Strange days indeed - a 24 x 7 experiment

[Little Sherri]

Brutal week, @oznl, and I'm sorry to hear it. I have a relative who went through a similar episode - he was in an upper management position in accounting at a major retailer, and he was made to sack 60 people before himself getting the sack. Although it worked out for him because his package was reasonable, and he landed a decent job after taking a year to find himself, travel, meet a woman. He was a 7 am to 9 pm habitual over-worker and hadn't taken time off in a few years. 

Hard as it is to do it, you need to start untangling what you do from who you are - you, yourself, still have a great deal of value and a lot to offer. Also, you've obviously been smart with your money and your decisions and your loved ones aren't going to suffer noticeably for this, so as the CFO of your little business unit, you're doing a good job. 

Take some time to consider the possibilities this offers - the world is changing dramatically, and obstacles and opportunities can be found within that change. Nobody ever went to their grave wishing they'd been able to spend a bit more time at the office. Even if you don't end up in a conventional my-position-is-X, my-salary-is-Y role in the near future, you may be able to craft a niche for yourself within the evolving ecosystem that allows you to thrive in new and unpredicted ways. 

I have one friend who took early retirement from a hotel chain, and started babysitting dogs, and he says he's never been happier, for example. He realized that a lot of his expenses were tied to his lifestyle, and his lifestyle was largely dictated by his job, and having ditched the need for suits and commuting and power lunches, and not wanting to put his canine charges into a late model sports sedan, he bought an older Subaru that's entirely paid for, and these days he can be found as often as not hiking in a conservation area or having a beer in his yard with 3 dogs running around, at 4 PM on a Tuesday. Not, presumably, in a nappy, but, I think that a nappy could be folded seamlessly into such a picture. 

All the best, I guess is what I'm saying, and stay positive. You've been made redundant, but you are not redundant. 

[dribblez]

@oznlCommiserations from me and some very wise words indeed from @Little Sherri. I had a very well paid, very stressful job that I loved, but I could see the company was on its way down, and a new arsehole manager was enough to make me apply for what was a very good package. Adjusting to life after was tough for a few months, but the company I had worked for rapidly became unrecognizable, and today it no longer even exists. I made the mistake of jumping into a new venture too quickly, determinedly ignoring a couple of warning signs. I took quite a financial hit.

To cut a long story short fate intervened and I took a part-time job lecturing, something I had never thought about before, and graduallly worked my way back up. Because my new career could be pursued pretty much anywhere and not just in financial centres, we were able to move to a deeply rural area. I grew up in the sticks (albeit somewhere else) and always dreamed about getting out of the city rat race. So although I will never earn that much and never drive a flash sports car again, I live in a beautiful part of the world on what is a very good salary in this neck of the woods, and I finally have time to pursue things which interest me, wearing nappies being just a small bit of that.

So to sum up, forget about your old job, think about what you want out of life, and remember that fate has a way of coming up with opportunities which you had never considered or dreamed of. Roo wrestling in the outback?

[oznl]

Firstly, thanks to all who responded in various ways with words of support.  It does help.  In “real life” I’ve been a little surprised by the polarisation of reactions.  My wife gets asked constantly “Are you alright?” whereas the question I am first asked (often in the same conversation) is “What are you going to do?”.

  She's actually not like that but the general social set reaction seems to be along the line that this is all of my doing and I'd better fix it quickly before I upset others.

Hmm... Once again I find myself Reminds me of a certain asymmetry in expectations when I re-claimed the right to be nappied nearly two years ago.

Anyway, my first full week spent in my career “twilight zone”: the nebulous, work-from-home-isolated but largely work-free space that exists between a redundancy notification and a termination of work in a large corporation.

It’s been interesting in a maudlin kind of way to notice the subtle distancing that emerges between survivors and the fallen after a major corporate cull.  The number of inbound emails has fallen off a cliff and I’m basically deleting the standard corporate junk emails rather than answering serious questions.  My phone has fallen quiet and a number of meetings I would routinely attend have been unexpectedly cancelled.  The days drag interminably but before you know it, I’ll be officially unemployed so that’s something to look forward to.

I’ve remained (and will remain for a couple more weeks) chained to my desk, obligated to at least be available for work and contactable in the unlikely (but not impossible) scenario that an alternate position becomes available.  Checking the internal job searching intranet sites shows that there are currently zero available jobs in Australia with all hires occurring in low cost, third world countries. 

This mind-bending cocktail of boredom, stress, depression and inactivity could only be further improved by a mild case of nappy rash so of course that happened too. 

I have no idea where it came from.  Sitting in wet nappies in front of a laptop computer for 8 hours per day before undertaking a brisk 5km walk in them might be a reason I suppose but I’ve been doing that for six months.  It’s low-level but right down on my perineum, somewhere that I can’t see but I can feel.  It’s not exactly the numero-uno place that I would get sunburn (which is what it feels like) so nappy rash is a reasonable assumption.  I’m slathering on sudocrem down there and hoping it clears up before too long.

Speaking of nappies, having consumed the last of the Texas-sized ABU Simple XL, I have switched to the smaller ABU Simple L for night time use.  So far, I have only had one (contained) leak at the usual nocturnal ABU location: out the top of the nappy at my crotch back into the terry lining on my plastic pants.  It wasn’t enough to make any outerwear damp so I’m classifying that one as a successful nappy anyway.  With only four units tested, it’s too soon to see how they compare against the ABU Simple XL “uncontained leakage” rate of 20% but they DO seem to fit better than the XL (despite my waist being perilously close to the “L” advertised upper limit) and after putting one on, there’s a LOT less left-over plastic lining to stuff into various crevices.  Whilst doubtless, the prohibitively-expensive ABU Simple “Ultra” would absorb more, I remain stubbornly of the opinion that it’s not absorbency that’s causing the leakage here as much as product fit so with respect to the “L” vs “XL”, I’ll be interested to see if less is more.

An interfering signal to this experiment however is that measurements are telling me that my average daily pee output is gently trending down.  I suspect this is occurring as the weather warms.  Daily output averaged 2.54 litres in July (Cold), 2.26 litres in August (not-so-cold) and 2.12 litres in September (occasionally quite warm).  It looks like evaporation IS a thing!

For some reason, the horrendous lack of sleep I’ve experienced over the last two weeks had a bit of a holiday last night.  I can remember waking up at 1am.  I think I wet myself a bit reflexively, but not much and went back to sleep.  The next thing I could dimly recall was my wife’s alarm going off at 5am and then nothing.  Suddenly, it’s 8 am.  I have a moment of panic, wondering what has become of her.  I have no recollection of her getting out of bed (but the bed beside me is empty).  I have no recollection of further wetting (I am thoroughly wet and completely empty-bladdered).  I have no recollection of her leaving for work (there is a lipstick kiss mark on my forehead evidencing that she said good bye to me).

I remember none of this.  With the possible exception of the wet nappy, perhaps this is what normal people sleep like when they are tired?

[Stroller]

2 hours ago, oznl said:

With the possible exception of the wet nappy, perhaps this is what normal people sleep like when they are tired?

It's no use asking us lot is it?  Let us know if you find any normal people...?

[Little Sherri]

On 10/1/2020 at 1:29 AM, oznl said:

I remain stubbornly of the opinion that it’s not absorbency that’s causing the leakage here as much as product fit so with respect to the “L” vs “XL”,

I share this belief as well; with the Prevails in my inventory, going over to, if I recall correctly, L/XL, from M/L (don't know why they bake in that overlap), made them considerably less reliable. I went back to the M on the next case. I only use those for running now, but I digress. 

 

On 10/1/2020 at 1:29 AM, oznl said:

An interfering signal to this experiment however is that measurements are telling me that my average daily pee output is gently trending down.  I suspect this is occurring as the weather warms.  Daily output averaged 2.54 litres in July (Cold), 2.26 litres in August (not-so-cold) and 2.12 litres in September (occasionally quite warm).  It looks like evaporation IS a thing!

Sigh. This makes me sad, because I am still stubbornly wearing shorts most of the time around the house, but I've had to abandon them for walking the dog, because it's in the single digits outside in the evenings now, and "I gotta pull the winter tires out" is creeping into the back of my mind.  Want to swap houses for six months? Oh, right, pandemic. Maybe next year this time. 

[abdlnz]

@oznl sorry to hear and wise words in terms of being defined by your job as I get older it becomes clear the cycles just goes on.  

[oznl]

4 hours ago, abdlnz said:

@oznl sorry to hear and wise words in terms of being defined by your job as I get older it becomes clear the cycles just goes on.  

Thanks.  Don't do what I did.  Careers are so last century.  Work is a picture to be painted, not a ladder of self worth to be ascended.  Easier to say than think with my upbringing though.

Anyway,

Pee dreams...

For some reason last night, I rediscovered sleep, enjoying nearly 8 hours of the stuff in for me, a rare and decadent display of nocturnal somnolence.  I still can’t turn off the doom-narrative in my head but I guess after nearly a fortnight of long, sleepless nights, at some point fatigue overtook my brains new habit of playing scenarios, phrases or even bits of songs on an infinite loop during any downtime moments.

I dimly remembered stirring at some point before dawn to find myself laying on my back.  I relaxed and a small gush of pee came out but oddly, I felt it run straight down my bum crack to settle into my nappy at the seat below me.  It was quite, er, wet.  Since I hadn’t used my nappy much at all, I would have expected wee to have just soaked into the padding at my crotch.  Too sleepy to contemplate this micro-mystery of nappy behaviour further, I swiftly fell back asleep.

I woke again some hours later at dawn and vividly remembered with a start, previous unwelcome nocturnal developments: that my nappy had leaked during the night.  In classic ABU simple fashion, pee had come out the top at the crotch and made my pyjama pants waist wet on one side.  I recalled trying to quietly rearrange the top of my failed-nappy to prevent further seepage before turning over to sleep with my dry-side down, planning to deal with it discreetly after sunrise.  Now sunrise had occurred, my partner still asleep beside me, I tossed and turned, trying to surreptitiously survey the extent of wet bedding but puzzlingly, I could find none.

Eventually, I got up to make coffee.  Glancing back as I got out of bed, I couldn’t see any wet bits either.  As I waddled downstairs, I noticed that my nappy seemed quite heavy but strangely, my “wet” pyjama pants were as far as I could tell, also dry.  A cautious dab inside my terry-lined waterproofs revealed their inner lining to be dry too.  Even a full-on, less-than-dignified rummage around inside my plastic pants (affording a fascinating visual vignette through the kitchen window to any trampolining neighbour’s kids) provided no hint that any seepage had occurred either.  It seems that the remarkably realistic midnight nappy leak thing was in fact a dream.  It wasn’t real and it hadn’t happened.  This at least was a GOOD thing.

Some sleep-wetting was real though.  At changing time, I found that almost 1.5 litres of pee had finished up in my night nappy, a dangerously tall order for an ABU Simple and yet it had held.  I couldn’t remember making more than the odd trickle and the pee-dream that DID occur was it seems all about nappy leakage rather than nappy usage.

I’m assuming that the odd internal waterfall effect from the solitary, minor overnight usage incident that I had noticed must have been because I was already well wet to the point where my pee just ran down inside my nappy before finding absorbency.   I just didn’t know that at the time.  Unless that was a dream too in which case I’ve no idea what happened between 11pm and 7am but come morning, I had a warm wet bum as well as a warm wet crotch which doesn’t always happen in disposables.

With 10 weeks of longitudinal nappy usage data now recorded, Saturday night is markedly my wettest night of the week.  Like my dreamtime nappy leak, I have no idea why.

[Stroller]

52 minutes ago, oznl said:

With 10 weeks of longitudinal nappy usage data now recorded, Saturday night is markedly my wettest night of the week.

No idea how you've kept all this monitoring and recording up for so long.  I know I couldn't do it.  I do know though, that my driest nights are after we've had pizzas the night before.  That'll be the amount of salt in the pizzas I'd imagine.  I don't get the dreams either.  Only once have I had a dream involving nappies, and I couldn't remember anything more than that about it when I woke up.

[oznl]

16 hours ago, Stroller said:

No idea how you've kept all this monitoring and recording up for so long. 

An under-utilised knowledge worker, soon not to be utilised at all...

16 hours ago, Stroller said:

 I do know though, that my driest nights are after we've had pizzas the night before.  That'll be the amount of salt in the pizzas I'd imagine.

Yes.  Salt is definitely a BIG thing for this.  Our guilty-take-away-pleasure is "fish & chip Thursday".  The data is incontrovertible on the effect of salt here:

Saturday is usually "working outdoors doing garden chores" day and of course, I live in a warm climate.  I suspect the second-driest nappy of the week (Saturday) is simply about dehydration.  It's possible that I over-compensate on Saturday night.

[BedWetMark]

22 hours ago, oznl said:

An under-utilised knowledge worker, soon not to be utilised at all...

Yes.  Salt is definitely a BIG thing for this.  Our guilty-take-away-pleasure is "fish & chip Thursday".  The data is incontrovertible on the effect of salt here:

Saturday is usually "working outdoors doing garden chores" day and of course, I live in a warm climate.  I suspect the second-driest nappy of the week (Saturday) is simply about dehydration.  It's possible that I over-compensate on Saturday night.

Love this! It also backs up my own findings (completely unscientific) about days when I'm busy vs days when I'm working at a desk.

Working at a desk days, I'll fill a Tykables (clean in the morning, change at 6pm) because of the amount of tea and coffee I drink as well as water.

Days when I'm gardening or doing 'hard labour' in the house, barely anything comes out and it feels like a complete waste of a nappy, but I like to be fresh before bed. 

Salt is also an interesting data point as I find the day after a dominos, once I've had a few cups of tea and some water, the floodgates at some point will open.

[Stroller]

10 hours ago, BedWetMark said:

Salt is also an interesting data point as I find the day after a dominos, once I've had a few cups of tea and some water, the floodgates at some point will open.

That makes sense to me too.  The salt in the pizza makes you want to drink more over the next few hours, to flush the salt out.  When we have pizzas it'll be in the evening.  I may have a glass of water, but mainly I'll have a couple of glasses of wine, and go to bed without rehydrating much.  So my rehydrating has to wait till the next day.

[oznl]

This week I completed my 18^th contiguous month in nappies.  Since the start of April 2019, I have not practiced urinary continence and all peeing has taken place inside my pants.

In fact, I’ve been in nappies longer than 18 months.  If you’ve been following this saga from its inception you may recall that I was only out of nappies for a few weeks in March 2019 due to a protracted USA travel commitment.  Prior to that, I’d been in nappies since December 2018.

Of course, knowing what I’ve now learned about managing nappy-travel, I would have simply stayed in nappies for that March 2019 trip too.  I could have remained seated for a 14-hour trans-pacific flight sector, embarrassed myself with the TSA and sampled some of those exotic, US-sold super-diapers (thinking of YOU, Megamax) that either can’t be bought at all here in Australia or are prohibitively expensive. 

I’d resolved to do this for my 2020 USA trip before the COVID-19 pandemic declaration saw it cancelled.  Then, the associated economic depression ate my job and now I don’t know if and when I will ever find myself again cursing the mind-numbing Dantean hell that is LAX airport.

Disregarding that brief March 2019 sabbatical, I’ve been “24/7” now for approaching 21 months and it occurred to me that this must be very close to the tipping point where I will have spent more of my adult life permanently diapered than I did in my infant one.    My mother was exceptionally keen to see me out of nappies at her earliest convenience.  My sister was already well upon her gestational route by my 18 month-of-age milestone and mother did NOT want the burden of two offspring in nappies simultaneously.  It was a point of excruciating familial embarrassment that she would frequently boast to anybody who cared to listen about how I was toilet trained “a little after 20 months”.

Nothing lasts.  A mere 53 years later, and I’m back to wetting the bed. 

I wonder if something will change after I’ve overtaken my previous personal-best for “longest period contiguously diapered” set back in my own infancy.  Perhaps then, some cosmic paradox will be instantly resolved, a deep-seated psychological rift closed and I’ll take off a soggy nappy and go look for some grown-up underwear.

Unlikely though.

Although still ruminating on the vicissitudinous shock of my redundancy and contemplating the bleak finality of my “separation date” as it rumbles slowly toward me, fatigue defeated anxiety and I’ve started sleeping again although oddly with it, serial sleep-wetting has been occurring.

I’m not sure whether its just that in the scheme of things, peeing in bed has been relegated back from “unnoteworthy” to “completely unmemorable”, overtaken by other events, but I’ve greeted each of the last four mornings from the comfortable embrace of a night nappy containing 1400ml or more of warm pee that most of which, I cannot recall putting in there. 

Sure, I can remember a bit of pee happening in the living room chair in front of the TV before bed and I might remember an odd trickle or two here and there before falling asleep or when stirring during the night but not one and a half litre’s worth though.  That would be between 3 and 4 full bladder loads.

Yesterday morning I was dozing around 7:30am after my partner had left for her office and I’m pretty sure I woke up during a little bit of a dribbly pee.  It was rather an odd sensation, floating up through a dream-like sensation that I was wetting to a sense of wakefulness confirming that I was indeed getting wetter down there.   It wasn’t clear whether the minor pee woke me or it was just coincidence.

I don’t know whether this sudden shift to repeated sleep wetting is a permanent thing or just another manifestation of the episodic ebb and flow of some low-level psychological dependency emerging.  Additionally, there is some very slight evidence to suggest that this practice has some contagion to the day.  Yesterday I was out at a “good bye” lunch with some colleagues from a different company that my company does work for.  Later I found my BetterDry to be somewhat wet and I’m not entirely sure when that happened.   I thought it was at best damp at the front but in fact I had a wet bum.  That’s rare though.

Speaking of night nappies, the results are in and an ABU Simple “Large” is more effective on me than its allegedly-more-capacious ABU Simple “XL” stablemate.   I’ve about worked my way through one whole pack now and although they remain prone (no pun intended) to leaking at the base of my belly when used laying down, it’s less major than the XL issues, typically unaccompanied by the XL habit of also leaking at the back of my thighs.  The leaks that have occurred (around half the time) have been so minor as to have been coped with by the terry lining on my waterproofs without recourse to laundry.

Although minor contained leaks around half the time is far from stellar performance, there are other positive things about these nappies.  They remain soft and comfortable from dry, through to wet and on to saturated.  The tapes are rock solid and they simply do not sag.  This to the point where with the house to myself and warm weather, I will often strip off my absorbent waterproofs getting out of bed and just wear my wet ABU Simple night nappy and a T-shirt until I can be bothered to change or, press-out leaks on my bum make their presence known.

If this bedwetting is going to become permanent, I’m going to have to think about how I can deal reliably with this in the context of my side-sleeping habit.  Last few nights I seem to have dodged that bullet but any substantial wee occurring in any of my disposables whilst on my side (trickles are ok) will mean wet terry trainers and most probably, damp patches on the bed.  Cloth is the answer of course but my partner doesn’t like them at all.

[Little Sherri]

12 hours ago, oznl said:

Disregarding that brief March 2019 sabbatical, I’ve been “24/7” now for approaching 21 months and it occurred to me that this must be very close to the tipping point where I will have spent more of my adult life permanently diapered than I did in my infant one. 

I think I'm still a fair ways away from this milestone, depending on how you want to measure it. I was entirely in diapers until I was around 2.5 years old, so by that measure, I'll be there in another year, having just crossed the 18-month barrier. If I want to use the age at which I was out of diapers completely, including at night, then I have about 8 years to go. Although I guess I could allow myself to then include the roughly 12 months that I was wearing diapers to bed, before I took the leap over to 24/7.

Will I still be in diapers 8 years from now? I'd like to think so. My theory is that resistance is at its maximum when you first set out on this journey, with most of the major obstacles on more or less the immediate horizon - how do I tell my spouse/partner/roommate/dog/ferret? Wearing diapers to the mailbox, out shopping, to work, out for drinks, on a trip, on a plane, on a longer trip, to the doctor, horseback riding (haven't done that yet), to the gym, while kayaking (check), etc. After you've burned through most of the things you regularly do, it all becomes fairly routine, unless you take up yoga or sumo wrestling or professional bodybuilding later in life. One challenge I've been mercifully spared is dating - THAT could conceivably put me back in big-boy underwear, if I ever had to do it. When do you bring up your plastic underwear? First date? Third? Only when out-of-trouser moments seem inevitable? Maybe I'd just cast my lot on the craps table of ABDL personals, and probably end up being extorted by a Russian transvestite. 

12 hours ago, oznl said:

It was a point of excruciating familial embarrassment that she would frequently boast to anybody who cared to listen about how I was toilet trained “a little after 20 months”.

This is my sister! Possibly as a result of seeing me wearing diapers until I was in the 5th grade, she resolved that her son would set the world record for being out of diapers, and she swears that he was potty-trained when he was 18 months old. However, I babysat that kid on a number of occasions when he was little, and here's the deal: he was, indeed, out of diapers before he was two. But, and this is a big but, he was absolutely terrified of the toilet, so, he would stand on a stool and pee into it, however he would not, under any circumstances, be seated on it, probably due to the trauma of facing the giant roaring porcelain monster daily as a baby. When he was 3 and 4, he would bring a diaper over to whoever was tending to him, you'd help him put it on (while standing), then he'd disappear for 20 minutes, and come back for a cleanup. Eventually he got past that requirement, but, he would only poop on a potty chair until he was 6 or so. The fact that his younger sister wore diapers until she was close to 3, and then was using the toilet like a champ, is mute testimony that my sister realized that perhaps mistakes were made on the first go round. 

[Kittytrain]

On 10/8/2020 at 2:24 AM, oznl said:

This week I completed my 18^th contiguous month in nappies.  Since the start of April 2019, I have not practiced urinary continence and all peeing has taken place inside my pants.

 

Congrats oznl! I've avidly read along with your journey, hope the next 18months is easier, your continence progresses in ways that make you happy and your wife breaks her resistance to your underwear need. ?

[oznl]

The heat is on in South East Queensland.  October has always been the month that Brisbane transitions from “warm” to “hot” but depressingly, yet again there has been no signs of an emerging rainy season.  September is normally our driest month but normally by October, the storm season has started and we will have had rumbles of thunder and the odd, associated tropical downpour.

Again, like last year and the year before, the heat has arrived but it is dry and dusty with rain events all happening much further south.  This is despite this being a “La Nina” year: historically associated with cyclones and floods.  Maybe later…

The combination of heat and dry has also been reflected in my nappies which are also operating under drought conditions.  Despite my attempts to remain hydrated, I am watching the amount of pee showing up in my underwear fall off a cliff.  I do not remember this happening last year but upon reflection, this time last year although still permanently diapered, I was working in an air-conditioned office for most days and this may have offset fluid loss.

I’ve been wearing BetterDry still through the day but I’m starting to wonder why I bother and if I might not trade out to a cheaper Molicare.  Could it last 10 hours?

Last Friday night my beloved declared a surprise Saturday dinner party along with an associated invitation for me to organise a BBQ for it.

With the combination of COVID-19 and drought, steak has become breathtakingly expensive here in my part of Australia and the most cost-effective solution is a trip to Costco where entire cows may be found lying invitingly slaughtered on clear, non-recyclable single-use plastic trays.  Again, due to COVID-19, store occupancy is managed and turning up late Saturday morning is an invitation to queueing in the heat until enough people have left the store for you to be allowed in.  The solution I’ve discovered is to aim to arrive there right on opening: it seems that Queenslanders would rather queue than get up early on the weekend.

Friday nights are “cloth” nights and this one was no exception.  I received news of my early-next-morning shopping trip from the comfort of a recently-changed-into “old school” 60” x 60” kite-folded-and-pinned terry towelling nappy under plastic pants.  My normal Saturday morning routine here would be a quick shower (including a fairly thorough rinse of my wet nappy and plastics) before changing into a disposable and launching into Saturday, including associated cloth nappy laundry logistics.

The thing was, by the time we had woken and had a couple of cups of coffee in bed, it was already about the time we needed to be leaving to catch the store opening and thanks to the aforementioned climate, I really didn’t seem to be that wet.  Still, I often don’t remember wetting at night so some checks were in order.

I certainly wasn’t DRY, the front of my nappy had the tell-tale weight, warmth and humidity of a used cloth nappy but the towelling around the corner near my bum was largely dry and a quick exploratory poke around my leggings showed the towelling to be dry at the sides of my thighs also.  This nappy clearly had plenty of capacity remaining and I didn’t have half an hour for changing time ceremonies, my partner was already dressed.

I hauled myself out of bed and addressed the metaphorical gorilla in the room.

“Let’s just go!  I’ll just pull on some jeans and change when we get back.”

She looked down at my suspiciously-thick midriff and her eyes narrowed.

“Really?”

Yes, really…   I had no inclination to arrive after opening and queue, this nappy had plenty of mileage left in it, and the fact that we were forced to do this at short notice was entirely of her doing (justifying in my mind, any blowback from the embarrassment of being with a husband whom in her eyes, was obviously in a nappy).  I pulled on a compression pant over my plastic pants to tame the bulk a little, a pair of quite loose-fitting black jeans and a large, loose over-hanging t-shirt.  Looking in the mirror I saw that yes, my bum DID look big but not implausibly so.

She gave my midriff a hard look when I came down stairs but presumably it must have been more discreet than she’d anticipated as with little more than pursed lips, we got into my car and left.

My modestly-used cloth night nappy actually felt very nice outdoors in the daytime.  Although bulky, it also felt soft, secure, enveloping and as the morning coffee worked its way through on the drive down and the at the store, effortlessly absorbent.  It just progressively got warmer and heavier.  It was also just a little bit of a giggle from a head-space thing too.  Being out in disposable white adult diaper as a late middle-aged male probably isn’t that unusual.  Statistically in that store, there HAD to be a few others thusly attired and in the event of an unexpected ambulance ride, I doubt much would be made of it by ER staff.  Jeans removed to reveal a folded terry towelling, nappy pins and pastel-yellow opaque plastic pants was however inevitably going to raise eyebrows and thus a bit of a secret source of amusement to me.

Shopping done; I slightly-waddled back across the carpark and loaded the car feeling rather smug about getting away with a Costco-scaled nappy out and about at Costco.    By the time I’d finished and returned the giant trolley to its giant trolley bay, my partner was already waiting in the passenger seat.  I was quite wet by now and the thickness and weight of my nappy was making itself known as I clambered somewhat awkwardly into the driver’s seat.  Flopping down into position somewhat suddenly was simply warm, comfortable and still leak free though.

It was a shame about the smell.

Air had clearly been forced out of my wet nappy and plastic pants and within a second or two, I was reminded about odour control and more poignantly, the complete absence of this technology with old-school cloth nappies.  A characteristic warm-pee smell, with just a subtle hint of a sharp ammonia undercurrent emanated from my underwear to fill the cabin within seconds of me sitting in it.  By now, this nappy had been on me for more than 14 hours, wet to some extent for at least 13 of them and things were starting to brew up inside.  There was no escaping the conclusion that I didn’t smell too good.

I stabbed the “start” and “ac max” buttons near simultaneously as silence roared from the passenger seat.

Every time I moved slightly; I got a whiff of wet nappy. 

On the route home, my beloved insisted on a diversion via a supermarket for one or two items unobtainable in reasonably small quantities at Costco.  I was a little surprised at this.  If I could smell myself it was beyond doubt that she could.  Perhaps she’d just decided that having made my metaphorical bed, I should lay in it.  I practiced social distancing as best as I could.

I honestly don’t know how people manage with #2 in their underwear out and about.  Terry towelling steeped in aged pee was bad enough.

Nappy utilisation on that one measured in at a shade under 1400ml.  That 60” cloth terry square could have gone on longer but it would likely have made my marriage shorter.

[oznl]

With little to do until I finish work on Friday, I’d called in to Littles Downunder to replenish my dwindling stock of BetterDry.  I was up in that part of town anyway for a non-work-related matter but I figure you are tacitly allowed to goof off a little bit in the last 72 hours before lay-off.  At some point I’m expecting an uncomfortable conversation with my beloved as to why I might be squandering my finite capital on recreational underwear but another case will kick this can down the road a couple of months.

Whilst there, thinking I might as well be hung for a sheep as a goat, I picked up a pack of Rearz “Incontrol Elite Hybrid” briefs.  I didn’t particularly need them and they weren’t particularly cheap although collecting them in person instead of mail-ordering does help.  I was just curious.    They have neutral décor, lacking the teddy bear prints that would have my beloved phoning Child Protective Services to arrange an arrest.  They must be good right?  They have such a long and commanding name.

Why do adult nappies need lengthy and convoluted names anyway?  “Rearz” I get; that’s kind of cute; but “Incontrol Elite Hybrid”?  It’s a nappy, not a cyber storm trooper.  A weird inversion of this is the reasonably-enough-named “BetterDry” being manufactured by an organisation calling itself “Thrust Vector Corporation”.  Seriously?  They are about preventing puddles on furniture, not blowing up a death star.  They need to get over themselves.

For the sake of typographical convenience, I will henceforth refer to the “Rearz Incontrol Elite Hybrid” as “Barry”.  It will make my keyboard last longer.

I spent the week road-testing Barry…

Barry’s maiden flight on Saturday night finished inauspiciously:  waking up in cold, wet pyjama pants under the ceiling fan at 6am.   It seems I’d wet in my sleep (not unusual), had leaked (not completely unusual) and leaked badly (mercifully, QUITE unusual).  The front waist band and upper crotch of my pants were soggy, the territory extending down my left hip was merely damp and incriminatingly the sheet above my crotch also had a substantial and visible wet patch on it where it had rested against my wet pants.  My pyjama pant drawstring flopped coldly and wetly in my belly like an anesthetised earthworm on a crisp spring morning.

Cautious surveying (trying not to rouse my partner) suggested that the top front of Barry above my crotch had folded over and outwards during the night, exposing wet padding, and I suspect at some point, live pee to my terry-lined plastic pants.  The top of the terry lining was well soaked and had wicked to the lycra band, on out to my pyjama pants, bed and presumably to infinity and beyond.  I’ve had this fold-over sometimes with ABU Simple as well.  It might help if I had a flatter belly.

Thusly damp, I attempted to doze carefully laying on my back with the sheet thrown off me so as not to make the bedding any wetter until a credibly-later time whereupon I could reasonably arise to make some coffee.  90 minutes later, the ceiling fan had somewhat dried my pants and completely dried the damp spot on the sheet and so I was not discovered although the associated evaporative cooling had done little for my sleep.

Forensic examination at change time showed not one but TWO failure modes.

In addition to the “fold over” at my upper crotch, I could dimly recall letting a small trickle go whilst on my side at some point: the Rearz claim was that Barry featured “side sleeping protection+” so that they would “stop leaks for side sleepers, active sleepers and those who sleep in various positions”.  Pee had gone past the padding on my lower left side and into the plastic backing whereupon it had been neatly funnelled out into my plastic pants where it could be free to explore.

Despite no specific recollection of wetting beyond the odd trickle, there was around 1.2 litres of pee in that nappy so most likely I sleep-wet more than once during the night.  Regardless, it was an indifferent performance by Barry here.

Barry seemed more of a daytime kind of nappy, quite slim and even after a number of drinks, avoiding the dramatic swelling of the BetterDry although especially when dry, Barry crinkles alarmingly under my shorts unless I have plastic pants and/or a compression pant over him.  A bit of wetness also seems to help this.  The “hook and loop” fastening system works as promised.  I was able to cinch up Barry even after hours of battle conditions without tapes tearing or parting company with the diaper they were fused to.

I even managed an out-of-band #2 with Barry as he could be easily slid down, slid back up and tapes tightened with no loss of structural integrity.  I did notice that during this exercise, #1 appeared quite uncontrollably alongside #2 causing me to wet Barry’s bum a bit (as he was slid down to my thighs upon the throne) but nil desperandum.

Barry is pretty comfortable to wear.  When dry, I’m not sure Barry is quite as comfortable as the ABU Simple though, feeling a little more like a paper product but once Barry has seen some action, he is similarly soft and comfortable but with less swelling.  Barry’s average dry weight was 225g which was nearly identical to the ABU Simple and a few grams lighter than the BetterDry.

Barry had a pretty big day on Tuesday where he dealt with 1.6 litres of pee AND subsequently accompanied me on a 5km brisk walk.  There were zero leaks but I did feel noticeably wet down there towards the end (not that this bothered me, no leaks, just wet).

I’m pleased to report that Barry kept my bed dry mostly for the rest of the week. The trick I discovered here was to make sure Barry was worn a little biased towards the front, so that the upper crotch elastic could be snugged under my plastic pant waistband.  This prevented it from flipping over during the night and kept my pee inside my nappy, even with some moderate side wetting that I could remember, and most likely some more side wetting I could not remember (I had another sleep-wetting incident on Wednesday night).  There was one night where Barry wobbled a bit:  I awoke with the inside leg of my terry-lined waterproofs a bit wet by morning but this was most likely overload.  I knew I was unusually wet when I went to bed.  I’m not sure if I sleep-wet or not that night but next morning, I had 1775ml in my nappy which for me, is an unusually wet night.

At AUD3.26 per unit, Barry is around 10% more expensive than the BetterDry and frankly, does around the same quality of job so I won’t be ordering Barry by the case-full.  I was however impressed by Barry’s superior resistance to swelling and the seemingly infinitely re-usable hook and loop tapes.  If you sag a lot, pee a lot and don’t like looking like you’ve a dead badger stuffed down your crotch by changing time, Barry could be a winner for you.

If I had a reliable income, I’d consider using Barry (carefully) more often as a day-nappy.

[BedWetMark]

On 10/21/2020 at 11:50 PM, oznl said:

With little to do until I finish work on Friday, I’d called in to Littles Downunder to replenish my dwindling stock of BetterDry.  I was up in that part of town anyway for a non-work-related matter but I figure you are tacitly allowed to goof off a little bit in the last 72 hours before lay-off.  At some point I’m expecting an uncomfortable conversation with my beloved as to why I might be squandering my finite capital on recreational underwear but another case will kick this can down the road a couple of months.

 

I looked up Littles Downunder ... god, you have to pay through the nose for nappies don't you? I didn't realise the prices would be THAT much higher (given the current exchange rate to GBP), I was shocked. 

Also, looks like you're suffering from the same stock issues that I seem to be noticing here too, there is not a great deal in stock generally.  I've had to order the old faithful Tena Slips again (Ultima though) as stocks of Tykables, Rearz and ABU seem to be getting lower month by month.  Maybe there is a delayed knock on in the supply chain?

Anyway, bigger step for me today. As I've said I've been wearing (nearly) 24/7 since March when lockdown happened, with the odd hour out of a nappy here and there.  Today my wife asked if I'd walk round and pick our son up together as I'd given up with work early.  I went and showered as is the usual end of day routine and then changed into a fresh ABU Simple with vest/bodysuit, shorts and t-shirt over the top, generally my standard wear for the past 8/9 months.

She got up to go and I said I'd come, I put some trainers on and threw a coat on.  She was sat on the stairs as I walked past and I felt a prod to by backside.  "You're not wearing THAT are you?".  "Yes, let's go".  Lots of grumbling but I just got on with opening the door and we left together.  A few months ago I'd have been moaned at until I changed or just been left at home.  Feels like progress, I think ... I hope.

 

[oznl]

2 hours ago, BedWetMark said:

I looked up Littles Downunder ... god, you have to pay through the nose for nappies don't you? I didn't realise the prices would be THAT much higher (given the current exchange rate to GBP), I was shocked.

Yes, we call it the "Australia Tax" and we hate it (it's not a "real" tax since actual sales tax in Australia is quite low at 10% and in any case, nappies are exempt from it).  It seems many manufacturers are willing and able to gouge the Australian market due to its relatively small size and remoteness.  It's even worse in NZ apparently.

It used to be outrageously bad with software.  At one point, it was actually cheaper to fly economy class to Los Angeles, go to a local Fry's store, buy a copy of Windows NT Server and fly home again than it was to buy it locally!

Even today, despite digital distribution, there is differential pricing for the Australian market.

It really, really sucks...  Notable exceptions to this rule are Costco and Tesla.   Kudos to them.

To be fair, I think the Rearz cloth Omutsu were a reasonable AUD analog of the original Canadian price.

2 hours ago, BedWetMark said:

She got up to go and I said I'd come, I put some trainers on and threw a coat on.  She was sat on the stairs as I walked past and I felt a prod to by backside.  "You're not wearing THAT are you?".  "Yes, let's go".  Lots of grumbling but I just got on with opening the door and we left together.  A few months ago I'd have been moaned at until I changed or just been left at home.  Feels like progress, I think ... I hope.

It may well be that the cessation of active complaint is as good as it gets for some of us ?

[kinkygaybottom]

On 12/4/2018 at 12:17 PM, oznl said:

Last Saturday after a multi-year descent into desperation, I rolled the dice on my 30-year marriage.  I told her that with my headspace today, I can no longer keep my nappy thing inside the ever-narrowing swim lanes she is painting for them and that henceforth, I will be wearing a lot more and at my discretion.  Furthermore, I have told her that this wearing will include at least some period of experimental 24x7 usage.   She has opted to continue our partnership.  I feel bad and good all at the same time in a kind of cold, clear air of shared truth.

Well done! It takes a lot to open up about this.

Two years ago I tried diapers, loved them and then tried to bring my hubby around, but I kind of threw it direct in his face with no warning and no explanation, and his reaction was not great.

Now, I was totally honest, how much they relax me, how much security they give me, just how much calmer I am when wearing, as a PTSD sufferer, when I put it all forward, he understood, and is now fully behind me.

I was completely honest, and insisted he listened, and he did, I am so grateful.

Do not feel bad for being honest, it is the one thing I have insisted since my hubby proposed to me, everyday, forever, we are 100% honest, regardless on if we think it will hurt the other to hear it, no lies, no secrets.

Today we celebrated 6 years since he proposed to me, and he patted my diaper asking me if I was happy, but he could tell, he could see now its out in the open and he is behind me, I am much more relaxed.

Love my man.

I would say to anyone, always be honest, if you are not honest, you are hiding something, secrets lead to lies, and lies lead to the end of a relationship.  I have been there, cost me a lot, still paying!

Never hide who you really are, if you cannot be true to you, you will never live life to its full.

Hugs.

[BedWetMark]

On 10/24/2020 at 1:23 AM, oznl said:

Yes, we call it the "Australia Tax" and we hate it (it's not a "real" tax since actual sales tax in Australia is quite low at 10% and in any case, nappies are exempt from it).  It seems many manufacturers are willing and able to gouge the Australian market due to its relatively small size and remoteness.  It's even worse in NZ apparently.

It used to be outrageously bad with software.  At one point, it was actually cheaper to fly economy class to Los Angeles, go to a local Fry's store, buy a copy of Windows NT Server and fly home again than it was to buy it locally!

Even today, despite digital distribution, there is differential pricing for the Australian market.

It really, really sucks...  Notable exceptions to this rule are Costco and Tesla.   Kudos to them.

To be fair, I think the Rearz cloth Omutsu were a reasonable AUD analog of the original Canadian price.

It may well be that the cessation of active complaint is as good as it gets for some of us ?

I think you're spot on about the cessation of active complaints. In my experience they have lessened so far, but there is definitely an undertone that rumbles along.  Still, I can't really complain, I do feel like I am lucky in many ways.

As for the "Australian tax", I had never realised it was that much more expensive for you guys. It makes a mockery of the programme over here where families compare their UK lifestyle to one in Oz.  Personally I still don't get why so many people make the move (my own friends included) when EVERYTHING can kill you and now you're telling me it is so much more expensive. I'll stay in Hampshire thank you

[oznl]

42 minutes ago, BedWetMark said:

As for the "Australian tax", I had never realised it was that much more expensive for you guys. It makes a mockery of the programme over here where families compare their UK lifestyle to one in Oz.  Personally I still don't get why so many people make the move (my own friends included) when EVERYTHING can kill you and now you're telling me it is so much more expensive. I'll stay in Hampshire thank you

It’s complicated.  I’ve lived in the UK so I can see the argument from both sides.

Tiny, dingy houses?  Dreary weather?  TV licences? The M25?  Slough? Trying to “get away from it all” and discovering bigger crowds at your destination than were where you were trying to get away from? ?

I miss the pubs and the beer though.  I actually picked up a taste for English ale.  I’d love a Ruddles County if i could find one.

I'd even pay the Australia tax on it.

[oznl]

Work finished last Friday.  For the first time in nearly 37 years, I find myself without a job to think about.  I check emails via my smart phone at least a dozen times per day on a corporate email account that is suspended and briefly wonder why there aren’t any.  It was an oddly quiet finish to a quarter-century stint with my employer, COVID-19 restrictions having closed the physical office and prevented face to face contact.  A shower of emails marked the final siren.  Perhaps I will be emailed a .JPG of a gold watch.

Anyhow, I think I woke up in bed last Friday morning to discover myself having a bit of a wee.

It’s demonically hard to be certain about these things.  The border zone between sleep and wakefulness is a nebulous place where things that seem real might not be and things that seem unreal may in fact be entirely real.

It was a little before 6am.  What kind of cruel neurological trick is it that causes one to reliably wake a few minutes before the clock radio goes off anyway?  I was comfortably sleeping in a t-shirt along with modestly-wet Babykins cotton pull on nappy and plastic pants.  As I became aware that I could hear birdsong, I also felt that I was having a bit of a slow, gentle pee:  a faint vibration in my penis and the spreading, wet heat at my crotch.  I had no recollection of either when this started or deciding to do it.  I just woke up to discover it happening.

At this point in my habituation journey, the unplanned wetting did not startle me at all and so I did nothing other than to let it finish.  I knew that there was next to no chance of leaking so I didn’t bother to change position or check my plastic pants.  There wasn’t much pee and it soon dissipated into a mere dripping phase as it tends to these days.  Presumably at some point it stopped but I was too freshly wet in that area now to notice.

It was an oddly busy day, being the last of many things, my final day “at work” and so it was only later that had me wondering a little about what had happened.  There had been no “pee dream” at all that I could remember and although I’ve had plenty of wet nights that I can’t remember, I don’t remember something like this happening.  I have no idea whether I’d actually woken and chosen to pee but was too asleep to clearly remember this decision or, I’d woken because so close to morning, I was sleeping sufficiently lightly so as to be roused by the sensation of a pee that started whilst I was asleep.

It was my 560^th consecutive night in nappies and my 632^nd night of 24/7.

Consistent with the variable nature of these events, subsequent nights I have been quite dry, clearly remember waking to pee two or three times through each night.  There may have been an exception this morning however: I greeted the dawn with almost 1.5 litres of pee in ponderously heavy ABU Simple and although I can remember wetting a little here and there, it didn’t seem anything like that much.

The heat is on here in South East Queensland and I’m acutely aware of how hot nappies can be to wear, especially when I’m not spending 9 hours per day in an air-conditioned office…

[abdlnz]

On 10/26/2020 at 10:15 AM, BedWetMark said:

I think you're spot on about the cessation of active complaints. In my experience they have lessened so far, but there is definitely an undertone that rumbles along.  Still, I can't really complain, I do feel like I am lucky in many ways.

As for the "Australian tax", I had never realised it was that much more expensive for you guys. It makes a mockery of the programme over here where families compare their UK lifestyle to one in Oz.  Personally I still don't get why so many people make the move (my own friends included) when EVERYTHING can kill you and now you're telling me it is so much more expensive. I'll stay in Hampshire thank you

@oznl @BedWetMark Australia does have higher rents , minimum wages and penalty rates is my understanding.  Balance between price , what the price goes to is it corporate profits or peoples jobs / wages.

[Little Sherri]

On 10/29/2020 at 12:59 AM, oznl said:

It’s demonically hard to be certain about these things.  The border zone between sleep and wakefulness is a nebulous place where things that seem real might not be and things that seem unreal may in fact be entirely real.

I concur with this observation completely - I may be an accomplished bedwetter again at this point, but I don't know. I never wake up dry - well, almost never - but I also *usually* have at least a vague recollection of waking up at some point and giving permission for a transfer to commence, and then I usually fall right back to sleep. Indeed, there is something about falling asleep while relaxing in that way that is very conducive to quickly slipping into a deep sleep, at least for me. But I wouldn't mind eventually arriving at a place where I don't have to wake up for things to take care of themselves most of the time. At this point I can't imagine ever wanting, or allowing myself, to go to bed without a diaper on, so a decline in my retention capabilities overnight wouldn't have a material effect on my quality of life at this point, mindful though I am of the adage that one should be careful what one wishes for. Maybe I'll change my mind if I find myself divorced someday and on the dating scene again.

[Little Sherri]

I also mean to address yesterday, but didn't have the time, what you said about a quarter century of service grinding to a halt with barely a whisper; I definitely think that the era of a reception with speeches and a hearty pat on the back and a gold watch has drawn to a close for the most part, and not just because of the pandemic. I was at a few of those early in my career for outgoing silver-haired multi-decade employees, but these days it seems way more likely that those people will be quietly downsized a few years before they qualify to draw on their pensions. I've left a few jobs - thankfully up to now it's always been on my terms, but I know the day is coming when it won't be - and I find it humorous that even after 7 or 10 years at a place, I pretty much sent out a goodbye email, dropped my IT gear with the IT department, and headed home without fanfare... the one exception being when I left my very first "real" job, which was at a car dealership, and even though I'd only been there for three years, and the place was, as such places are, an absolute revolving door of employee turnover, they actually convened a brief gathering in the service department, and served cake. Maybe they were really happy to see me go. 

But the above is all the more reason not to define yourself solely by what you do, not to place outsized value on that aspect of your life, because they surely don't place outsized value on you (or anyone), anymore than you deeply appreciate the contributions of cylinder 3 in your car. Obviously, cylinder 3 is critical, and if it retired, you would take immediate notice of it, but, as long as it's ticking along, being cylinder 3, you pay it very little mind. Cylinder 3 needs to find satisfaction in something other than your acknowledging its reciprocations on your behalf, as orderly and precise as they have undoubtedly been. 

Although this is really much easier said than done; I know when I hang around with my buddies and pretend to appreciate craft beer while waiting for my intestines to separate out the ethanol from the rest of it, we often talk about our jobs, what car strikes our fancy, is now the time to invest in a vacation property (no), etc etc. It's how men are wired. But I think it's to our detriment.