. It's one thing to discredit opinions you think aren't someone's business - that's fine, maybe even understandable.

But everyone is entitled to their opinion, and you can't just make people shut up. It doesn't work like that.

If you feed your kid rocks yes I think you are stupid and yes I think you should've worn a condom. Whatever, who cares, listen or don't.

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

#213
> In 1962, the journal Pediatrics published a Brazelton study in which he observed ~1k parents and children in the 1950s. They followed his “child-oriented” approach to toilet training, which involved starting training at about two years old. That was after the age when the vast majority of children had previously finished training but when Brazelton believed that most children would only be physically and emotionally ready to start.

No offense to babies, but what does it mean to not be emotionally ready to start potty training? I’m serious. Like, do they cry a lot at the prospect of being 2 feet away from their parents? What makes us think this is emotional turmoil? The article does say

> ... children following his approach were less likely to have bedwetting or constipation problems by the time they turned 5 than those who started earlier. (Subsequent studies have found similar issues in children who train too late.)

But it's hard for me to see that as an emotional connection? If anything it makes me wonder about latent variables (with caveat that I have not read the study, so maybe they already looked into that)

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

#214

It talks about a study from 1944 in the US, specifically in Minnesota. How many of those parents were full-time stay-at-home parents, probably typically mothers, who were monitoring the child and helping with potty training? How many kids nowadays are in daycare? When there is a 3-to-1 adult-to-child ratio, doing something like this is much more challenging when there's just one adult and one infant.

Absolutely. 3:1 is only common ant absolute top tier daycares. More likely you’ll have 6:1 or 8:1. And even high quality daycares might not help children potty train which is absolutely essential if both parents are working but people want to potty train early. By age 3 kids are moving towards preschool and are more intelligent and have better self awareness and are more reward motivated. I think diaper conspiracy is honestly less likely here than structural advantages and modern life leading to later potty training

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

#215

> In 1962, the journal Pediatrics published a Brazelton study in which he observed ~1k parents and children in the 1950s. They followed his “child-oriented” approach to toilet training, which involved starting training at about two years old. That was after the age when the vast majority of children had previously finished training but when Brazelton believed that most children would only be physically and emotionall…

You're not mentally modeling the child correctly. The child has to have several things going to successfully practice using the bathroom:

1. Seeing a problem with having a dirty diaper

2. Recognizing (at least subconsciously) that on balance, using the bathroom will be easier than waiting to have your diaper changed

3. Being willing to react positively (not obstinately) to parents' reminders to use it

4. Being able to focus enough to, say, not play in the water, and old enough to practice all the steps.

And that's just to practice. Even if they're all of the above, they'll still take time.

Source: watching my now-3 year old overcome each stage listed, one at a time

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

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a diaper service?

A service that comes to pick up dirty cloth diapers and drops off clean cloth diapers. Example: https://www.diaperstork.com

So this wipes out the savings you'd obtain just by buying diapers by the bulk.

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

#217

Parent of 2 kids. Parents receive enough judgement. Do whatever works for you! -cloth diapers? Awesome -train early? Awesome -train later? Awesome There's trade offs for each, and you are going to figure out what works best for you. If you want to train later and the diaper companies make more money, that's how a market is supposed to work. They're providing a product you value. So all good!

I mean... they're pushing diapers for 6-9 year olds, now? What I took away is, by the early 2040s, "potty trained" is going to appear on peoples resumes.

They sell diapers for adults too. Some people have medical issues. This is not a conspiracy to convince adults to avoid using the bathroom.

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

#218

Parent of 2 kids. Parents receive enough judgement. Do whatever works for you! -cloth diapers? Awesome -train early? Awesome -train later? Awesome There's trade offs for each, and you are going to figure out what works best for you. If you want to train later and the diaper companies make more money, that's how a market is supposed to work. They're providing a product you value. So all good!

Parent of three teens headed to college/trades in the next year. While I completely understand your positivity nihilism, this kind of parent as victim mentality needs to stop altogether. I’m looking around where I live and literally zero of these people have to raise their children because they didn’t have the access to abortion, contraception or public services.* 99% of parents decided to keep and raise a child. It…

Tortillas from the grocery store are UPFs. This sort of "you shouldn't have had kids if you can't cook everything from scratch every day" judgement is outrageous.

Breastfeeding appears to have better health outcomes than formula. It is also hard as shit. I'm absolutely not telling a parent that they should have aborted their kid if they choose to use formula because the mother keeps getting mastitis or because their kid is not strong enough to get a full meal in less than 70 minutes on the breast. Perfection is not required.

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

#219

> In 1962, the journal Pediatrics published a Brazelton study in which he observed ~1k parents and children in the 1950s. They followed his “child-oriented” approach to toilet training, which involved starting training at about two years old. That was after the age when the vast majority of children had previously finished training but when Brazelton believed that most children would only be physically and emotionall…

You're not mentally modeling the child correctly. The child has to have several things going to successfully practice using the bathroom: 1. Seeing a problem with having a dirty diaper 2. Recognizing (at least subconsciously) that on balance, using the bathroom will be easier than waiting to have your diaper changed 3. Being willing to react positively (not obstinately) to parents' reminders to use it 4. Being able t…

It's interesting to hear this perspective, especially helpful because you have a kid and I don't. I wonder if the child really has to recognize the problems, or just has to be conditioned that this-feeling-means-potty-time. To be fair, I don't know how that conditioning would happen without the child leading the process in some way (how would they associate bowel movements with the bathroom if not by willingly going to the bathroom?)

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

#220
post #209

A lot of people in this discussion seem to compare the price of single-use nappies to that of buying new cloth nappies and then giving them to the landfill once done with one child. I can strongly recommend buying them second hand and then reselling them. They become effectively free at that point. (I get it to come out to $1.5 per week, including the iost of running laundry and the opportunity costs of tying up the…

> and the opportunity costs of tying up the capital in nappies

Respectfully - chill.

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