Age You Started Changing Yourself

[csdiaper]

I was just wondering for those that have been in diapers since you were kids when did you start change your own diapers?

[d_drew12]

Can I add to it?

What did you wear growing up through life?

Always been curious to know what people wore in the past. Have had a hard time in the past getting people to answer to that. LINK TO THAT THREAD

Sorry csdiaper. Not trying to take over your thread but the two questions could kinda go hand in hand so I thought no harm in asking.

PS. Welcome to DD

[Angela Bauer]

I was just wondering for those that have been in diapers since you were kids when did you start change your own diapers?

Hi CS Diaper. Welcome to Daily Diapers. Most of us want to get to know you, so it would really help if you post an introduction in the Newbie Section.

Sure, your basic question has been discussed here many times. So what I share about myself is going to be old news to some folks:

Because my Mom, Aunt Betsy and their mother Granny Vi all were urinary incontinent before I was born, our family was diaper-friendly. My three sisters and I were toilet trained gently by the time we were 3, but our bladders remained tiny and over-active. Besides it was expected we would all revert to bedwetting at puberty. Consequently Mom asked us nicely to wear diapers for trips and special events. When my older sister Penny was 10 I was 5. That was when Penny was taught to pin me into dry gauze diapers. Sure enough at puberty when Penny was 12 she did revert to bedwetting. Only then did Mom teacher her how to pin on her own gauze diapers. That became the tradition. At 10 we were taught to change the gauze diapers of a smaller child, but did not pin our own diapers until we reached puberty. Mom was concerned about the safety of diaper pins.

Times, attitudes and diapering methods have changed since I reached puberty in 1976. Disposable pull-ups are a marvelous transition from diapers to big kid undies. Velcro-fastening cloth diapers can be changed by girls as young as 5. These days delayed toilet-learning is not such a terrible thing. The modern way is to encourage older kids to manage their own diapers to the maximum extent. My favorite niece Nancy is almost 20. Her bladder is tiny, so her mother, my youngest sister Missy, taught Karen to change Velcro Babykins when the girl was almost five. Karen started pinned her gauze diapers at 10. Now that Karen is living in a dorm at university she wears disposables during the day and gauze at night.

Talking in-person to women I have met at doctors' offices, many have helped their older kids change their own diapers. These days this is hardly unusual.

[babytommy1981]

I think i was eather 6 or 7 when i started to change my bedtime diaper, my whole life i never had a dry night, then i became 24/7 after a motorcycle wreck, so having to wear full time wasnt hard for me,

[diapertime42]

Angela, you wrote:

"Because my Mom, Aunt Betsy and their mother Granny Vi all were urinary incontinent before I was born, our family was diaper-friendly. My three sisters and I were toilet trained gently by the time we were 3, but our bladders remained tiny and over-active. Besides it was expected we would all revert to bedwetting at puberty."

I have always found your postings very informative and open. But I have a few questions about your condition...

It seems to run back several generations... Is it ONLY the women in your family with this problem? No males?

When you consider statistically that most childhood bedwetters are male, your family incontinence history is

quite interesting! Is it that your bladder just quit growing when you hit puberty? Do you even get the "Gotta Pee"

feeling, or is it just a constant dribble?

Thanks for all your postings!

-Dave

[Angela Bauer]

Angela, you wrote:

"Because my Mom, Aunt Betsy and their mother Granny Vi all were urinary incontinent before I was born, our family was diaper-friendly. My three sisters and I were toilet trained gently by the time we were 3, but our bladders remained tiny and over-active. Besides it was expected we would all revert to bedwetting at puberty."

I have always found your postings very informative and open. But I have a few questions about your condition...

It seems to run back several generations... Is it ONLY the women in your family with this problem? No males?

When you consider statistically that most childhood bedwetters are male, your family incontinence history is

quite interesting! Is it that your bladder just quit growing when you hit puberty? Do you even get the "Gotta Pee"

feeling, or is it just a constant dribble?

Thanks for all your postings!

-Dave

Dave, as far as the experts can tell us, the genetic urinary problem is handed down through the female side of the family. This goes back to Granny Vi's grandmother.

Sure, some of the male relatives also have urinary problems. My younger brother Ed was not day dry until he was over 4 and he was still wetting his bed most nights until he was almost 7. Aunt Betsy's older son Matthew did not have dry nights until after he reached puberty. Ed has no lingering bladder problem. Once he was dry he remained dry. Matthew has had more than average bladder problems. For many years Matt has worn 24/7. He also uses some AB play to cope, with the full cooperation of his adorable wife.

There is a lot of recent research demonstrating that in the past urinary control problems in girls was vastly under reported. Sales of GoodNites for Girls show that there is a significant number of older girls who still lack perfect urinary control while sleeping. It has long been accepted past puberty it is more common for females than males to be challenged by minor incontinence.

Because my urinary sphincter malfunctions the best urologists are not sure the amount of my bladder capacity. Before I reached puberty, which was shortly after I turned 12 in 1976, my doctors felt my bladder was smaller than average and over-active. The same was felt about all my sisters. Each physician and researcher has a different theory about my family's condition.

During my teen years when I was awake not only did I get strong "Gotta Pee" signals, I had time to find a toilet when I was in familiar places. Mom asked us to wear diapers on trips and for special events because we often would wet while searching for a toilet. Also besides Mom us four girls never seemed to all need a toilet stop at the same time. We all felt it logical to simply wear diapers just in case.

The summer I moved from pre-law to law school I realized I was day wetting way more than even that May of 1985. By then I would wear a disposable for exceptionally long lectures and to parties. My urologists agreed it would be best for me to simply wear diapers most of the time. Still until late 1992 I was able to control my bladder for a couple of hours at a time if I could really concentrate. This was good in some social situations. By the fall of 1992 I just stopped trying to go out without a diaper of some kind.

Since then I have peed in a series of big dribbles as if I have no urinary sphincter. My urologists refer to this as "profound urinary incontinence" which is the same when I am awake as when I am sleeping.

Who can be sure when my bladder stopped growing. At age 12 I was already my present height, 5'3" I still weigh about 105 pounds, but my hips have expanded from <26" in 1976 to 29" today. At least I still wear the same size disposable, Attends Youth or Attends Breathable Small, which are the same size. The downside to being both a petite woman and urinary incontinent is that the selection of disposables correctly fitting me is severely limited.