Strange days indeed - a 24 x 7 experiment

[oznl]

On 8/31/2022 at 12:15 AM, Little Sherri said:

I'm wondering if I'm doing the right thing, in terms of nappy rash management. @Stroller's reference to using Canesten was interesting. First of all, I think that you are correct, @Stroller, about the possibility for cross-contamination between Athletes' Foot and Jock Itch. They're both in the fungi family and they both like humidity, darkness and confinement.

 

On 8/31/2022 at 2:23 AM, Stroller said:

It's active ingredient is 1% Clotrimazole, and it's a standard and effective off-prescription treatment for thrush over here.  That means it's a fungicide that's safe on your nether regions & you can get it at any chemist/pharmacy.

I’m keeping an eye on things.  Although currently barely a rash at all (very mildly sunburned bollocks to put in bluntly), I’m aware that nor is it 100% gone.

The more rigorous sudecrem regime certainly seems to have stuffed it back into its box with, if it were fungal, I believe would not be the case.

A concurrent nappy-science related experiment relating to increasing effective disposable yield which I’ve been running for the past week (which I shall chronicle imminently) may also have the side effect of enhancing the environment for nappy rash.

[oznl]

I’ve spent much of this week wearing big boy underwear but don’t worry – it wasn’t dry.  This wasn’t nappy recidivism, this was science…

This experiment sprang from an archaeological dig I conducted in our walk-in-robe shortly before the recent great family “do”.  I was trying to find dress shoes and of all things, a bow tie to go with my Tuxedo that had not been seen since the “before” (pandemic) times.  At some point in excavations, I reached the wardrobe shelf’s pre-diaperzoic era.  Buried at this level under a sedimentary tsunami of dust and dead insects was an anonymous, small black duffle bag.  Upon exhumation, I found this to contain a few pairs of my old underwear.  These were the things I used to wear before abandoning them in favour of nappies back in late 2018.  Having been zipped up inside this duffle bag, they were dust and insect free and in excellent condition.  A kind of “barn find” for underpants.

What once was lost now is found.

I’d assumed that my beloved had forlornly disposed of them.  She’s in the habit of managing my wardrobe, much to my chagrin.

I suppose to pursue the dominant 24/7 narrative I should have burned them or at least thrown them out but I had a more pragmatic idea.

For those of you following this chronicle, I’ve been plagued by very minor leaks from my Rearz Incontrol Elite Hybrid (Barry) nappies that I use for long, active work days.  Despite outrageous absorbency specifications, I always seem to have a damp spot on my rear right thigh by 4pm.

On a related note, I’ve also had somewhat-disappointing experiences with other ultra-high-capacity super-nappies that are sold today.  The 7 litre Tykables “Cammies” and the 7 litre Rearz “Mermaid Tales” (although the Mermaid does hang in for longer than the Tykables).

Despite their extravagant absorbency claims, like the “Barry”, they invariably seem to suffer from minor leaks at the front crotch/inner thigh area that make their way down through unprotected plastic before reappearing on the arse of my jeans a short time and distance later.  Although they last slightly longer than mortal nappies, their range falls well short of the kind of longevity one might expect from a nappy rated with sufficient absorbency to cope with my expected output for three whole days.

Forensic examination of removed product evidenced this premature failure.  Only a small portion (usually less than one half and possible as little as one third) of the available absorbent material appeared to have absorbed anything.  The rest of the padding was just along for the ride.

It appeared that the relevant area of the nappy would saturate quickly and then, stop transferring pee to other dry parts of the nappy (a kind of osmotic process known as “wicking” and instead just leak.

Sure, there might be 7 litres worth of polymer capacity stuffed into it but you’re never going to be able to use it.

I’d wondered before if a cloth undergarment (cloth has excellent wicking properties) worn between bare skin and my nappy might improve this.  A garment such as cheap cotton/polyester underpants.

The next workday morning, I pulled on a pair of underwear before taping on a Rearz Incontrol Hybrid Elite (Barry) over the top of it, put on a pair of white PUL waterproofs over the top of that and finished with a black compression pant and work clothes before hitting the road for the day.

The first thing I noticed was how cloth-like my nappy wetting experience became.

Compared to a high quality adult disposable, a cloth nappy just feels, well, “wetter” when it’s wet.  It doesn’t play any tricks with respect to “hide the pee”.  When you wet yourself, it feels exactly like you are wetting yourself albeit with the damage confined and hidden beneath your outerwear.  There’s not much ambiguity about what you’ve done.

As a cloth nappy enthusiast, this sensation didn’t bother me at all.  It actually felt rather nice.

As the day wore on, I was always much more “aware” that I was wet and supplemental wetting incidents (which occur multiple times in very small volumes per hour) were much more tactically vivid than the obscured-by-science experience of peeing directly into a super-absorbent polymer.

As the day wore on, I did not leak.

In a well-hydrated workday, a minor Barry leak at the rear thighs has been almost inevitable.  It’s just not a big enough leak to warrant any particular intervention but I remain aware that there is often a tiny damp spot somewhere at the rear of my jeans.

But not today.  I peed freely and near-continuously with nary a care in the world.

At change time, Barry slumped to the floor and suddenly, my sodden underpants felt chilly as they stuck to me.

My jeans were indeed dry.  Furthermore, more of Barry’s lining was wet than usual.  My underpants were wet as far back as about half way up my bum and so was the nappy beneath them.

Batter up the next pair of underwear for work day 2.

Another day of hyper-hydrated free range peeing followed by another dry pair of jeans at changing time.

Work days 3, 4, 5 and 6 all produced the same satisfactory outcome:  a warm, wet and sodden Barry, an empty bladder and a reusable dry jeans.  Although far from scientific, the observed evidence was strong.  Nappy loading was normal.  Measuring by weight, typically across the “day shift” I found myself to be peeing between 1.2 and 1.7 litres.

I suspect what is happening here is that the cotton/polyester underwear is acting as a capture and dispersal layer within the nappy.  Instead of my pee stream repeatedly and directly hitting a small spot on the nappy liner, the underpants were reflecting and redistributing the stream across a wider area though wicking.  This action could be physically felt during wetting events.

Additionally, a typical failure mode for a Barry occurs when peeing whilst seated: the pee stream will bounce off the saturated SAP and run across my crotch where it can sometimes escape the nappy’s absorbent area and then almost inevitably, the nappy itself.  Out inside my plastic pants, it’s a matter of time before some makes it all the way out through a plastic pant legging.  When wearing form-fitting underwear, I could still feel my pee stream running back into my crotch but my underpants caught these rivulets and dispersed them to dryer parts before they could escape.

By the end of the day, my Barry felt remarkably like a well-used BetterDry night nappy: the bum having (possibly for the first time in day use) captured a good amount of pee and swollen to cushion-like proportions.  It felt almost voluptuous to sit in.

I appeared to be practically un-leakable.  In fact I did manage one incredibly minor leak but that was on the day I’d peed a remarkable 1.7 litres and I’m still not sure if my jeans had a damp patch or not.  There was however a rivulet of pee inside my plastic pants for that one.

Will I adopt this as an ongoing strategy?

Probably not.  There are downsides.

Firstly, at each change, I now needed to deal with a pee-soaked pair of underpants in addition to a wet disposable nappy.  If my beloved discovers underwear back in my possession, conversations I don’t want will undoubtedly ensue.

Secondly, pee-soaked underpants smell.  Despite what I’d hoped had been assiduous rinsing, a faint but unmistakable ammonia-whiff did on occasion defeat disposable odour control after a couple of shifts.  Laundering underwear is likely to exacerbate problem #1.

Thirdly, (and possibly in consequence to my second point), I don’t think wearing pee-soaked cloth underpants all day every day was doing much for my skin.  My low-level nappy rash continued to persist albeit faintly and in the background.

But, it seems I CAN significantly improve super-nappy performance by wearing close fitting underwear beneath it.

Note to adult nappy manufacturers:  put more thought into your “capture and dispersal” layer in product.  It’s one thing to develop a 7 litre capacity muscle-nappy, it’s quite another to engineer that nappy so that a decent proportion of that 7 litre capacity is available to its wearer.

[dribblez]

Many thanks as ever for your forays into nappiology. As you say, this solution comes with a number of drawbacks, angry spouses, galloping nappy rash and eau de care home just for starters.

Am I right to think the underpants were briefs? I'd imagine that boxers or anything with cloth protruding from your nappy would result in a fairly rapid transfer of pee to the tops of your legs.

Personally I find that some, but not all, booster pads result in more even load distribution.

[wetngooshy]

I've found the Abena Abri-Let booster pad to wick quite well.  Some booster pads balloon up and impede flow even worse (I'm thinking Tykeables and Bambino, which swell quite magnificently if that is your desire).  Others, like North Shore seem to be work decently but probably is more neutral wicking.  I wore an Abri-Let "Normal" yesterday with good results.  They wick pretty well and don't really swell up that much.  I would expect that cloth would be the best at wicking, though.

[DiaperboyEddie12]

@oznl just curious your trying to become i continent though on some occasions you prefer to go without the protection?  Like when you see your doctor or when family comes over?  Why not just be you and wear the diapers?

[Little Sherri]

Your experiment and the encapsulating of it was very interesting, @oznl. In reading it, I had the same thought that you did, just before you documented it: what happens if your beloved finds underwear in the laundry stream? This was one of the reasons that I disposed of mine, back in the day... part of it was not wanting to ever have an "out", ever, unless I was dissatisfied long enough to drive to a store and buy big boy underwear, which hasn't happened yet, but part of it was also so that there would be no fostering of ambiguity or uncertainty within my wife's understanding of whatever the hell she thinks I'm up to. 

One thing I thought of is this, and maybe I'll conduct the experiment myself and report back: what about those bamboo or other material cloth diaper liners, designed to make disposing of solids within reusable diapers somewhat easier? Would those assist in load distribution and wicking?

I haven't done this in a while, but I used to sometimes use a size 6 or 7 kids' diaper inside a crappy low-end store-bought or medical diaper, in order to extend the range while still enjoying the slim and silent advantages of diapers that cost less than a dollar each. I was using that technique in diapers that I was wearing for exercise, where longevity was unimportant, but leaks would be inconvenient. My technique was to take the kid diaper and nick it in a few places along the cover with a sharp blade. It would then absorb its fill, and the rest would leak out through the holes or run back over the rear edge of the diaper, which extends to maybe 2/3rd's of the length of a typical adult product when positioned at the point of maximum involvement. Whenever I did that, I would note that the adult diaper ended up being used almost from stem to stern. I haven't tried it in a decent diaper, though, because I don't need the extra capacity in those. As a side note, Pampers size 7 Crusiers or Swaddlers, rated to 41 lbs +, hold more than Depends designed for adults with 40 inch waists. Go figure. 

[oznl]

8 hours ago, DiaperboyEddie12 said:

@oznl just curious your trying to become i continent though on some occasions you prefer to go without the protection?  Like when you see your doctor or when family comes over?  Why not just be you and wear the diapers?

So far I’ve been diapered for ALL family events.  I thought about trying to skip diapers for the most recent one but realised that this ship has sailed.  I wouldn’t practically have made it through the day without diapers as the bathroom lines were long, my need frequent and my duties many.  For the metaphorical "icing on the cake", I got a bit tipsy after my duties were done and thoroughly peed my nappy in bed asleep at the hotel that night (no leaks).

For Doctors, I haven’t yet “shared” with the medical establishment my situation.  For most routine GP appointments I will be diapered now.  Very occasionally for a Dr appointment I’ll skip the diaper but it’s never for more than 45m or so.  The reason for this is that for the specialist appointment I'm talking about (skin cancer check), there’s no way the diaper could go unnoticed and it would certainly have to be at least partially removed for the exam. 

I realise that on my current trajectory, having this come to the attention of medicos is inevitable but I’d prefer to delay that until there is physiologically “something to see”.  I don’t want ANY question marks over my need for diapers.  Being unable to go nappy-free for the skin check would probably be the trigger.

4 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

Your experiment and the encapsulating of it was very interesting, @oznl. In reading it, I had the same thought that you did, just before you documented it: what happens if your beloved finds underwear in the laundry stream? This was one of the reasons that I disposed of mine, back in the day... part of it was not wanting to ever have an "out", ever, unless I was dissatisfied long enough to drive to a store and buy big boy underwear, which hasn't happened yet, but part of it was also so that there would be no fostering of ambiguity or uncertainty within my wife's understanding of whatever the hell she thinks I'm up to.

For now, I’ll integrate that slightly-rank underwear into the “nappy” laundry stream which I deal with personally.  My beloved will touch nothing of my gear (except I suspect, to throw it out should the opportunity arise).  It was an experiment to confirm that wicking was the problem rather than a permanent enhancement though.  I did enjoy the zero-leak week though.   I honestly thought that underwear had been thrown.  It was stuffed into a duffel back up the very back of a seldom-used wardrobe shelf.

4 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

One thing I thought of is this, and maybe I'll conduct the experiment myself and report back: what about those bamboo or other material cloth diaper liners, designed to make disposing of solids within reusable diapers somewhat easier? Would those assist in load distribution and wicking?

Like these?

https://www.kmart.com.au/product/200-pack-disposable-bamboo-nappy-pant-liners-42953845/

The short answer here would be “because I hadn’t thought of it”!  This really was an opportunistic experiment rather than a well thought-out strategy.

I can't claim original art for this idea.  I seem to remember @ozziebee telling me that she'd boosted disposables with baby terry nappies to good effect although that solution would trigger bulk and laundry issues for me.  I just wanted to see if a cloth layer would potentiate wicking and the answer seems to be "yes it does".

A quick google suggests that disposable bamboo nappy liners whilst not quite a dime a dozen, are close to it.  Their size (which seems to be suspiciously universal across local brands) is sub-optimal at 30cm x 18cm but I suppose it might do something is placed down in the perineum area.

Do you think that bamboo viscose would wick effectively?  I guess for A$10, I could just find out...

 

[Little Sherri]

Exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of. Rearz sells some as well - I wonder if they're more adult sized. Nope, just checked. 15 x 30 cm. I don't think they'd wick much, but maybe they would act as a bit of a distribution system? If I stumble across some at the Walmart, I'll spend the $7.99 and try it out. 

[oznl]

11 hours ago, dribblez said:

Am I right to think the underpants were briefs? I'd imagine that boxers or anything with cloth protruding from your nappy would result in a fairly rapid transfer of pee to the tops of your legs.

Yep.  They were briefs and were selected for exactly the reason you describe.  Anything too capacious would most likely make things worse instead of better.  I'm starting to think the problem they were solving was dispersal rather than wicking.  Although there was some cotton allegedly in them, I suspect their cotton content was limited to having had the polyester truck drive past a cotton plantation on the way to the factory.  Parts of them remained remarkably dry despite having marinated in a wet nappy for nearly 12 hours.

11 hours ago, wetngooshy said:

I've found the Abena Abri-Let booster pad to wick quite well. 

I agree.  These are in my regular arsenal.  I use them to potentiate the performance of the flawed-but-so-comfortable Abena L4.  I didn't want to use a booster pad inside a Barry because it doesn't need boosting.  It just needs to get used properly.  I was experimenting to see if wicking (or more likely dispersal) would mitigate leaking and yea and verily, it did.

[ozziebee]

I'll preface this bit of advice with the fact I'm a girl, and girls pee down into the middle of a diaper, which means it tends to wick both towards the front and back of the diaper a bit more evenly. 

What I've found works well for wicking is terry towelling cloth baby nappies folded lengthwise into a pad, and inserted into the disposable.  On top of that, I place a continuous length of 3 x bamboo nappy liners, from the front of the nappy, to the back - on an XL nappy, the three sheets will lay flat and cover from the front to back easily.  The liner is tucked into the insides of the leg gathers.  I don't think they help very much with wicking, but do help to minimise the mess of a BM against the terry towelling nappy pad.   It is possible to find more "adult-sized" bamboo liners, which are slightly wider, and slightly longer.  

I'm also now adding another folded cloth pad across the inside back of the disposable, from left tapes to right tapes, which is especially useful when lying down on my side, and feeling pee run down my butt crack onto the small of my back, then turn and head towards the no-padded side of the nappy under the influence of gravity.  During the day, and most nights, it doesn't get wet, so I can reuse it.  

Yes, this means you get to wash more cloth nappies, but these are cheap to buy.  I'd love to have some 80cm square cloth nappies made, as these would be ideal for front to back wicking.  

One thing you might check for the leaks is the Barry tends to have edge of the rear wing stuffing a bit too close to the edge of the outer sheets.  So, it'll curl over on itself multiple times and be crushed in the fold between you crotch and leg, as you put the nappy on and exercise during the day.  This may be especially true if one thigh is slightly larger than the other.  

[oznl]

7 minutes ago, ozziebee said:

 This may be especially true if one thigh is slightly larger than the other.  

There's something I'd never thought of!  I'm off to find a tape measure...

[ozziebee]

I've also found that my stretch fix netting pants are also quite good at slurping up any minor leaks.  The Stretch fix pants I'm referring to are currently iD Fix Comfort Super pants, which are a stretchy netting pant I wear directly over the nappy, and is excellent at keeping velcro-like tabs in place, and not letting the nappy feel like it's about to fall off when those tabs sometimes part from their backing.

Over that nappy + fix pant combo I wear plastic pants, and have recently also started wearing Bonds Cottontail stretchy underwear, which keeps the crinkle down, and really compresses the entire ensemble, so nothing moves - divine feeling!

[oznl]

9 minutes ago, ozziebee said:

Over that nappy + fix pant combo I wear plastic pants, and have recently also started wearing Bonds Cottontail stretchy underwear, which keeps the crinkle down, and really compresses the entire ensemble, so nothing moves - divine feeling!

I (mis)use women's "shapewear" pants to the same effect.  The black ones are cheap, keep everything snug in place and look quite "vanilla" over nappies - a bit like large black briefs but with boxer length legs. 

[Stroller]

This all makes sense too me.  In general I've found that adding a soaker spreads the load over the nappy outside it more evenly. And the soaker itself can get completely sodden without causing leaks. It doesn't need to be a particularly thick soaker, as far as I can see - in fact I suspect a very thick soaker would allow leaks by distorting the outside nappy too much. I also suspect that a soaker helps by cradling my leaky bits better than just a disposable, so reducing channels for leaks to the outside world.

I've never tried mixing washables and disposables, as it seems to me I'd be getting the worst of both worlds.  Just now I'm in my overnight terry nappy, with a cloth soaker.  We're going on holiday in the morning for a week, so when I change in half an hour or so it will be into a disposable (probably an Astronaut) with a disposable soaker.

[Little Sherri]

I've ordered some bamboo diaper liners; as previously noted, they all seem to come in more or less the same size. Even Rearz carries them in the baby size only - I couldn't find any that are adult-sized. However, they're quite in expensive on a per-unit basis, so I'm not adverse to employing a couple of them, if they make any difference. I am expecting them in the next day or so, and then I will try them in a Mermaid Tale or Barrie or Megamax and see if they enable the use of a bit more of the padding, without engaging in gymnastics whilst wetting. 

[BabyJilly_S]

13 minutes ago, Little Sherri said:

without engaging in gymnastics whilst wetting. 

Ah yes, the horizontal slouch when at home to try to use the back......

Interested to know the result of the liners  

[justforfun]

Can you give a pointer to the kinds of shapewear that works for you?  Is it high-waisted?  With or without leg/thigh coverage?  onesie-like, over the shoulders?  I'm interested in looking into something like that when I have to wear a disposable for traveling, but a perusal of the amazons doesn't show me something I'd think would work very well...

As for the cloth liner in a disposable... experimentation a few years ago showed that they help wicking or spreading a lot, but in the end I decided that both paying for the disposable and having to do the wash was a double waste, so just went the full cloth route (I just have to use them for sleep wetting.)  The times where I'd be using a disposable would be traveling or such where laundry wasn't viable anyway.  I'm curious how the bamboo diaper liners work...

[oznl]

12 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I've ordered some bamboo diaper liners; as previously noted, they all seem to come in more or less the same size. Even Rearz carries them in the baby size only - I couldn't find any that are adult-sized. However, they're quite in expensive on a per-unit basis, so I'm not adverse to employing a couple of them, if they make any difference. I am expecting them in the next day or so, and then I will try them in a Mermaid Tale or Barrie or Megamax and see if they enable the use of a bit more of the padding, without engaging in gymnastics whilst wetting. 

Looking forward to hearing the outcome on this.  I haven't made it to a K-mart so far this week as I've been busy at work.

3 hours ago, justforfun said:

Can you give a pointer to the kinds of shapewear that works for you?  Is it high-waisted?  With or without leg/thigh coverage?  onesie-like, over the shoulders?  I'm interested in looking into something like that when I have to wear a disposable for traveling, but a perusal of the amazons doesn't show me something I'd think would work very well...

Sure, these over a PUL pant, over a "Barry" work quite well for day use and in the event of unanticipated exposure, they look like underwear. 

https://www.kmart.com.au/product/2-pack-seamfree-shaping-short-s125371/

I get the black ones.  They provide camouflage both visually and topographically.  You can modulate the amount of "squash" you want by modulating the size.  There are longer-leg versions that work quite well over cloth nappies but the shorter "bikini" versions just tend to make your plastic pants ride up and encourage leaks.

 

These are relatively high waisted by design.  They will cover the top of my nappy above the rear of my jeans.

[oznl]

Another soggy week raced by with nearly nothing to report.  Some sleep would be nice.   I am again tormented by insomnia.  Innocent sleep. Sleep that soothes away all our worries. Sleep that puts each day to rest.  Sleep that relieves the weary laborer and heals hurt minds. Sleep, the main course in life's feast, and the most nourishing.   That’s enough Shakespeare.  I’d settle for not having to be awake to pee.  Insomnia eats bedwetting for breakfast though.  There’s been a handful of “possible” bedwetting events but it’s hard to wet in your sleep when you’re awake.

Anyhow, nappyology time.

Looking at the rather-full nappy wardrobe in my study last weekend, I pondered what to do with the 90%-full packet of the miserly “Dailee Slip Maxi” adult nappies I’d gotten for nothing a few months ago (they are worth nothing so getting them for nothing in my book was a fair deal).  If you’d read my earlier review on these, you’d recall that these were particularly dismally-performing medical adult nappies that could bring joy to the heart only of an accountant, a procurement manager, a laundromat owner or a sadist.

They really are useless.  Do you think it’s a coincidence that the imperfect anagram of “Dailee Slip” is “Aplied Lies”?  (Yes, I know, “Aplied” is missing a “P” but the Dailee Slip also works much better with less “P” so there is a kind of cognitive symmetry).

“I know!”  I thought to myself.  “I’ll use them sacrificially in a double-diaper scenario!”

We’ve all seen double-diaper scenarios:  if not fetish porn-stars, the ones where enterprising ABDL attempt to either recover the relative bulk and puffiness of their diaper-clad toddlerhood or, just try to countermeasure egregious leakage issues by wearing one nappy over the top of another.  Whilst definitely option “B” in my particular situation, this plan would simultaneously ensure that my Dailee Slip Maxi would not go to landfill in vane and save me a booster pad.

I remembered that the first thing to do for double-diapering was to perforate the waterproof (and in the case of the Dailee Slip Maxi, I use the term “waterproof” guardedly) backing of the underlying garment so that it could drain freely into the outer nappy.

Apparently it was made of Kevlar (or my misused kitchen knife was made of silly putty).   How can a nappy THAT feeble have a voluminous backing sheet THAT strong?   It REALLY didn’t want to be cut.  How can something be simultaneously so permeable by pee and yet knife resistant?  Instead of the neat slits I’d hoped for, I eventually ended up with a few traumatised, giant lacerations.  It wasn’t neat.  It looked like Jack the Ripper unleashing his inner ABDL. 

In addition to the rips in minimal padding-containment areas, there was so much additional unpadded outer layer that I took to that too: cutting it with a pair of scissors to the point where I was wearing a scarified kind of roofless bikini nappy.  Still-dry gel lurked ominously beneath its open wounds.

Over this I taped an unmolested Abena L4, followed by plastic pants and a compression pant before jeans.  It was a little tough to get those jeans done up.  My gardening jeans are sized for a single-nappy-scenario at best.  Since the ISO rating for the Dailee Slip was (an optimistic-to-the-point-of-delusional) 3000ml and the Abena L4 above it, a slightly more credible 4000ml, logically I concluded that I had transformed this pair into a single, Incredible-Hulk-like, 7000ml super-nappy.

The whole setup was, for disposable nappies, deliciously comfortable although I did somewhat have the cloth-nappy style “teletubby” bum profile.  The extra bulk combined with two sets of tapes meant that it felt thick but also tight with a kind of pleasant “fullness” emanating from my nappy zone.  Suitably clad, I set about my Saturday peeing freely, inviolable in the knowledge that I had not one, but TWO nappies allied to the cause of dry jeans.

It’s a shame that I wet my chair at about 3pm really.

I really wasn’t expecting that.  I’d been working outdoors for a large chunk of the day.  I’ve long since lost insight into how much I’m using my nappy but based on time, it should have been nowhere near leaking and based by feel, it should have been nowhere near leaking.

I’d sat down in my study for a quick break, checking if the internet still worked by dint of using it extensively.  My 5 minute break had probably morphed into half an hour but that’s beside the point.  The point was, when I stood up, I felt the cool, chilly closeness of evaporative cooling as wet denim pressed to my flesh.  An accusing dark stain glowered at me from the sacrificial gym towel that permanently lines my office chair for just such occasions.

Bugger.  I was at least 2 hours away from a credible changing time.

As it happened, I had more yard work to do and that yard work involved pressure washing alone.  I just figured I’d roll with it and if my jeans got wetter, they got wetter.  I wouldn’t be sitting down anyway and thanks to my awesome pressure-washer driving skills, I’d be highly unlikely to finish my chore dry regardless.  I wasn’t even wearing socks for just that reason (I HATE wet socks). 

I could go for gold.

Freed from the burden of leak management, I spent a happy hour or two blasting giant fruit bat poop off outdoor infrastructure (I assume from experience that the local fruit bats drink “Dulux”). 

To be honest, by dint of NOT sitting down, I actually leaked very little further if at all.  I don’t know how often or much I peed because that is all semi-automatic these days but when 5pm rolled around, my jeans were no worse than they were at 3pm.

I repaired to our shower for a double-diaper change.

Pulling down my plastic pants I found their inner crotch to be wet: never a good start for a change.

The front of my outer Abena nappy was a little swollen and yellowish but I’ve seen worse.

Removing the Abena revealed the first surprise.  It was filled with a strange gelatinous substance like some kind of lemon-tinted tapioca. It seems that contents of the Dailee Slip had blown out into the Abena through its wounds.  Satan’s pudding rolled the bathroom floor in small clumps as I pranced about shouting all of the unholy incantations at this misfortune.

The Abena wasn’t really filled with pee though.  It was a bit wet at the front and there were damp patches here and there.

Having recovered most of the lemon-tinted tapioca from the floor tiles, I un-taped the inner nappy (the Dailee) showed that it was indeed drenched: not an uncommon circumstance for this product.

The problem was that overflow from the inner nappy, rather than percolating out nicely to the outer nappy, had, having almost instantly overwhelmed the pathetic padding, largely flowed along the capacious backing sheet to deliver itself only onto the very edges of the Abena product, outside the Abena leak guards.  From there, it was free to escape out through my plastic pant leg elastics in order to go and say “Hi!” to my jeans and office chair.  Only a relatively small amount of pee had been delivered into a usable location on the Abena.

I didn’t weigh the double diaper combo.  I’d liked to have found out but there was just something about appearing in the kitchen (where my beloved was lurking) with a pair of pee-wet nappies in my hand, one of which was haemorrhaging wee-soaked gel onto the floor announcing my intent to borrow the kitchen scales that I thought may not bode well for, say, the rest of my life.

They didn’t seem to weigh a lot though.   I don’t think I’d actually “been” that much.  They were just ineffective.

As strangely comfortable as my double-diaper-day was, it was no great outcome in terms of absorption.  It seems that in this case, the whole is LESSER than the sum of its parts.

I’ve still got another 20 or so Dailee wasting space.  I’m open practical suggestions.  Actually even impractical suggestions will still be considered…

[BabyJilly_S]

14 minutes ago, oznl said:

I’ve still got another 20 or so Dailee wasting space.  I’m open practical suggestions.  Actually even impractical suggestions will still be considered…

The last time I double nappied (and there is something very toddlerish about the bulk of two that is quite nice) i punctured the inner nappy with a bradawl. Lots of small holes seemed to let it soak through without any untoward sap escape....

[oznl]

21 hours ago, BabyJilly_S said:

The last time I double nappied (and there is something very toddlerish about the bulk of two that is quite nice) i punctured the inner nappy with a bradawl. Lots of small holes seemed to let it soak through without any untoward sap escape....

Thanks for the tip!  Not being a chippie, I had to google "bradawl" and I'm thinking the application here is "poke holes with pointy thing" instead of "insanely eviscerate".  I'll have a look in the shed for a sharp pointy thing.

I think a "2.0" attempt is in order...

[BabyJilly_S]

46 minutes ago, oznl said:

Thanks for the tip!  Not being a chippie, I had to google "bradawl" and I'm thinking the application here is "poke holes with pointy thing" instead of "insanely eviscerate".  I'll have a look in the shed for a sharp pointy thing.

I think a "2.0" attempt is in order...

Indeed, maybe a sharp enough nail (or screw) could do the trick? A bradawl is usually pretty sharp so punctures easily enough and leaves about a 1-2mm hole. 

[Little Sherri]

I was going to say more or less the same thing that @BabyJilly_Ssaid, but without use of the delicious term "bradawl", which I shall now commence trying to throw into regular use. When I sued toddler diapers to extend the capabilities of cheap medical diapers, for wearing to the gym, where slimness is prized over longevity, I used a razor sharp craft knife to make small slits in the cover of the inner diaper. These rarely emitted polymer tapioca, usually only allowing the wetness to trickle through, and they seemed to encourage the uniform dispersion of said wetness. But I've never tried that experiment on a macro scale, with a crappy medical diaper inside a decent ABDL product, because I'm usually not looking for that much range out of a good diaper, and if I am, then I resort to using a great diaper, like a Mermaid Tale or Barry. 

I haven't tried out the experiment with the bamboo liners yet, because my mother-in-law stayed with us for most of last week. However, I've accidentally soaked the front waistband of my shorts because the upper front of my nappy folded over somehow and wicked into them, so maybe when I go change, I'll try a liner out in whatever I put on next. 

[Little Sherri]

Hi, @oznl - I'm in the midst of the bamboo diaper liner experiment. I don't have any empirical results to share; I haven't weighed any diapers, because my wife is making dinner and such activity would be unappreciated in the kitchen. 

I'm in a Princess Pink, because it's a high-capacity diaper, and I'm trying to burn through them as they're part of my random box of odds and ends that I want to eliminate from my inventory, rather than a diaper I've standardized on. In my experience, these are directly comparable to the Rearz Barnyards and Safari diapers (although the Barnyards have hook-and-loop tabs), they are of a higher capacity than the Lil' series (Monsters/Squirts/Bellas), and they are a bit below the acknowledged champions of the Rearz pantheon, the Barry, aka InControl Elite Hybrid, the Mermaid Tale, and by alleged capacity, if not by experience, the Critter Caboose. I would rate a Princess Pink as being very similar in capacity to a Megamax of the same size. 

I installed two infant-sized bamboo diaper liners in the front and center of the diaper, folded as necessary, with the front overlapping the rear. I put the diaper on, and rolled with my afternoon. I immediately drank a Diet Coke, for the mild diuretic effect of the caffeine, and then I started drinking more water than I usually do, to accelerate the testing schedule somewhat. I've been in it for about 4 hours now, and so far, I have to say that the early results are notable: the diaper does seem to be wetter out back than they usually get at this point in their use. My experience with the Princess Pinks and their ilk is that they tend to do what many high-polymer content diapers do, and trap liquid very quickly, so that it doesn't get a chance to run off anywhere and potentially reach the outside world. That works great early on in the wearing timeline, but, anatomy and normal seating and standing postures dictate that liquid only tends to land within a small amount of real estate in most people's diapers, gymnasts aside. So, you tend to eventually find yourself sitting in a diaper with a notably swollen front (in the case of those with outdoor plumbing) or center (for those with indoor plumbing), and after a while, new liquid can no longer be accommodated by the saturated polymer, so, it tends to do weird things, like run over your hips, or squeeze out, sometimes necessitating a diaper change, if you want to carry on having a dry posterior day. 

But, meanwhile, all that glorious stuffing and polymer that you paid for, out behind and above the apex of your tush, can remain largely bone dry, with minimal wicking, and limited runoff possibilities. Assuming absurd positions can allow you to use more of that padding, but, if the goal is to have a natural diaper wearing experience, dribbling freely, or, if you have no control, then most of us can't spend our days splayed out on the floor, waiting for things to equalize. Yoga instructors excepted. 

The theory behind using a diaper liner is that perhaps it will direct, or wick, some of the fluid further afield, and use more of the diaper's capacity effectively. And, indeed, so far, that is what I'm experiencing. My diaper feels wetter, further back, and it has not leaked. In support of the wicking hypothesis, the liner itself feels damp against my skin, more akin to being in a cloth diaper than a modern disposable. Take that as you will - if you like feeling wet, bamboo liners will apparently oblige that. If you don't, then, you won't like this. 

I'll have to do a couple of back-to-back tests with weigh-ins to see if this actually makes any difference in terms of usable capacity, but, by feel, the back of my diaper is definitely more involved than it usually is at this point in its lifecycle. 

Possible confounds of using liners include the fact that they do not have any mechanism to keep them in place, so, they're free to migrate as you move about, and, the possibility that a corner or edge of liner, were it to make its way outside of the elastics, might direct or wick liquid there, although that hasn't happened to me yet. But I've been seated at my desk all day, and the liner seems to have stayed more or less where I put it. I don't know if that would apply, were I to go hiking. Further testing is required. 

[BabyJilly_S]

I await the results of the liner test with much interest, as they are cheap enough probably worth giving it a go myself