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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

#221
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insane individualism to think other ppl don't get to dictate what kind of food people feed their kids?

Yes it is. Kids grow up to run the world, a world I’m going to live in. I have a stake in that. This should be obvious if we take our civilization seriously.

We can barely even meaningfully define UPFs, and they aren't cleanly correlated with junk food.

Potato Chips are not UPFs but tortillas with an added preservative are.

Ice cream purchased at the store that has emulsifiers is a UPF. Homemade ice cream is not. But I think we'd agree that it is the fat and sugar in the ice cream that is the bad part to feed to kids.

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

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very likely. A container of formula runs about $25 and contains 1800 calories (my count may be off). Considering the mother is often trying to lose babyweight I think you can find 1800 calories cheaper. The main thing is that for many, formula is paid for via support programs, but unless you're down on SNAP you don't get diapers AFAIK.

Yeah we don't qualify for SNAP (as an aside I'd be curious how many HNers do qualify). My area also has a program called WIC (women infant children) which I'm pretty sure covers diapers but not totally sure.

WIC doesn’t cover diapers, only food, and very specific ones at that.

It’s easy enough to qualify for both even at HN salaries, you just need to have enough kids.

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

#223

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

My partner wanted to try the same thing. And cloth nappies and exclusive breastfeeding, and infant hand signals, and every other zeitgeist baby thing you can think of.

In principle EC sounds interesting, but then our daughter arrived, it has balls to the wall survival for 3 months bow. We ended up bottle feeding, use disposable nappies and sometimes we put her on her side to sleep so that she can fall asleep easier. Terrible parenting if you ask any parenting influencer! Neither of us have the time, energy or mental fortitude to get baby naked and over the toilet in the 20 seconds between when the grunting starts and the poop comes!

My advice to you as a new father, assuming you will also be the father and your partner the mother: go into all this with an open mind, and focus on doing what your baby needs, not what you want, and definitely not what the internet says you should be doing. Sun Tzu said the best laid plans don't survive contact with the enemy, so don't get hung up when your plans fall apart when your little one arrives. Support your partner in the things she wants to try, but be pragmatic and prepared for all alternative outcomes. Keep baby's butt dry, keep their belly full of milk (breast or formula or both is perfectly OK), keep them warm and love them loads. That's literally all you need to do, and you will be awarded with the most amazing smiles and giggles by month 2-3.

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

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The one that took us the longest was (3). He knew he needed to go, knew all the steps, and would pee in his pants just to spite his parents.

It's really eye opening and frustrating to see children be stubborn just for the sake of it. They're literally still developing and it's normal, but they are just too young to reason with. You have to create the environment where positive feedback happens, and... wait a very long time for them to work it out.

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

#225
post #76

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

As a parent, this is a hilarious comment. This is like saying "why don't you just teach your cat to use the toilet instead of using a litter box?". I mean, yeah, that sounds awesome. Given infinite time and energy, I'm sure it's possible. Best of luck to you, though. And I don't say that to be rude or disparaging, it's just that parenting is a little like war: your plans never survive contact with the enemy. I had si…

The irony of your comment is that it is actually possible to train cats to use the toilet, and it's not even that difficult.

But other than that, I fully agree with your sentiment that it's like war. My sibling comment to yours quoted Sun Tsu: "even the best laid plans will not survive contact with the enemy". My favourite example is when our 3 month old decides to have her weekly Big Shit after we get her all cleaned and dressed up for going out somewhere, right as we walk out the front door.

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

#226
post #197

I did the math meticulously when I had my first kid years ago, comparing store brand diapers vs cloth. Once you factor in the up front cost of the cloth diapers plus the cost of water and energy and detergent running the wash, the costs are virtually identical. The math looks better for cloth if you use them for years or multiple kids, but that's not super hygienic. That's not even factoring in time and convenience.…

Did you calculate based on buying cloth nappies second hand and then reselling them? That was a great alternative for my family. Worked out to something like $100 in total nappy costs for one child, including the opportunity cost of tying up the capital up front. That's less than $1 per week. Make it $1.5 if we include electricity and water costs of laundry, compounded over that period. I would struggle to find singl…

I guess if you buy them used the math changes. Second hand diapers was a line in the sand for my wife.

But these people talking about diaper washing services, at that point, surely what is the point? I guess the thought of diapers in a landfill keeps some folks up at night.

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

#227
post #108

"Big diaper" has made basically every form if diaper 80% cheaper compared to 30 years ago, also.

They also survive much more and much longer than they used to, and even compared to cloth they can store a substantial amount of wee without having the kid soaking in wet. Of course, they have that blue line that appears at 0.01% wetness to encourage you to change it earlier, but ah well.

After nappy number 200, which you'll reach by the first month probably, you'll become very good at gauging nappy fullness, and the nature of the filling by touch and smell alone. At that point the blue stripe is basically meaningless. I can tell if my baby needs a change just by picking her up.

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

#228

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…

What's the unit cost of a nappy in your area? Here it's like €0.05 each, so monthly maybe €50 max incl wipes. I'll have to actually measure how much we use in a day though.

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

#229

Cloth diapers are good. We used them for our last kid with a diaper service and are going to do it again washing them ourselves with our next who is due at the end of the month. Regular diapers are useful to have either way. But cloth diapers are obviously much better for the environment and if they're an option for you, you should consider them. Not a hard concept, not worth a big discussion.

> But cloth diapers are obviously much better for the environment It's obvious only if you save and reuse the same set of cloth diapers for 2 or more babies. (Which places some constrains on brand, durability etc.) If you have only one kid, I am not sure which side is environmentally more friendly; growing and processing all that cotton (not to mention the plastic for all the waterproof covers) uses a lot of water an…

Water is free, it comes from the sky.

energy is free, it comes from the sun.

cotton is free, it grows from the ground.

plastic is not free, there will never be more of it. I think that resolves the equation.

(this is an oversimplification obviously but I wanted to reframe it from "how much of our current resources does this action use" to "how much of our TOTAL resources does this action use")

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

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used cloth diapers for our son for about 8 months, and then it just got to be too much of a hectic nightmare washing the poop cloths between work and other issues. So we did disposables for about two years. We were having a hard time getting him trained off of the diapers, until one day we just decided to follow some advice we'd heard and took them off and let him go diaperless on the floors (thankfully wooden)..…

> let him go diaperless on the floors (thankfully wooden).. and he trained in a couple days. This terrifies me! We have carpets. Some tile, but also some carpets. I guess it's not too different from when the cats have an "accident" though, just bigger messes.

Just get a carpet washer. Your kids will make a mess on the carpet sooner or later. Regardless of your potty training regime.
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