How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by trollbridge » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 2:32 PM UTC

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

Yes. Requires complete consistency but by my third child, she consistently goes #2 on her little potty.

Once you don’t have to change poopy nappies anymore, you’ll never want to go back. EC is actually less work in the long run.

Note that my wife and I both share responsibilities for taking care of the kids. It is not that time consuming.

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

#62

Post by lostmsu » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

My wife tried early teaching and cloth diapers with the first one, but with the second one we just use regular diapers.

IMO early toilet training is just wishful thinking combined with confirmation bias. If you are trying it and it is going hard... just don't, you are not doing anything wrong, you've been just misled. Just wait until your child can consistently follow instructions and does so willingly for important matters. Otherwise the result is as expected.

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

#63

Post by currydove » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #27

cowpig wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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't afford to raise a kid Yes they can, they just choose not to. I think the reason people aren't having kids is that they're on their phone all the time. I'm serious. Phone use is a dopamine sink and removes pauses throughout the day otherwise spent on relationships and thinking about the future. I'm not the only person to think this. https://www.vox.com/today-explained-podcast/405376/pronatal…

There's never just one reason, obviously. Maybe phones are a big reason we're not socializing as much and it cascades from there. But as a young parent, I'm gonna tell you flat out - the core necessities, not the best of the best, are insanely expensive today than ever before as a share of our monthly take home.

I'm a huge fan of public schools, letting kids play and be out on their own till 10-11pm a night with other kids, etc, etc. But just the first 3 years until publicly funded pre-school kicks in is going to cost us over 100k. It doesn't become free after that of course, but definitely not 30k+ per annum.

We'll see how quickly we can potty train, I'd like to avoid using diapers after a while, but that's not the major expense for us since we're your run of the mill dual income couple. Just standard day care is 2500 a month in Chicago. Unlike the bay or NY, there isn't a wait-list or competition to get in but it's definitely priced at the high end. We're delaying using that until both our parental leaves finish up, which not everyone gets to have in the US. We also have my parents moving close to us to help with the kiddo. Most of the things that made a village what it was without professional services (except day care which is a big one) we're gonna do, and it still is going to be stupid expensive. My parents are in shock compared to what their expectations were based on how I grew up vs today's reality.

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

#64

Post by noemit » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

allturtles wrote: post #55

noemit wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She had me on a schedule and would hold me up. Yep at 3 months babies can't even sit up. She said at the start she would hold me up until I went, even if it took hours, and if I went she would reward me. She Pavlov'ed me. I think she said I would cry or babble in a certain way, or if she even suspected I needed to go she would put me on the potty and hold me up.

Fascinating. I'm not sure what would drive someone to do this, since until the child can actually go to the toilet on their own, you haven't achieved the actual point (IMO) of the training.

She had only cloth diapers, no washing machine, she had to wash them by hand and boil them to disinfect them. I guess the time lost just waiting for me to go was better than the time lost doing all that cleaning. I was her second so she had experience doing this.

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

#65

Post by trollbridge » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

showerst wrote: post #48

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

A friend wanted to try this, but no daycares would do it.

Nappies were an essential part of “industrialising” child care (and thus making both parents available as a labour pool outside of the home).

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

#66

Post by wizzwizz4 » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

rustyhancock wrote: post #35

stevehawk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 su…

Speaking of monitoring, your YouTube link has a tracking identifier in it… although it's ?is=, for some reason. Did you type that out manually, or has YouTube changed?

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

#67

Post by mjklin » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

noemit wrote: post #59

xivzgrev wrote: post #46

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!

If I've learned anything from parenting, its to give more grace, because you really never know someone else's situation from a short interaction or fact about their parenting.

“Every family has a scripture that is difficult to read” - Chinese proverb

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

#68

Post by trollbridge » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

allturtles wrote: post #34

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.

Yep. Some friends of mine had their 4 month old completely toilet trained. (Their 4th child.)

This is also completely normal in the third world where they can’t afford things like diapers and also can’t afford children to be constantly soiling clothes.

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

#69

Post by dangus » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #58

Diapers are overall a tiny expense compared to what you’ll spend over the course of their childhood. It only lasts a few years and then you’ll never have to think about diapers again (at least until the next kid). Just do whatever is easiest and keeps you sane. There are bigger things to worry about. My oldest was trained at 3 years, and my youngest at 18 months. The oldest only trained for a week, and the youngest t…

It’s easy for this style of journalism to get upset about “billions” but that’s just the reality of a country with over 300 million people.

If each person in this country buys a product for $10 they’ve spent $3 billion. Now it’s a scary headline about how billions in wealth has been siphoned.

I for one am not going to use cloth diapers. Sorry not sorry. I don’t give a shit (pun very much intended) about the benefits: I’m not cleaning diapers out, I’m not saving soiled diapers in my diaper bag to take home when I’m out and about. It’s just not something I’m going to do when Costco will sell me over 100 disposable diapers for $20.

To your point, diapers at under $100 a month is nothing compared to a single night of babysitting or a month of daycare.

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

#70

Post by trollbridge » Sun, Mar 08, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

allturtles wrote: post #55

noemit wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She had me on a schedule and would hold me up. Yep at 3 months babies can't even sit up. She said at the start she would hold me up until I went, even if it took hours, and if I went she would reward me. She Pavlov'ed me. I think she said I would cry or babble in a certain way, or if she even suspected I needed to go she would put me on the potty and hold me up.

Fascinating. I'm not sure what would drive someone to do this, since until the child can actually go to the toilet on their own, you haven't achieved the actual point (IMO) of the training.

Not having to change poopy nappies is a powerful motivator.