Strange days indeed - a 24 x 7 experiment

[oznl]

10 hours ago, WBxx said:

Maybe not dribbles, but as my sleep wetting has progressed I’m convinced the volume per void has declined with a corresponding increase in frequency.  I’d give anything (almost) to know the when and duration of my nocturnal releases.

Looks like it exists:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqh1YECcd-0

 

[WBxx]

14 hours ago, oznl said:

Looks like it exists:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqh1YECcd-0

 

Thanks for the link.  Not sure I understand the gadget, but I believe it only displays current diaper condition with perhaps an alarm for a change?  My idea - a small wireless waterproof microphone strategically placed within the diaper.  Linked to a PC or smart phone this would record the sounds within the diaper for later analysis.

[Tadpole]

Or how about a thin strip (or array) of temperature (and/or humidity) sensors in the nappy, with a tiny bluetooth module.  Would be a very useful diagnostic tool to the medical profession too.

[oznl]

10 hours ago, WBxx said:

Thanks for the link.  Not sure I understand the gadget, but I believe it only displays current diaper condition with perhaps an alarm for a change?  My idea - a small wireless waterproof microphone strategically placed within the diaper.  Linked to a PC or smart phone this would record the sounds within the diaper for later analysis.

 

4 hours ago, Tadpole said:

Or how about a thin strip (or array) of temperature (and/or humidity) sensors in the nappy, with a tiny bluetooth module.  Would be a very useful diagnostic tool to the medical profession too.

Looking at the You-tube footage, it's tracking temperature AND humidity.  I'm a little bit confused by humidity as I would expect humidity shift to be near-zero in a plastic-backed product but I have a theory.

If you look at the video at 1'54" you can see that it is capturing and time-stamping "soilage events".  Fitted to the crotch area I would have thought temperature would have been the metric for this.  Presumably any wetting event should have some kind of thermal signature at the nappy surface reflecting a heat source and subsequent dissipation.  Unlike humidity, a thermal measure should work for repeated wetting events since heat will be lost and regained with new events whereas surface moisture should be cumulative.

I'd speculate that it's using heat for "event" detection and humidity is a secondary measure designed to detect product saturation.  A bluetooth low-energy sensor that squawked temp/humidity every "n" seconds and leave all the analysis to the application it is talking to.  That would be my guess.

If I am right, it may not do such a great job with ongoing low-level leakage but would work well enough for episodic urination.

[Tadpole]

21 hours ago, oznl said:

Looking at the You-tube footage, it's tracking temperature AND humidity.  I'm a little bit confused by humidity as I would expect humidity shift to be near-zero in a plastic-backed product but I have a theory.

Ah, I've looked at it now. The sensor on the outside... what a crazy idea. I think for really judging the fullness of the nappy they need more than one sampling point.

21 hours ago, oznl said:

it may not do such a great job with ongoing low-level leakage but would work well enough for episodic urination

Yes - Unless the temp sensor was very close to the source of flow, which is why I think an array of sensors on the surface would be better. An array could also tell how fluid is moving and filling the sides which is important.

I wonder what other sensors might be good: conduction? Sound? I guess they would all have the same issues with accurately measuring very low flow rates you (and I presume most long-term users) experience. I guess there are actually two approaches: either try to measure flow into the nappy or to measure how much of the capacity has been used up.  The latter does not work well if there is poor wicking or side-sleeping... and the former does not work well with low flow rates. More ideas needed!

[sparklezBear]

What about something like a condom catheter with a small low resistance flow meter? Might be possible to construct something? 

[oznl]

6 hours ago, sparklezBear said:

What about something like a condom catheter with a small low resistance flow meter? Might be possible to construct something? 

Probably the "gold standard", but somewhat defeats our intent on wearing nappies ?

For male factory plumbing, I couldn't help wonder if one or more rings could be used to construct a wearable magnetic flow sensor but this is not my field (no pun intended)!

@Tadpole and I have discussed this at length in a sideband conversation and it's doubtless that a "cyber-nappy" could be built using  an array of sensors (at fantastic cost), we wouldn't get much insight into volume but good insight into timing and dissipation.  We agree that the YouTube sample above is pretty crude and that the humidity sensor is probably spurious or at best, will serve to document the shortcomings of "cloth backed" disposables.

Next week, I will be back at work and hopefully have less time to ponder such engineering dilemmas!

[Little Sherri]

I'm stumped as to how to measure flow under these circumstances... this somewhat touches on what I do for a living, but in the damp ambient conditions, conductivity data becomes useless, and a Coriolis or positive displacement meter would be.... well, impractical. Uncomfortable. The act of observation would likely change the behaviour of the observed particle. 

If you could take conductivity readings at multiple points within the diaper, and then you calibrated how the wetness propagated through the stuffing, you could maybe kind of get an idea of volumetric output. Piezoelectric sensors would be another option - they could record expansion of the polymer. But both of these methodologies would be heavily confounded by someone rolling around while they slept. 

I also wonder how much wee a relatively healthy male CAN in fact dispense while truly, deeply sleeping, because it's hard to pee when semi-erect, and erections are a normal part of REM sleep, unless you have vascular issues. Checking for erectile function while sleeping is one of the methods used to separate psychological issues from physiological constraints, when looking at erectile dysfunction. If you can get a chub on while sleeping, then you should be able to achieve one when awake. So, a lot of nighttime peeing presumably occurs when we are drifting towards, or returning from, deep sleep. Although I am going to contradict my own theory here by noting that I have had dreams - granted, infrequent - where I really had to pee, and then did so within the dream, so, within REM sleep, presumably, and when I woke up, my diaper (or my bed) was wet. But I also recall at least some of these involved considerable effort to achieve relief - IE, forcing myself, in my dream, to pee, against a notable restriction, which was, of course, the fact that it's difficult, but not impossible, to pee when at least semi-erect. 

But back to the daytime wetting, I am intrigued, @oznl, that your pattern at least somewhat resembles mine. We are two males of the species, both roughly middle-aged, and you being Australian, and my being Canadian, we probably both have some DNA that originated in the UK, but, we are half a world apart, and yet here I am, looking at your chart, and noticing that my patterns probably don't differ that much from yours. I haven't set out to document them, but, I recognize the "just got into the saddle" every-few-minute pattern, and also the "I've become deeply engrossed in something" 35 minute gaps. Whereas in the "before times", I probably got up to use the washroom a couple of times at day at most. 

[WBxx]

OK.  Many, many years ago using a cassette recorder with an external microphone in my diaper I managed to capture several sleep wettings.  Sometime later I converted the tapes to digital adding brief introductions and eliminating much of the dead sleep time before and after each accident.  Attached is the first recording.

Reviewing the audio I’ve concluded the following.  Desperate to pee at 01:07 a small amount escapes and I regain control.  (Not always, but on many recordings there is indication of losing the battle before it happens.)  Seconds later at 01:16 till fading away at 01:47 I wet the bed (diaper).  After wetting there is a faint declining sound that is not present before.  Don’t know what it is, perhaps the onslaught of pee weighing-down and/or spreading-in my diaper.

To the say the least I was pleased with the recordings.  But there were issues.  I didn’t like sleeping with a decent sized microphone and attaching wire in my diaper.  And limited to one hour the recordings missed much of the “action” in my diaper.  Whatever, my primitive recording apparatus is long gone.

I suspect my nocturnal wetting has changed over the years.  Expect releases are more frequent and shorter.  But I’d like to know for sure.  With today’s technology there has to be a way to get the answers.  Help!

01 BW_1979_12_26.mp3

[oznl]

5 hours ago, WBxx said:

OK.  Many, many years ago using a cassette recorder with an external microphone in my diaper I managed to capture several sleep wettings.  Sometime later I converted the tapes to digital adding brief introductions and eliminating much of the dead sleep time before and after each accident.  Attached is the first recording.

Reviewing the audio I’ve concluded the following.  Desperate to pee at 01:07 a small amount escapes and I regain control.  (Not always, but on many recordings there is indication of losing the battle before it happens.)  Seconds later at 01:16 till fading away at 01:47 I wet the bed (diaper).  After wetting there is a faint declining sound that is not present before.  Don’t know what it is, perhaps the onslaught of pee weighing-down and/or spreading-in my diaper.

To the say the least I was pleased with the recordings.  But there were issues.  I didn’t like sleeping with a decent sized microphone and attaching wire in my diaper.  And limited to one hour the recordings missed much of the “action” in my diaper.  Whatever, my primitive recording apparatus is long gone.

I suspect my nocturnal wetting has changed over the years.  Expect releases are more frequent and shorter.  But I’d like to know for sure.  With today’s technology there has to be a way to get the answers.  Help!

01 BW_1979_12_26.mp3 726.4 kB · 1 download

Actual data!!!  Well there is something there for sure.  MP3 is lossy encoding so that's going to take out detail but even after the awful noise floor of a 1970s cassette (I cannot fathom why people get nostalgic about cassette and vinyl) there is a strong acoustic signal.

Did you do a weight test to see what the void consisted of and (seems like a dumb question), do you recall if it was cloth or disposable that you were wearing?

[WBxx]

2 hours ago, oznl said:

Actual data!!!  Well there is something there for sure.  MP3 is lossy encoding so that's going to take out detail but even after the awful noise floor of a 1970s cassette (I cannot fathom why people get nostalgic about cassette and vinyl) there is a strong acoustic signal.

Did you do a weight test to see what the void consisted of and (seems like a dumb question), do you recall if it was cloth or disposable that you were wearing?

Excessive noise?!  Perhaps, but is it reasonably clear on your end?

I wasn’t weighing diapers back then.  But my bladder held just short of a pint so I think it’s safe to assume the wetting approached 16 ounces.  My night diaper on12/26/79 … of course I remember.  It consisted of three Sears flat diapers newspaper folded held in place with safety pins and covered with a Sears vinyl bloomer.

[oznl]

2 hours ago, WBxx said:

Excessive noise?!  Perhaps, but is it reasonably clear on your end?

Yes.  It was clear.  The noise problem is the signal to noise ratio and is to do with the cassette technology you had in the day.  Also, the MP3 compression codec discards acoustic signals it thinks you may not notice so detail gets lost that may stop us recognising something for what it is.  Nevertheless, there IS an acoustic signal and you MEASURED something.  Measurement eats speculation for breakfast so kudos for measuring.

2 hours ago, WBxx said:

 

I wasn’t weighing diapers back then.  But my bladder held just short of a pint so I think it’s safe to assume the wetting approached 16 ounces.  My night diaper on12/26/79 … of course I remember.  It consisted of three Sears flat diapers newspaper folded held in place with safety pins and covered with a Sears vinyl bloomer.

So the acoustic "after party" we can hear isn't to do with SAP.  I know that wet cloth is more flexible so perhaps what we can hear is the wet diaper settling as the moisture wicks through it or even swelling and flexing a vinyl pant.

As for volume, the micturition event lasted around 20 seconds.  Urologyhealth.org defines a "normal" flow rate of 10 - 21ml per second so 470ml would be above normal.  Picking the mid-point would land us at 300ml but it's all assumptive.  My experience is that my flow rate has deteriorated markedly with diaper habituation.

[oznl]

22 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

But back to the daytime wetting, I am intrigued, @oznl, that your pattern at least somewhat resembles mine. We are two males of the species, both roughly middle-aged, and you being Australian, and my being Canadian, we probably both have some DNA that originated in the UK, but, we are half a world apart, and yet here I am, looking at your chart, and noticing that my patterns probably don't differ that much from yours. I haven't set out to document them, but, I recognize the "just got into the saddle" every-few-minute pattern, and also the "I've become deeply engrossed in something" 35 minute gaps. Whereas in the "before times", I probably got up to use the washroom a couple of times at day at most. 

Yes, we're clearly the same machine with similar vintage, similar use-case and yes, it's UK DNA albeit hiding out in the sun for than 160 years so it's probably not THAT surprising that the results are looking similar.  The auto-voiding mode that drops away if I'm forced to concentrate on something else is further evidence that it's not my default operating mode. 

Apart from the odd drip here and there, daytime continence is still available.  The dark horse here is functional incontinence due to increased urgency/decreased range.  That was already marked more than four months ago and I haven't subsequently re-tested.  I'd be surprised if it's gotten any better...

 

[Little Sherri]

21 minutes ago, oznl said:

The dark horse here is functional incontinence due to increased urgency/decreased range.  That was already marked more than four months ago and I haven't subsequently re-tested.

I haven't set out to test this specifically, but my experience from last week, when I pulled the ripcord and chickened out on wearing a diaper to a one-hour martial arts class that had just resumed, and that I didn't know the format of, showed me that I can go for about 90 minutes if I need to. Exertion probably helps. 

As an aside, I think that I may have figured out how to comfortably wear a nappy to class - my greatest concern now that we can't physically make contact with each other (making the class basically fighting-themed aerobics) is that when we drop to the floor and pop back up 40 or so times, my diaper might at some point peak out above my pants if my shirt becomes untucked, which it invariably does. So, I am still investigating the Gary Activewear idea you suggested, but I am also going to wear a onesie that looks like a t-shirt, and see how that goes. 

[oznl]

Forced to consume annual leave as a way of making it cheaper for my warm and cuddly multinational employer to dump staff, it’s been a quiet week with little news.

I’d started the week with a “long haul shopping day” which was largely spent in the car commuting from one location to another some distance apart.  The day itself was unremarkable except for inadvertently exposing a large swathe of translucent plastic pant over an ABU Simple to an indeterminate number of people at a fast food outlet. 

I’d stopped for lunch and was sitting on my socially distanced plastic chair facing the window to the carpark dealing with a McMeal.  The top elastic on my plastic pant was vaguely irritating the small of my back.  I felt around to re-arrange myself only to discover slick plastic instead of t-shirt.  The t-shirt I had chosen that morning was not one I’d commonly wear and was not particularly low hanging.  Over the course of the day it had ridden up and whilst seated, about two inches of plastic pant and nappy was proudly on display above my jeans.  Oops..  

The next day I scheduled my six-monthly general practitioner Dr visit (simply prescription renewal) and of course I cribbed it and went nappy-free.  It was only 45m nappy-free but that’s a big thing for me these days.  The only example of underwear that I could find to hand after this long was a pair lurking in my (now disused thanks to COVID-19) gym bag.  They were horrifically worn with dubious elastic and hideous sweat staining.  In the event of having to strip off, it probably would have been less embarrassing to have been in my nappies but oh well. 

My pants felt strangely empty.  I had no difficulty in holding things for 45m (I’d made well sure that I was as empty as I could be before disrobing) but a dull and faint reminder of a bladder signal was with me within 30m and I think I was dampening my ABU Simple as I was completing taping them on back at home.

Apparently, my PSA score is remarkably low for my vintage so my Dr was not of the mood to go poking around downstairs and I probably could have left my nappy on and gotten away with it.  One of these days if I don’t change course I’ll probably have to deal with the medical establishment but for now, that can has been kicked down the road.  Next routine clinical entanglement will be in September, a little longer, probably one to one and a half hours undiapered for that.

The balance of the day was another road trip.  I don’t know why I thought an ABU Simple would have been a good idea for a 250km trip.  It kind of survived the day but felt dangerously ponderous down there towards the end.  I can recall wetting it a bit as I was walking across the carpark and being a little worried by it.  I hadn’t brought a change and as I had company, a change would not have been easily executed in any case.  It was a 2 hour drive home with a few more leaks and unsurprisingly, upon getting out of the driver seat I discovered that I had two wet patches on the seat of my jeans and a (minor) damp patch on the car seat.  This after using only 1,549 of its claimed 5000ml capacity (yes, I’ve been measuring) …  Should have worn a BetterDry.

By the crude measure of “before” and “after” weights, I’ve been consuming my unwanted vacation leave by building a database of nappies used, their performance and endurance.  So far, I’ve measured 6 ABU Simple nappies out of a cohort of 35 nappies.   Average usage was 1.3 litres and average wear-time was 8.2 hours.  Of the six, two had “minor contained” leaks, three had “minor uncontained” leaks and only one was incident-free, most likely because it was only carrying 775ml at change time.

Ah, ISO nappy capacity measurements.  What a useless metric.

I’m going to let my dataset grow a little bigger, perhaps three weeks but it’s been quite interesting and there are some distinct patterns I have noticed.

The flat-out record for non-leaking capacity to date is 1,951ml and is held by an old-school 60” kite folded and pinned terry with a 24” terry soaker under plastic pants.  I guess this proves that old school isn’t necessarily bad school as long as you don’t mind walking around looking like a Teletubby.  An “honourable mention” goes to the BetterDry one of which successfully coped with 1,765ml all night, in bed, with no leaks.

I started the day in a BetterDry carrying 1,121ml of liquid payload, very little of which I could recall putting in it.  I haven’t had a bedwetting incident for possibly more than a week but it seems that drought may be broken.  After changing, the day was about more errands and also a trip to “Littles Downunder”:  now I have two more “large” Omutsu cloth nappies featuring balloons and penguins.  These two are subject to measurement for capacity and duty cycle although being cloth, I have less data points.

Spring is in the air here, a balmy 26C and so I’m going to exchange my jeans for shorts (irrespective of my rather bulky Omutsu as I’m home alone) and perform some minor-but-critical household maintenance…  As a side note, whilst here typing this I’ve realised that I’ve been unconsciously dripping a little.

[Little Sherri]

On 8/13/2020 at 12:07 AM, oznl said:

By the crude measure of “before” and “after” weights, I’ve been consuming my unwanted vacation leave by building a database of nappies used, their performance and endurance.  So far, I’ve measured 6 ABU Simple nappies out of a cohort of 35 nappies.   Average usage was 1.3 litres and average wear-time was 8.2 hours.  Of the six, two had “minor contained” leaks, three had “minor uncontained” leaks and only one was incident-free, most likely because it was only carrying 775ml at change time.

This intrigues me and I think I'm going to play around with following in your footsteps. My wife may not be pleased that I've engaged the kitchen scale thusly, but I have an arsenal of disinfectants at hand, and I'll weigh both the before and after nappies in a nice clean plastic bag. Now to research the specific gravity of wee... which I know will vary somewhat with hydration, but I don't see the point in going full Howard Hughes, and fouling my hydrometer for this. An estimate will do. 

 

On 8/13/2020 at 12:07 AM, oznl said:

Ah, ISO nappy capacity measurements.  What a useless metric.

I guess these provide some mechanism for comparing model X to model Y, but for planning purposes, this is a data set that you would be best to discard. Thorough field testing is the only true measure of a diaper's performance, unless the goal is to figure out which one will weigh the most when you emerge from a swimming pool. 

[oznl]

6 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

 Now to research the specific gravity of wee... which I know will vary somewhat with hydration, but I don't see the point in going full Howard Hughes, and fouling my hydrometer for this. An estimate will do.

Yep.  I did that.  Assuming my kidneys are working and I'm reasonably hydrated, it's so close to "1" as to not bother...  Maybe 1% which putting on my optimism goggles, I would prefer to think of as being 99% accurate.

6 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

This intrigues me and I think I'm going to play around with following in your footsteps.

These are the data points I've been collecting...

This is the kind of thing that happens when nerds are forced onto vacation...

[oznl]

I had an interesting nappy dream last Saturday night.  My recollection is at best partial because as far as I know, I didn’t wake up during it or immediately afterwards but rather recalled it the next morning.

In my dream I was out and about just wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  For some peculiar dream-reason, I can recall exactly which pair of shorts and what t-shirt I was in and they certainly were indeed garments that I’d commonly wear around the house and perhaps for a brief errand on the weekend where formality could be safely left in the wardrobe.

I don’t remember dreaming anything about using my nappy but I was highly aware (and somewhat embarrassed) by it having swollen to a completely implausible degree (for UK readers, consider “Buster Gonad and his unfeasibly large testicles” as a kind of benchmark).  I was standing behind some kind of ledge which was conveniently concealing me from public gaze from the waist down but I couldn’t stand there forever and at my crotch, my nappy had ballooned to a truly ludicrous degree, to the point where it could easily have served as a kind of portable, private coffee table.  I could vividly recall dreaming of its heavy wet warmth and irrespective of the dilemma of how I might discreetly return home looking for all the world like I was trying to smuggle a sheep down my underwear, it actually felt rather pleasant against my crotch though and I can recall being slightly turned by the physical sensation of it.

I awoke the next morning empty-bladdered and very, very wet.  My BetterDry, uncontained by compression garments as I just wear them beneath terry-lined waterproofs at night had indeed swollen radically including under my bum to the point where it felt suspiciously as though I may have “loaded”.  Fortunately for the sake of my marriage, this was not the case and I was just very very wet.

Normally, a night BetterDry can be changed at leisure the next morning but this nappy needed changing NOW, not later.

I didn’t so much remove it as allow it to plummet to earth under gravitational force after removing the absorbent-lined plastic pants that were evidently the only thing holding it up.  I found the plastic pant terry lining to be pee-stained and a little damp at the back of my legs showing that this insurance policy had been cashed in on.  Furthermore, the absorbent core of the BetterDry was completely saturated and had partially disintegrated – not common for a BetterDry.  Measurement revealed that during the evening and night it had been asked to cope with a remarkable 1831ml of pee although I could recall nothing more than the occasional deliberate dribble: such is alcohol.  This has been the “wettest” night I’ve had in the nearly three weeks I’ve been measuring my nappy usage and nappy performance.

Reviewing my data, it seems that BetterDry are reliable for me in bed at night up to around 1700ml and after that, progressively less so.  On average, my evening/night shift nappy has been asked to cope with 1233ml only over about 15 hours which explains why nocturnal leaks are rare for me.  The nappy database is growing and certain trends and patterns are beginning to emerge.

There have been a couple of nights this week where I’ve had no clear recollection of how my bedtime nappy came to be so wet in the morning so it seems that after a brief hiatus, bedwetting is back on the radar.

Looking at my records I’ve realised that tonight will be my 500^th consecutive night sleeping in wet nappies.  It seems I’ve gotten awfully good at it.

[Little Sherri]

13 hours ago, oznl said:

On average, my evening/night shift nappy has been asked to cope with 1233ml only over about 15 hours which explains why nocturnal leaks are rare for me. 

I wonder now what my average nightly output is. Diapers at the high end of the absorbency spectrum, such as a BetterDry, tend to last me about 15 hours as well. My schedule of late has been to put a bigger, overnight-rated nappy on about an hour or two before we turn out the lights, for the "open diaper lounging" portion of the evening, when the kids have gone to bed or to all-night chat rooms to converse with strangers in Germany. When I wake up in the morning, the garment is usually at maybe 25% of its capacity, although, if alcohol is involved, that could be 50%. I rarely wake up completely soaked, though. Then, I try to navigate my morning with as much discretion as a big diaper permits, until just after lunch or so, when the diaper I put on last night is given a hero's funeral, and I change into a medium-duty plastic number (something like a Rearz Lil' Monster), or, if it's a running or gym day, my old daytime go-to, the slim and cloth-backed Prevail 360. Medium plastic diapers will carry me through until it's time to get ready for bed again, about 10 hours, whereas I'll need two daytime diapers if it's a running day, and I might, might be able to squeak by on one of them if I get back from the  gym late enough to put on a bedtime diaper upon my return. 

I'm going to weigh some dry diapers today, and then weigh some wet ones over the next couple of days, and see what I end up with for a total output. Based on your results, it seems likely that 2000 ML is about the range I should expect, with 1200-1300 ml of that ending up in my overnight/morning diaper, and the balance distributed into one or two daytime diapers. 

True to form, it's noon here, and the Rearz Barnyard I'm in (a very big diaper) is feeling like it's considering retirement; I've been in it for about 14 hours now. 

[oznl]

7 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I wonder now what my average nightly output is. Diapers at the high end of the absorbency spectrum, such as a BetterDry, tend to last me about 15 hours as well. My schedule of late has been to put a bigger, overnight-rated nappy on about an hour or two before we turn out the lights, for the "open diaper lounging" portion of the evening, when the kids have gone to bed or to all-night chat rooms to converse with strangers in Germany. When I wake up in the morning, the garment is usually at maybe 25% of its capacity, although, if alcohol is involved, that could be 50%. I rarely wake up completely soaked, though. Then, I try to navigate my morning with as much discretion as a big diaper permits, until just after lunch or so, when the diaper I put on last night is given a hero's funeral, and I change into a medium-duty plastic number (something like a Rearz Lil' Monster), or, if it's a running or gym day, my old daytime go-to, the slim and cloth-backed Prevail 360. Medium plastic diapers will carry me through until it's time to get ready for bed again, about 10 hours, whereas I'll need two daytime diapers if it's a running day, and I might, might be able to squeak by on one of them if I get back from the  gym late enough to put on a bedtime diaper upon my return. 

I'm going to weigh some dry diapers today, and then weigh some wet ones over the next couple of days, and see what I end up with for a total output. Based on your results, it seems likely that 2000 ML is about the range I should expect, with 1200-1300 ml of that ending up in my overnight/morning diaper, and the balance distributed into one or two daytime diapers. 

True to form, it's noon here, and the Rearz Barnyard I'm in (a very big diaper) is feeling like it's considering retirement; I've been in it for about 14 hours now. 

My "night" figures are strongly conflated with "evening" figures as the most convenient cadence for me is to change at my early evening shower which usually takes place before dinner, around 6:30pm.  It might be a warm-climate thing but my habit is to shower before bed rather than before arising although since going back to nappies, I will also have a quick rinse down there after my night nappy comes off in the morning.

This means that my "night" nappy deals with everything that happens between 6:30pm and 6:30am before lockdown and 6:30pm until 9am or 9:30 post lockdown.  It's a longer shift: typically 14 hours or more.  Irrespective of this blurring at the borders, the vasopressin cycle is clear to see with the "dark hours" rate (0.65cc/hour/kg) being nearly half that of daylight ones (1.17cc/hour/kg).  The "night" nappy actually does slightly less work than the "day" nappy.  This enables a data-driven decision to switch the leak-prone ABU Simples over to night duty and early results show that this is working better.  There are still leaks but less often than not and in any case, the leaks are caught by my padded waterproofs.

Research from credible sources tells me that "normal" urine output is being 0.5 and 1.5cc per Kg of body mass per hour.  My long term average is 0.94cc placing me pretty much in the middle of the range.  I guess I don't have to worry about my kidneys not working just yet but it also suggests that I'm not hydrating quite as well as I think I do.

Nappy science.   It's a thing...

[Sarah_Hillcrest]

Wow 500 nights, I think I'm approaching 15 or 16.  I've found that the best diapers I've tried usually Max out around 1600-1800 mL.  I started a overnight diaper log this morning, but I can't only remember the last 3 nights.  My current money saving strategy is toddler stuffer, generic diaper, thin prefold, plastic pants.  This goes on around 9:30 or 10:00 right before bed.  Biggest issue,  it takes about 10 minutes to get it all on.    I currently have 2 thin home made prefolds, which are as of now, all in the diaper bucket.  I have three pocket diapers as well but they offer no side protection.  I also have a thicker prefold which with a baby prefold booster held up fine with no disposable product.

I just made an order from Babykins, pull on cloth diaper 20700, Terry Pull on Pant, Terry lined Poly Pant, and Taffeta pants.  I think the pull on diaper with a cloth booster will be fine, and the Terry pant with a disposable combination will be fine So I should be close to a weeks worth of protection now.  

[Little Sherri]

19 hours ago, oznl said:

Research from credible sources tells me that "normal" urine output is being 0.5 and 1.5cc per Kg of body mass per hour.

Is this waking output or the average for 24 hours, including while sleeping? I imagine it drops off while sleeping. If I use 0.9 g/kg of body bass/hr, I come up with about 2 litres a day, a figure which the evidence supports: I can get through most days in two diapers, one big one, taking 60% or so of the fire, over 14 hours, and one smaller one, surviving the remaining 40%. If it was much more flow than that, I'd need boosters, a third diaper a day, or, I'd have to split the day between two large diapers. As it is I don't know where boosters would fit in for me - if I put a booster in an Alpaca, Elite or Barnyard, I could wear one diaper in 24 hours, though I'd look like I had a dead raccoon stuffed into my pants for the latter half of the day. 

[oznl]

4 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

Is this waking output or the average for 24 hours, including while sleeping? I imagine it drops off while sleeping.

It was an overall average and came from the centre of disease control (CDC) guidelines for detecting kidney issues so good data I believe.

I'm pretty sure it *does* drop off quite sharply at night.  Even though the nocturnal data is conflated with evening data (as the load is shared by a single, high capacity nappy), the numbers speak for themselves.  This appears to contradict a claim I've seen made in this place that habitual night diaper use would lead to the body reducing or abandoning vasopressin production as some way of conserving energy.   I certainly pee more frequently at night than I used to but volume by hour is dipping by almost 50%.  Maybe 18 months isn't enough.  If I'm still in nappies, I might measure it again in a year.

There appears to be no significant differential in volume between deliberate-wetting nights and who-wet-my-nappy? nights although alcohol remains an agent provocateur for bedwetting.

4 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

if I put a booster in an Alpaca, Elite or Barnyard, I could wear one diaper in 24 hours, though I'd look like I had a dead raccoon stuffed into my pants for the latter half of the day. 

Average daily for me is tracking about about 2380ml.  I can get away with 2,000ml in a kite-folded 60" terry  but I'd look like a teletubby.  A BetterDry taps out at about 1800ml unassisted (I love having data).  Even with a booster pad, I think I wouldn't get much past 2,000ml.  I'm probably stretching things a bit with a 2-nappy-per-day diet.  Dropping back to a single super-nappy, in addition to probably not-quite-working, would I suspect cause logistical and visual discretion issues and would leave me a sitting duck for nappy rash.

[oznl]

My complex and tragic love affair with ABU Simples continues.

Those of you following my saga will know that my pleasure at the decadent comfort (wet or dry) and (with bulk purchasing) relative frugality of these nappies has been permanently alloyed with wet spots on my jeans and damp furniture.  I hold the ABU Simple wholly responsible for the “why does my office smell funny” moment that happened the other week.

For me, ABU Simples leak like a drunken politician at a barbecue.

Inhabiting as I do the upper range of their “Large” size but the absolute bottom of their “XL”, I’ve tried both sizes but it doesn’t seem to make any discernible difference.  The “L” fit ok but there isn’t much spare real estate.   Conversely the “XL” can be a little bit like being wrapped in a tent.  They both leak though.  With a 44” waist, I’m open to any and all suggestions about which size might be least-worst.

It’s been suggested to me that I should switch to the (substantially more expensive) ABU Simple “Ultra” as it has even-greater absorbency but to be honest, I don’t think it’s a want of absorbency that is the cause of its reliability issues.  ABU Simples will cheerfully leak with as little as 50% of the available padding area utilised and with the day-use mode that I was using them for, in a fairly consistent manner.  As a “workday” nappy, they would typically be asked to cope with around 1200ml mostly delivered whilst sitting in a chair over the course of an 8 or 9-hour tour of duty.

As a 24/7 nappy user since December 2018, my pattern of peeing has become quite unusual.  There’s no flooding but rather a very high frequency of spurts, drips and dribbles for the most part: ideal usage conditions for an adult disposable nappy you would think.

Usually by hour 6 into its shift however, the front crotch area of the nappy would be completely saturated and undetectable seepage would be occurring around the inner-thigh area into my plastic pants (which are an obligatory accessory with ABU Simples).  Eventually, the pee that had made it into those plastic pants would simply spread and be pressed out at the backs of my thighs as highly detectable seepage after I stood up and evaporative cooling made the state of my outerwear apparent to me.

Data showed that 9 out of 12 sampled ABU Simple uses resulted in some kind of leak with leakage uncontained by plastic pants occurring at about 1200ml with only 60% or less of padding actually damp.

This, in conjunction with ABU Australia withdrawing their case discount as a COVID-19 demand management measure making ABU Simple the same price or higher than better-performing medical nappies would seem to have consigned their use by me to history.

Then, last week, ABU Australia reinstated their case discounts bringing them back to A$2.51 per unit delivered (vs BetterDry’s A$3.02 per unit price) and I remembered how gorgeously comfortable they are to wear and use.

Now having assembled nearly one month’s worth of hard data on nappy utilisation and performance, I decided to review this information and see if I could make a data-driven decision on some kind of use-case that could have them work for me.

Data shows that my “night shift” nappies actually receive slightly less work (1140ml) than day shift ones (1200ml) over a much longer period of time and of course, the final hours of my night nappies are in a supine position rather than sitting.

So, a few days ago I switched my “day” and “night disposables around.  I’m wearing a BetterDry during the day (a kind of “back to the future” scenario as this is what I wore when I commuted to an office) and I’ve been wearing ABU Simples overnight.

It’s a bit of a mixed result.  When used as a night nappy, ABU Simples leak in a completely different way to how they leak during the day but leak they do.

The daytime press-out leaks at the seat are completely gone.  Presumably lying in bed, weight distribution and fluid flow is different.

ABU Simple rise relatively high up on my belly which I actually quite like.  Unfortunately, under the cover of darkness the very top of my nappy has on more than one occasion, flipped outwards and down a little, exposing its wet padding to my cloth-lined absorbent waterproofs.  This wouldn’t normally be an issue beyond triggering incremental laundry except that this leakage is occurring up at the top front of my nappy, very close to lycra waist band on my waterproofs.  On more than one occasion now, wet lycra has then wicked onto my pyjama pants and even the adjacent sheet.  This failure mode is entirely about containment, not absorbency.  On one memorable occasion last week I wet the bed a little wearing a nappy containing only 848ml.

Further evidencing that I am now probably a bedwetter, I usually remain oblivious to this problem until the next morning.

Irrespective of this, my ABU Simples remain a voluptuously warm, comfortable and now again, reasonably-priced garment from which to pee in my pyjamas and bed

I’d LOVE to make ABU Simple work for me.  Any suggestions welcome.

[Little Sherri]

8 hours ago, oznl said:

I’d LOVE to make ABU Simple work for me.  Any suggestions welcome.

This suggestion might be entirely impractical, and/or ineffective, but recalls back to a time when I didn't always have a stock of proper ABDL diapers in the house, because I couldn't pay for them in any manner other than cash, lest it result in a conversation about how my wife had just gotten off the phone with the fraud department at American Express over the $104 charge from Big Baby's Big Diaper Emporium. Back then, I had to frequently make due with awful supermarket diapers designed for the perimortem crowd, and I engaged in a number of ad hoc engineering improvement projects on them, such as the use of perforated toddler diapers as stuffers, and, relevant to this conversation, the application of a band of clear packing tape, or white duct tape, across the front of plastic diapers, to create a landing zone from which the tapes could be removed without shredding the front of the diaper. One side effect of this was structural reinforcement of the top of the front of the diaper - the front of the waistband no longer folded forward very easily. And, I was only going across the front panel of the diaper, because I wanted to be able to get out of it for the other of nature's callings. If you ran tape from hip to hip across the top of the front of the diaper - if you typically discard it first thing anyway - then perhaps the front would be less likely to fold over, thus eliminating one of the potential failure modes?