24/7 startups, and unexpected pitfalls?

[Little Sherri]

On 7/22/2022 at 8:12 PM, oznl said:

That's pretty good going for an Omutsu in my experience.  I don't think I'd get 12 hours out of one.

A good portion of that was spent sleeping and generally not wetting, that one incident aside. So I'd say it saw 4-5 hours of full service after 8 hours or so of reduced demand. 

I was (granted, absurdly) proud of myself, though, for deciding to leave the house in that cloth diaper and plastic pants getup, because, as I've expressed before, I'm more self-conscious dressed like that than I am wearing a big plastic nappy. So even thought I experienced the press-out leak, I'd call it a success - I was out in the car for maybe 2 hours in a big puffy cloth diaper under arguably enormous printed plastic pants, and then a sober black onesie, all under bulky cargo shorts and a golf shirt. It's the first time in a long time that I thought much about my diaper, moment to moment. 

Speaking of thinking about my diaper, I attended the beer festival yesterday, an all-day marathon (which some unfortunates always treat as a sprint) of drinking craft beer in a field, with 400+ breweries participating. The event itself was great, a lot of beer was consumed, and also, thousands of calories worth of food truck faire. 

I decided to wear a Rearz Mermaid Tale, based on greater concerns about a possible diaper failure mode than I had about giving emergency medical technicians a chuckle, if I went down for some reason. No emergency services became involved, and the diaper performed very well, although by the train ride back, I was becoming conscious of my gate, which had taken on a bit of a cowboy stance. My diaper had swelled up enormously, and because of the oppressive heat and humidity, it was hard to know for sure how wet it was, where that wetness was localized, and if any was escaping. At one point I feigned using the washroom in order to conduct an inspection, and the elastics of my onesie were uniformly slightly moist to the touch, both around my legs, and around my neck, so, I believe that my diaper did not leak. But man did it get big. 

The organizers sent out a reminder of the rules the night before, which included a highlighted section about bags being confined to purses or small drawstring pouches, and those were thoroughly searched on the way in, so there was no way I would have gotten in there with a second diaper on my person, and not had it at least probed, and possibly extracted from my bag. I suppose I could have looked into going through some accessible gate - I did see a couple of people in wheelchairs or scooters in there - but my friends would have had questions, needless to say. So I decided that if my diaper showed signs of throwing in the towel, I would just start running off to one of the festering portable toilets every 45 minutes or so, and use the potty like I sometimes had to do in Europe, where I was confined wearing to wearing unremarkable supermarket diapers. However, I did not have to do that. But I did have to ride a train home while walking like the toddler not wearing Pampers, in the Pampers Cruisers "no more cowboy walk" commercial. 

When I walked into the house and stripped off my clothes and onesie, my wife gave me a slightly judgmental glance that suggested my idea to sit down on the bed momentarily while I peeled my socks off was a bad one, and that I definitely should not entertain any ideas about lying back and drifting away in that puffy aquarium I was wearing. I needed a shower anyway - I was covered in sunblock and sweat. 

[ppdude]

5 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

The organizers sent out a reminder of the rules the night before, which included a highlighted section about bags being confined to purses or small drawstring pouches, and those were thoroughly searched on the way in, so there was no way I would have gotten in there with a second diaper on my person, and not had it at least probed, and possibly extracted from my bag. I suppose I could have looked into going through some accessible gate - I did see a couple of people in wheelchairs or scooters in there...

 

What to do if you have no choice in the matter and you generally don't advertise your diaper usage? I guess that's the $64 question. Do you swallow your pride and let the cat out of the bag? Are you your own worst enemy?

 

 

 

 

[Little Sherri]

14 hours ago, ppdude said:

Do you swallow your pride and let the cat out of the bag?

I suppose I envision doing this at some point, but I kind of figured I'd wait a bit. I'm still in my 40's, so openly wearing diapers all the time would probably raise some eyebrows, at least in my mind, whereas when I'm 60, perhaps it will appear more par for the course. Although truthfully, not a lot of people in their 60's that I know openly wear diapers. But then again I don't spend a lot of time with people in that age group; my parents are older than that and my friends are younger. 

Maybe these distinctions are all in my mind, though - I'd love to hear from any of you that are open with the world, regarding your plastic underpants, as to how that went down, and if you have any lessons to share. Does it really matter how old you were, for example? I'd probably regret spending the next 20 years sweating about keeping my "big secret" from my friends, only to find out that nobody cares or would have cared, although the inverse of that is perhaps more tragic... keeping it a secret until one day I don't, and then finding out that I'm not invited to barbecues anymore... "Poor chap, he's a mess, not aging well at all..." 

On the topic of keeping one's "big secret", I have a bit of a confession to make. I've rhapsodized here and on other people's strings on many occasions about how much I appreciate those of you who share unvarnished accounts of what it's like to navigate life from inside toddler's underpants. ABDL fantasy stories are all well and good, and they have their place. "My wife found my stash of diapers while I was golfing. I got home and emerged from the shower, only to find that my underwear was missing from my drawer, having been replaced with a broad assortment of ABU products. She said 'If you're going to act like a baby, I'm going to treat you like one', and then she pulled out a bonnet and a pacifier..."  That kind of thing. But what really interests me is more along the lines of "My diaper leaked at work and I had to sneak off at lunchtime and change myself in my car" or "My partner isn't speaking to me again, because I left cloth diapers in the dryer." 

Most of what I've written here has fallen into the latter category; there definitely aren't too many ABDL fantasy moments occurring under my roof. So, I believe I've shared a pretty realistic picture of what "this life" looks like from the inside, for those of you considering walking down some branch of this strange and complicated pathway. It's not all roses but it has its rewards, otherwise, I guess I wouldn't still be sitting here in a Rearz Barnyard, 3+ years after I started this. I've been pretty open about most of the pitfalls, "oh no" moments, and the spousal and internal conflicts that I've faced, but I left one recent occurrence off the table, something that I've talked through with only a couple of you, privately. Which makes me feel like I'm being disingenuous in lauding other people's brutal honesty, while not entirely practicing it myself. 

What I've left off the table, dear reader, is this: this cat IS out of the bag, at least at home.

I got the first inkling that this might be the case several weeks ago, when my wife reported on a conversation she'd had with my younger daughter (early teens) regarding her diminishing requirement for wearing pull-ups at night. She comes by it honestly; I was a champion bedwetter in my youth. However the management of that is almost entirely under my wife's purview; I don't get consulted on wardrobe considerations for either of my daughters, beyond "How does this look?", so why would I get consulted on sleepwear? Anyway, youngest is often successful sleeping without protection these days, and when she most does NOT want to wear them is when she probably would be best off TO wear them, of course... sleepovers at other people's houses, renting a cottage with friends, that kind of thing. So, my wife was talking to her about what the protocols should be for such an occasion, when, according to her, my daughter said something along the lines of "Well, I know I'm not the only one who wears them." 

How she found out is unknown, and really, beside the point. I thought I was being stealthy, wearing oversized shorts and onesies, but, the reality is that even if she never detected anything unusual about my silhouette, I have boxes of diapers in the basement, granted, in anonymous totes, but they're not behind lock and key, either. And I have a drawer full of diapers in my bedroom. Diapers also appear in the garbage, although I have a dedicated can for that in a place my kids have no call to visit - my walk-in closet. And I'm the one who collects the garbage 99% of the time. But the point is, when someone in the house wears diapers, there are going to be diapers around. Everyday is a cast of the dice as to if someone is going to notice something. 

Having now been appraised of the new reality, I decided it would be best for me to tackle it head on, because a kid her age with that kind of information in her hands could wreak havoc - I'm close friends with the parents of most of her close friends. I took a deep breath and basically said, "Hey, so this is private information, and just like I wouldn't ask you in front of your friends if you need more pull-ups, I would appreciate if you'd keep this close to your chest." I believe she thinks that the "why" behind it relates to her own experience... accidents happen, and apparently we're genetically prone to them. She agreed to keep things private, but I knew that the odds of her keeping this from her older sister were slim, in the long term, even if she hadn't already figured it out herself. 

Confirmation of that came a few weeks later, when I was snoozing on my side of the bed, at roughly 11 PM, door closed, while my wife watched TV and knitted. At that time of night, my youngest would be in bed, and my eldest, nearly an adult herself, would typically be on "her side" of the upper floor of our house, seen on our side about as frequently as Aurora Borealis. At some point, my wife went downstairs to get a drink, and apparently left our bedroom door open. I got woken up by my elder daughter sitting on my side of our bed, rousing me because she wanted help editing an essay she'd written for school.

I sat up, momentarily a bit disoriented. My wife was walking into the room with a glass of ginger ale in her hand. Elder daughter was perched on the edge of the bed, holding her laptop. I was lying on top of the covers, wearing just a t-shirt and a diaper. My wife sat down and went back to her knitting and watching her show. My daughter started reading her introductory paragraph to me. I wondered for a moment if I was having one of those dreams where it's the first day of school and you've forgotten your pants. Bewildered, I got up, pulled some shorts from a laundry basket, put them on, then sat down and helped her edit her paper. She thanked me and walked out of the room. I looked over at my wife, but she was knitting and watching TV and acting like nothing of any note had taken place. 

I guess I would have expected, in that unlikely situation, that she'd have, first of all, closed the door when she left the room, because then my daughter would have knocked before entering, or, second, that, upon returning, she'd have at least said "Give your father a second to get dressed." But, apparently not. Which lead me to believe that my carefully guarded secret was no secret. I was sitting there in a big plastic diaper, and they were acting like it was any given Tuesday. Which I guess it was. 

My first instinct was to blast my wife verbally, once my daughter left, but... to what end? I had literally made the bed I was laying in. Her very reasonable response would probably have been "Well, that's what you chose to wear, idiot." Although our long-established boudoir privacy protocols had clearly been ignored. 

Any question I had about whether "dad wears diapers" was the "new normal" in our house was further dispelled last night. It was, again, around 10 PM. I had just taken a shower and put on a new diaper (this Rearz Barnyard) and one of my sleeping t-shirts, and I'd sat myself on the bed, and was reading emails via my tablet. My wife got up, and asked me if I wanted a drink from downstairs. I said sure. She pulled the door closed behind her as she left, ergo, I was safe, I assumed, in that state of undress, which is my preferred hot weather sleeping getup. If someone came to the door, they'd knock, giving me a chance to cover up. 

A few minutes later, the door swings open, and it's my wife, I assume correctly. Except that now, she's being  accompanied by younger daughter. Wife is carrying a bowl of chips and one drink, and younger daughter is carrying two more drinks. They file into the room, and start talking about a day camp that my daughter is in this week. My wife resumes her position on her side of the bed. My daughter sits down on the end of the bed, and asks if she can borrow my tablet to look up the camp. I hand her the tablet, get up, retrieve shorts again, pull them on, and resume sitting on the bed. Nobody, other than me, even blinks. 

I guess I have to either always wear shorts now (and maybe this was my wife's endgame all along?), or, I have to lock our bedroom door every time my wife goes downstairs for something, and then quiz her, on returning, as to if she's alone. Or, I have to accept that, apparently, my being in a diaper is as remarkable as the dog being naked. I'm still processing this new "normalization" of abnormality. 

There are families of nudists all over the world; there is a nudist family resort about 100 kilometers north of here. SO, presumably, kids can eventually adapt to almost any level of visual trauma (though I think I would have put my eyes out with a fork if my parents had been nudists...) And, indeed, my kids seem entirely unperturbed by the sight of me in a diaper and a shirt, a combination which displays considerably less skin than a typical bathing suit. However, from my position, it feels like an uncomfortable level of exposure. I'm definitely not looking to increase the frequency of such occurrences. So at some point I'm going to have to get into this with my wife... I can't un-ring this bell, so I have to accept that they know, and I guess, eventually, it was probably something that I'd have had to deal with sooner or later, if I want to spend the rest of my life wearing diapers. I was just hoping that it would be later... again, I go back to believing that, were I 60, this would have been easier, somehow. 

My wife is comfortable walking around our bedroom in her underwear, and has never really worried about who was coming and going, although when everyone in the house is female, except the dog and I, that's kind of par for the course, I guess. I need to express to her delicately that I, too, want to be comfortable walking around our room in my underwear... and that it would therefore be nice if I could get some advanced warning when she was planning on bringing visitors into the room, and, if she would please, PLEASE, just always close the Goddamn door when she leaves. 

Maybe I should put a beverage fridge in our bedroom. This only seems to happen when she wants ginger ale. 

[WBxx]

From here I’d say well done by all, especially your wife.  Got to believe daughters calm acceptance came from their observing/sensing her reaction.  You’ve got a good woman.

[BabyJilly_S]

1 hour ago, WBxx said:

From here I’d say well done by all, especially your wife.  Got to believe daughters calm acceptance came from their observing/sensing her reaction.  You’ve got a good woman.

Got to second this, you have a great family  

[FretaBWet]

@Little Sherri I think your daughters have probably known for some time that you're wearing diapers at least part time. I also think it's very easy to attribute their silence on this fact as lack of knowledge even though that may be completely inaccurate. I'd like to give you an analogy to illustrate the point. I'm transgender and not entirely passable. I could count on my fingers with some left over the number of times I've had someone ask me if I'm transgender. I'd be foolish if I thought I was entirely passable based on the fact no one questions me. It's not that they don't wonder, it's that asking the question is very socially awkward and carries the risk that they are wrong and I'll be completely offended. Think about how awkward just asking the question would be for your daughters. Hey daddy, are you wearing diapers? If I were them and I was worried I'd ask mom if dad was having any health issues. That would carry far less risk.

I think you can be certain that once one daughter figured it out she discussed it with her sister. She probably wouldn't discuss it with a friend because that carries the risk of the information travelling further then she would be comfortable with. Like it or not, as her dad you reflect on her and vice versa. She would want to discuss it with someone and the logical safe choice would be with someone with as much to lose as her if they blab to the wrong person. She would only have two people to choose from.

I can sympathize with the position you're in because when my wife outed me to my children and the entire family as being a cross dresser and an adult baby I seriously considered suicide. I'm the poster child for why suicide should never be considered as an option. My children all love me dearly. Your daughters are accepting this so easily because they LOVE you. I think a common mistake in our small community is to confuse our fetish for diapers with our need for them either medically or emotionally. You may be freaking out because you think your wanting to be in diapers has been outed when really only your wearing diapers has ben found out. When your daughter figured it out her first thought wouldn't be OMG my dad's an adult baby, it would be I hope my dad is okay. I hope it's nothing serious. They love you and want you to be okay.

You're probably looking at this situation as a negative but I think that would be a mistake. Before they knew about your diapers you had a secret you were trying to protect and the consequences of failure were probably horrible in your mind. Often the reality is not nearly as catastrophic as what's in our own heads. Now you can relax and not worry about a carton of diapers being delivered in a damaged carton with the contents visible. You also now have proof that they love you regardless of the underwear you are wearing. I would also point out that they are treating it like it's perfectly normal because they love you and they don't want to traumatize you because you have to wear diapers. The cat in the bag is nothing but a recipe for constant worry and anxiety. The cat out of the bag is just a cat. Or just a cool cat that wears diapers.

If you feel the need to discuss this with them the best course would be to open it with you know they may be worried about your health and you want to ease their worries and let them know it's nothing life threatening or life shortening. This would allow a nice Segue into how you have been trying hard to be discreet because you wanted them not to worry and you would appreciate them keeping this to themselves. You could even segue into how you felt embarrassed by them walking in when your diapers were in the open because of the designs and let them know they work better than nursing home diapers. I'm sorry this is so long but this is such a serious topic. Feel free to DM me anytime if the need arises.

Hugs,

Freta

[Little Sherri]

Thank you for your very thoughtful and thought-provoking response, @FretaBWet. To your point about their general assumption that "this" is physiology-related, rather than driven by psychology, I have recent evidence of that.

It would be asking a lot for anyone here to recall my previous references to this episode from amidst the 1300 or so entries on this string, so I will briefly recap it: a long long time ago, in the days before I was 24/7, one of the things I was trying to figure out was if I could wear diapers while running, and if so, what kind would work. So one fateful day when I had the house to myself, I decided to go for a run (on my treadmill) in an XL Goodnites pullup (I was a smaller person then, because I was running...). At the time, I was undertaking longish runs, so I think I ran somewhere between 5 and 8 miles. The pull-up survived but some of my skin did not, leaving me raw and irritated in that vicinity. Long story shortened, an ingrown hair got angry, and precipitated a very painful lump that turned out to be an abscess, which needed to be drained, a horrendous procedure that had me nearly leaping from the table. I found out later that it didn't need to hurt that much - I was transferred between hospitals and the people receiving me thought that the people sending me had given me pain medication. Anyway, that procedure took place in a very sensitive area, and my kids, while they didn't know exactly what was up, knew that I had a boo boo down there.

So, fast-forward to the current situation, and, having had ample demonstration that everyone "knows" at least something about "this", I decided to take the bull by the horns, and open a conversation about it with my younger daughter. I was driving her to the orthodontist, and I said something along the lines of "Sorry that when you came in the other night with mommy, I was dressed like that - I didn't realize that she was going to bring you in with her, or I would have thrown some shorts on." She said "Don't worry about it, no big deal." So I went at it again, and said, "Well, I didn't want to freak you out, seeing me dressed like that." She said "It didn't freak me out, I've known you wear diapers for a long time." 

That left me wondering if she wondered anything about the why of this unconventional wardrobe choice, so I asked her if she had any questions or needed to know anything, or if maybe her mom had already explained it to her in some fashion. To which she said that my older daughter had said it was "probably because of the surgery you had a few years ago down there."  

So there you have it. They've come up with a medical explanation for it. Now, one could argue about the ethics of allowing this deceptive explanation to persist, but to that, I would counter with the concept of the "white lie for the greater good". Is it better for them to think that I once had a medical issue, now dealt with, that has left me with a manageable side-effect, or, is it better for me to say "Gather 'round the campfire, kids, and let's learn a new acronym: ABDL." I think the former is the lesser of the the two available evils. 

On another topic, just when you're pretty sure someone isn't paying attention, you get evidence that they are. To wit, I changed into a Rearz Mermaid Tale yesterday, basically because I felt like it. I had reacquainted myself with wading in them at the beer festival. So, fast-forward to later in the evening, and I was now pretty sure that everyone in the house was down for the night. Youngest daughter had to get up early to day so she went to bed at 9. Eldest daughter had come and said goodnight a while prior, and there was no noise from down the hall. Finally, I could toss my shorts and lie in bed in my diaper for a bit before lights-out, with the blankets over my legs so that I was milliseconds from cover if I needed it. Then, at one point, I got up and went into our bathroom to brush my teeth, and as I walked past my wife, who, it should be noted, had never raised her head from her knitting, she said: "Mermaid Pampers - are those becoming your favourites?" I looked over at her but she was still steadfastly focused on some stitch she was fussing with. My cheeks reddened and I mumbled "They're comfy" and went and brushed my teeth. 

[FretaBWet]

I'm so glad it worked out for you. I think leaving them with their story about your surgery down there is the best course of action. I would bet if any friend of theirs noticed your underwear and said something about it they would defend you vigorously.

Hugs,

Freta

[BabyJilly_S]

Yup, I like the white lie, seems best to me. And now you don't have to worry so much or tread on eggshells in the house.... 

[Vulpix77]

It's a small lie that isn't going to hurt anybody. At least now you have a prepared excuse in case anyone else finds out!

[Little Sherri]

 I have a Mermaid Tale of woe. I’m still in it, and it’s not the products fault, however. But with great absorbency comes great responsibility. Although I guess a lot of wear diapers like this to feel littler, and I definitely felt that way… 

So, my wife was taking a nap when I was done work, and I had an hour to kill before going to run an errand. She asked what I was doing, I said I didn’t know, so she pointed out that I’d gotten up early this morning to drive my daughter to catch a train, so why didn’t I lie down for a few minutes? Grand idea. Off came the shorts, and I settled into bed beside her, and on top of her top blanket, which she has on retainer because her temperature  fluctuates wildly at night and she likes to toss it off, and then pull it on, and repeat. Her stark white top blanket.

So I laid down on my tummy and tried to snooze for half an hour, but the dog got restless because we almost never go to bed at 5:30 PM, so eventually, we got up. That’s when I noticed what I’d done. My t-shirt had gotten tucked into the front of my diaper somehow, and had wicked a yellow spot the size of a dessert plate onto her blanket. I saw it instantly, but she didn’t. So now I’m waiting for an opportunity to spot-clean her blanket. And feeling very little, because this kind of thing used to happen to me when I was 7 and squeezed into Pampers sized for toddlers. I’d leak over the top at the front and leave a half-moon on my sheets and then try to clean it with Windex. 

[Little Sherri]

It's been a busy week this week, lots of people over and work projects. I don't have much to report, other than my continuous slight sense of wonder that I wear diapers full-time. I still wake up most mornings and immediately do a "systems check" - I roll over and try to gauge the state of my diaper, and I'll run a quick hand around my waist and over the sheets in the diaper region, just to make sure that there wasn't any loss of containment. I'm lucky in that there rarely is (the episode listed above aside). Then, I lie there and marvel for a few moments that I spent the previous day in diapers, and that I'm going to spend the new day, again, entirely in diapers. Then I think about what I have to do, and which diaper would be the best fit, and how long I think I can ride out my overnight diaper. 

These days, my pacifier is pretty much invariably still in my mouth when I wake up. The Rearz size 6 soothers are a good fit for me, remaining comfortable all night, and staying in place. I use a tether on them because of one alarming episode at the outset of my paci "career" where I lost one in the guest bedroom of a buddy's house, and had to fret for a week before getting a chance to search for it again (and consequently finding it). But I don't really need a tether anymore. 

I'm still a little "bashful" about my pacifier use in front of my wife, similar to my cloth diaper shyness. In the evenings, I don't put it in my mouth until we turn the lights off, although now I'll clip it to my shirt before that. If my wife stays up to finish watching a show, I'll pull the blankets up over the lower part of my face, even though I know that they'll quickly get pulled away once I'm asleep. My wife has trouble falling asleep from time to time so it's not uncommon for me to wake up a couple of hours later, and she's still knitting and watching a show, by which point I've kicked the blankets all over the place, and I might be lying there in just my diaper, pacifier in place.

In the morning, I typically get up and head over to the bathroom before taking it out, rinsing it under hot water, and leaving it in a tray in my drawer to dry. I rinse it in mouthwash in the evenings before putting it in, and I swap it once a week for a fresh one. Once I have a bunch of used ones, I take them apart and soak them all in mouthwash, and scrub the parts with a toothbrush before rinsing them, letting them dry, and then putting them back together. Once the kids move out, I plan to leave it on my bedside table.

I've explained this before, but for the uninitiated: whereas I'm sure my wife would be fine with me giving up diapers (assuming the sheets stay dry), I think that if I decided not to use pacifiers anymore, she'd file for divorce, because they mitigate a tooth clicking sound I make when I'm falling asleep that drives her nuts. I have an actual dental mouth guard, and I use it religiously, but though it protects my teeth, she reports that it made the sound worse. I started playing around with pacifiers around when I started sleeping in diapers, which was maybe a year before going 24/7, and I discovered quite accidentally that they helped, because, of course, I can't hear the noises I make when I'm unconscious. However, she used to elbow me awake at least a few times a week, which drove me nuts, because I'm always very good at falling asleep initially, but if I get woken up, sometimes it takes me a couple of hours to perform that feat again. 

It took me a few weeks to get used to having a pacifier, to the point that I didn't spit it out, and once I was there, I realized I was sleeping WAY better. Not because I was "pacified", but because my wife was. SO, why I'm still shy about it is a mystery to me. I'd enjoy having it in my mouth while we watch TV. Maybe it would curtail snacking. I often have one on my desk when I work, and to me, it's like chewing gum, a harmless and calorie-free little indulgence here and there.  

Perhaps I should push myself to just get over it, and some night, sit and watch TV with her in a cloth diaper, with my pacifier in. Or maybe that will cause me to start writing these updates from my car, which I will be living in. 

[Little Sherri]

A couple of quick notes from the weekend, which was a long weekend here in Canada - we got the Monday off. First of all, I went golfing on Saturday. My buddy came out of one of the portable toilets that they have every few holes, and he was laughing about a sign that was on the door, so I went over to have a look. It said "No adult briefs, pull-ups or diapers, please deposit in garbage receptacles." He commented that the sign must be an indicator of the demographic that golfs there - it's in a wealthy, older area that is populated by wealthy, older people. 

I saw the problem right away... the garbage cans are over by the t-boxes, and there is no garbage can inside the toilet. I wasn't in need of a diaper change in that moment, as we were only playing 9 holes and I had a NorthShore AirSupreme on, but were someone to find themselves in that situation, it would play out more or less like this: I guess you dig your new diaper out of your golf bag, or maybe you've got a "go" bag in the cart with you, and you carry it over to the washroom, already possibly self-conscious about taking the bag in with you. Then, in the sweltering confines of the plastic crap box, you swap your diaper, and bundle up the dead soldier. If you brought a go-bag, you jam it in there, stroll back to the cart, and, while everyone is watching Bert test out his new driver, you drop it with a thud into the trash can, which, by the way, is a mesh basket with no cover. Unless Bert has been taking his time all morning, and the foursome behind you is parked next to the trash can, and they witness you drop an object the weight of a dead badger into the trash. If you don't have a go-bag with you, in addition to your golf bag, then hopefully you at least have a shopping bag at hand, something to take your new diaper over in, and your old diaper out, without having to visibly carry a diaper on a walk of shame. 

So, yeah, people throw diapers into the toilet, which I'm sure vexes the poor saps who have to drain them with a vacuum truck, when they have to employ a net to fish a sodden 8-lb object out of a germaphobe's 7th circle of hell, so that it doesn't clog the truck's intake tube. The solution is to put trash receptacles inside the washrooms themselves.  

In other news, I discovered a new potential privacy failure mode, and it relates to an item typically worn to enhance privacy, or at least, discretion. I was out for drinks at a buddy's place, wearing a new shirt, and my buddy's wife liked the print on it, and asked me where it was from. I said I had no idea - my wife had bought it for me. We were sitting on camping chairs around a fire, so when she got up to go refill her wine glass, she walked around behind me and pulled the tag out from inside my collar at the back to look at it. I initially thought nothing of it, but then, the following thought occurred to me: under that new shirt, I was wearing a Rearz onesie, the ones that just look like black t-shirts up top. I knew that it also had a tag right at the back of the collar, a tag that said "Rearz" and then "Size L", because I frequently look at the tag when I'm pulling a onesie from my drawer. The large size works well over anything up to a medium-duty diaper, but I prefer the XL if I'm putting on big diaper, because the outboard snaps on the L-size ones tend to get pulled apart over time if the diaper gets bulky. 

I waited for a couple of minutes or so after she was done, and had walked away, to feel around back there, while tucking the tags back in. Indeed, I found the tag from my onesie was protruding, although clearly, she wasn't after information on who had designed my amazing anonymous black t-shirt. But, had she read it? And if so, what did she make of it? Odds are, she has no idea what Rearz is, and odds are, she wouldn't care to look it up, because she's not searching for a source of black cotton t-shirts, which are cheap and plentiful in these parts. But "Rearz" is kind of a weird name... what if she decides to google it at some point? Right now, their landing page features pictures of people wearing what look like giant printed toddler diapers. And a mermaid-themed pacifier. What would she make of that...?

[Vulpix77]

Could have been worse. I bought a onesie from baby pants a looooong time ago and it has a literal baby on the tag ?

[Little Sherri]

I have a couple of Rearz masks that I got for free packaged with an order, @Vulpix77, I think it was for a promotion they ran, and I have been temped to wear them out and about. The Rearz branding is very small. I also wanted to get a couple of their golf shirt onesies, and they had a fantastic deal on some leftover ones in light blue that actually had a Rearz logo on the upper left chest (the other colours did not have the logo, and they weren't on sale). I was debating whether or not I could abide by that amount of potential "publicity" to save 50% on a shirt, but then they didn't have my size left so I never had to worry about it. I think I'd wear something branded like that if I were not in the company of people I know, but wearing it around friends would be too risky - all it would take is a Google search, and I might find myself struggling to answer questions. "Really... ABDL store, you say? I just stumbled upon a great deal on a golf shirt, I had no idea it had a snap crotch until I got it home... but yes, I still elected to wear it."

I've seen a few sites that sell customized printed t-shirts on the web, and I've always wanted a t-shirt with a Pampers logo on it, because I grew up in them (Pampers, not Pampers-branded t-shirts...), but, I wouldn't really be able to wear it anywhere other than in my bedroom. 

On the topic of privacy, my in-laws are staying over at the house this week, which has caused me to have to remind my family not to just throw doors open, leave them open, or walk in and out of bedrooms without knocking. Since the walls came down, so to speak, regarding everyone I live with knowing I wear diapers, my wife has become very cavalier about leaving our bedroom door open if I'm on the bed in a diaper, or, worse, if I'm in the bathroom, expecting to emerge into a private environment, and instead I find that my room has turned into a public square. This nearly came to a head last night, when I my wife opened our bedroom door, and tried to coax our dog to follow her downstairs. Our dog, for reasons known only to him, is afraid of my father-in-law. Maybe he can sense evil. So, he thinks that my father-in-law is lurking around every corner, waiting to pounce, and behaves accordingly. Therefore, my wife was trying to get him to go downstairs and eat. However, I came walking out of the bathroom into the middle of this scene, in just a diaper... and the bedroom door was wide open, providing a line of site down the hallway towards our guest bedroom. I said something like "Honey, close the door for a second, your parents are right down there...", and she said "No, they've gone to bed, don't worry about it." But, I was worried about it, and my Spidey Sense was tingling, so I reached back into the bathroom for a towel to put around myself, and about four seconds later, my mother-in-law stuck her head out of their room to see why my wife was engaged in protracted negotiations with the dog. I would have been standing there in just a Rearz Lil' Splash. 

What's interesting is, they're all pretty relaxed about walking around on the upper floor of our house in various states of undress, IE in sleepwear or underwear. But, being the only male in the household (other than the dog), I always close bedroom or bathroom doors, and I don't tend to wander the halls in my boxers, even though my underclothes are inarguably the least revealing. Once I switched over to wearing diapers, I took security to another level, treating my plastic underwear like a state secret for a long time, and generally, my wife did her part, reminding the kids to knock before entering, or closing the bedroom door if I was asleep or in the bathroom, or she'd even throw a pair of shorts into the bathroom for me if the situation in my bedroom evolved such that I might have gone in expecting privacy, but now three people are having a conference on my bed. 

However, it's like my diapers don't count as underwear, apparently. I've been brushing my teeth in the washroom, wearing a diaper and a t-shirt, for example, and my wife throws the door open (she can hear my electric toothbrush so she knows I'm not on the throne or in the shower), and then leads my daughter in to select a bandage of a particular size or shape from our kit. Or one of the kids will just open our bedroom door, in search of some item from the laundry. We have a very old house with essentially antique doors that have original hardware on them, so I've been loath to screw something made in 2022 from Home Depot to them, but I feel like I may need to add a couple of door locks. Meanwhile, never in a million years would I throw open one of their bedroom or bathroom doors without knocking. 

What I'm describing follows a theme, though, that I've noted informally for a long time - the idea that diapers aren't the same as underwear, philosophically. As an older kid who wore diapers circumstantially, I noticed pretty early on that it was deemed perfectly acceptable to be wearing a diaper in situations where my brother or sister (or I) would never have worn uncovered underwear. And later, in my adult life, when my work used to bring me into long-term care centers and hospitals with some frequency, it was not uncommon to see people openly wearing diapers, however you never ran into people wandering the halls or lying in bed in just their underwear. 

It's as though either, 1) diapers are not considered underwear, or, and this is the explanation I'm leaning towards, 2) people who wear diapers already suffer a dignity deficit, so their privacy is of less important. I think this might be a hangover from the fact that babies don't suffer embarrassment, and once they arrive at the stage where kids start becoming socialized enough to worry about what other people think about them, those nascent concerns are often leveraged precisely for the purpose of getting them potty trained. "Don't like wearing diapers at preschool? Then start using the potty."

The unconscious logic being applied goes along the lines of: babies wear diapers.... babies don't care about privacy... ergo, people who wear diapers don't care about privacy. This was something I already had a partly-developed theory for, but, now that I'm living in a social experiment, essentially, my half-formed notions are proving to be well founded; apparently, people generally seem to be less concerned for the privacy/dignity of people who wear diapers than for the privacy/dignity of people who do not. 

[Little Sherri]

So where, and how, do you change your diapers? Versus where, and how, would you like to change your diapers?

These questions have been occurring to me this week. Obviously, let's put having your diapers changed by someone else aside; some people here are lucky enough to have someone willing to do that for them, while others here who have people changing them by necessity probably sometimes whish they didn't require that level of service. For myself, I think it would be kind of interesting to be changed once in a while, but I'm glad I don't need that, and in reality, my prospects for that are very low, because my wife puts up with my wearing diapers 24/7, and really, even that's a lot to ask, so, I'm not going to push my luck.

So, for me, in terms of what's actually achievable, how I would like to change my diapers is, on a change pad, on an elevated surface, ideally. However I don't want to subject my wife to visuals of me doing it on our bed, so when she's here, which is most of the time, I don't do that. In my old house, where there was a nice run of tile next to the bathtub with a fluffy bath mat on it, I used to lie down to diaper myself, but in this house, the arrangement of our bathroom was less conducive to that, so I became good at the standing diaper swap, to the point that I almost convinced myself it was the superior technique.

However, we moved the dog's water bowl and the scale and my wife bought a longer bath mat, and I no longer would have to have my head at the foot of the toilet in order to conduct an inclined change. Add to that the fact that plastic noises coming from the bathroom are no longer a concern of mine, and, I decided to give my old method another shot, so for the last few nights, I've laid myself down in order to tape my diaper on. And you know what? I think it results in a snugger fit. I've noticed the difference. I think I prefer this. Well, other than the part where I have to get down on the floor. Maybe I could start using the bed in the guest bedroom for this? Or, fabricate myself a change table topper for the sturdy dresser in there, maybe a rolled-up mat I could stash in one of the drawers, and a stepstool that slides in between it and the wall. 

Perhaps this is my next white whale. 

[BabyJilly_S]

I am a lie down person, get everything sorted down there, attach the bottom two tapes then stand up for the top two so I can get them nice and tight.

Living on my own affords me that luxury fortunately, no need for secrecy...

As for your situation now, enjoy the normality  I would assume that the family is equally chilled now that it is out in the open?

[Little Sherri]

On 8/5/2022 at 6:13 PM, BabyJilly_S said:

I would assume that the family is equally chilled now that it is out in the open?

It's been interesting for sure. I still don't walk around the house openly in just a diaper unless the kids are out or in bed, but, it is somewhat freeing to no longer having to worry about if these shorts would fit over that diaper, or if people can hear my diaper, or, having to do the back of the t-shirt pull down when I bend over or stoop down to make sure a strip of plastic doesn't appear at my lower back. Although the latter was only really an issue first thing in the morning, because I'd have a diaper shirt on once I got dressed for the day. I have been wearing diaper shirts less often around the house now, which I guess is going to extend their useful lives a bit.

Although they wear pretty well - I have about 10 or 12 of them now, and even the ones I bought three years ago are in pretty good shape. My oldest white one is a bit more grey than white now, probably because most of my other ones are black, and they tend to get laundered together. I decided to standardize on black because white ones work okay over white diapers, but printed diapers tend to show through the material. 

It's a very hot day today, so right now I'm up in my office in just a diaper, debating whether to turn on the A/C up here or not. The A/C in the house is set to arctic blast, because my wife likes to be able to see her breath. I still have emergency shorts within close reach, because even though everyone in the house knows I wear diapers, I think it would still be weird to find me up here in just baby pants. At night, though, I no longer have to station a pair of shorts right beside my bed, as I used to, in case the dog throws up or one of the kids has a nightmare or whatever. I had a smoke detector decide to remind us that it needed a battery swap, which always seems to happen at 3 am for some reason, so I grabbed a stepstool from my closet and got up and took it down without having to search around for cloths first. The only family member watching me was the dog, but, I guess it's nice not to have to worry about that. 

That worry has been replaced by another, being, whether any of the people I live with will tell other people I know about this. But this is the bed I made for myself and I guess I have to lay in it. At least it's dry. So far I have had zero inkling that anyone we're social with has any idea, but I have to accept that if I'm going to live a diapered life, it might get out at some point. A lot of you fine folks here have helped to allay my fears that such a security breach would constitute a nuclear event. I think I've mostly convinced myself that people would be polite or mildly concerned, for the most part. That said, I have no desire to plumb those depths. Maybe when I turn 70, in about a quarter of a century, I'll throw myself a pool party and wear a swim diaper. But probably not, because my wife would likely poison me shortly thereafter. 

[IminWetPampers]

On 7/16/2022 at 11:38 AM, Little Sherri said:

Here's a question to put to the certified experts that can only be found here: after a two-year absence, the Toronto Festival of Beer is back on. I used to attend this religiously, but I missed the last one before the pandemic because I was travelling, and then the next two were cancelled because of the great plague. So, it's been 4 years since I've been to one of these. It's an epic event, involving drinking in a fenced-off field downtown, surrounded by booths from hundreds of craft breweries (and the macro ones too, although I have no idea who pays $60 for a ticket to go drink Budweiser in a field and use fetid porta-potties, when they could have the same gustatory experience sitting in their own backyards). There are also dozens of food trucks. After 8 hours of drinking in the sun, they run everybody out with police horses, and then they do it all again the next day. 

The last time I went to this, I did not wear diapers full-time. I lined up for the nasty porta-potties. I watched people pee in a fountain, because in a massive miscalculation, they, A) ordered insufficient solar-heated plastic toilets, and, B), they arranged them around a giant central fountain. So, women mostly waited for a chance to hold their breath and hover-pee in a 50 degree C plastic box filled with excrement, and men peed in bushes and the fountain. 

This year, I will be wearing a diaper. However... I will also be sampling high-octane IPA's for the length of an average work day. You can bring a bag in with you, but they search it, lest you be tempted to sneak more alcohol into the river of alcohol festival. I will be with a bunch of buddies. I don't want a big plastic nappy pulled part-way out of my backpack at a crowded entrance gate, while I'm surrounded by good friends. Maybe that wouldn't happen, but, maybe it would. One year they were checking under people's hats. 

What would you wear to such an event? Megmax with a booster? Mermaid Tale? And how do I navigate the later hours when I'm waddling around like a toddler that needs attending to? Nobody brings a car to this thing, for obvious reasons. 

We have a similar Beer Fest where I live and although I haven’t attended since before the great plague, the last few times I’ve been there I had been wearing diapers 24/7/365 for several years and although my bag was searched they didn’t pull my definitely ABDL diapers (one ABUniverse Little Paws and one Bambino Classico plus boosters) out of my backpack during the security search. My only issue was exiting the solar powered bacteria breeding stations with my used diaper after a change, but I’ve long since given up on worrying about what people might think or say if they see me exiting the potties with a used diaper in my hand because, face it I wear diapers, not only that but I NEED to wear diapers especially when I’m drinking that much beer because without my diapers I’d end up wetting my pants either accidentally or by just not paying enough attention to my bladder (which would sort of make it intentional, which I have learned has an increasing probability with every alcoholic drink I imbibe. So I’d much rather answer any questions about the possible discovery of my diapered status than have to try and explain why I peed my pants. 
 

On a side note most of my friends already know that I wear diapers because I’ve told almost all of them. 

[Little Sherri]

20 hours ago, IminWetPampers said:

On a side note most of my friends already know that I wear diapers because I’ve told almost all of them. 

This is interesting, @IminWetPampers; what was your impetus for that, and how did it go? I'm not looking to have that experience yet, but I also feel that I probably want to get out of ahead of it, if I think the need will arise to discuss it with someone outside of my immediate family. One thing I'm wrestling with is an upcoming trip to the UK with four buddies; one of our group works for a major hotel chain and has secured us absolutely smoking deals on great accommodations while we're there, but, the downside to that is, whereas normally when I travel, I book my own room and can count on having a bathroom and a hotel room to myself, for this trip, I can't do that, because it would cost me an arm and a leg, first of all, second, it would force other people to pick up more cost, and, it would look weird. 

The difference in cost for me would be astronomical, going from, say, the equivalent of $50 - $100 CAD per night to share a room booked by our hotel executive friend, versus like $350 - $500 CAD per night to go try and book everything myself, even assuming I could find rooms in all those hotels. Plus we're doing some flying on European discount airlines that want to charge you extra if you wear socks, so packing 8 days worth of diapers means I definitely have to check a bag, whereas some guys plan to bring just a backpack. Sigh. Such are the complications of living a diapered life. 

To your point about the march of shame from the porta-potty to the trash can with a bulging diaper in your hands, I was on a golf course recently where they'd posted notices in all the porta-potties on the holes that they were in danger of losing their service provider because people had been throwing adult diapers/briefs/pull-ups into the toilets. They implored users to please, for the love of all that's holy, dispose of diapers in the trash cans... which were over by the tee boxes. On the Saturday I was there, the course was decently backed up, so had I needed to do that, I would have had to walk past both my group, and, another group, waiting to tee off, in order to dump a ball of plastic the weight of a dead cat into a trash can sitting practically on a stage. 

[Little Sherri]

My brush with stage 4 malignant diaper rash *seems* to be in the past. I nuked it with fungicidal spray of the type used for jock itch or athlete's foot, and used the medication for as long as the instructions said to use it, even though the irritation dissipated relatively quickly. The real test is when you go off the medicated sprays or creams; if you successfully quelled the insurrection, then all will be well. If not, then a couple of days later, things start to flair up again. So far, I am in the former camp. I've used nothing but zinc oxide diaper cream for more than a week now, with no change in the temperature down there.

I've also been careful about changing, paying more attention to my diaper's time on shift than to whether I could get away with leaving it on for a bit longer. I think sometimes I vexed that region by, for example, wearing a diaper out on a humid evening and coming home after a dalliance with Lady Ethanol, and deciding that since I don't tend to wet a lot overnight, my current diaper would be okay to go to bed in. However, by the time I woke up, even if the diaper wasn't soaked, the skin down there had been in contact with sweaty plastic or damp stuffing for 14 hours or 16 hours. 

Speaking of wearing diapers to bed, I've noted more incidents lately of the following: I dream about struggling to pee, and eventually, I wake up and find myself needing to do so, but, I'm mispositioned somehow, which is legitimately making it hard to go. I tend to sleep tummy down, so equipment situations can, ahem, arise, wherein it would be both difficult, and also, ill-advised, to just let go, IE while pointed right up at the waistband. I believe that this is evidence that, somewhere in my subconscious, I am "trying" to wet the bed, because my first cognizant moments are seemingly in response to reports of an inability to do a thing that, were I able to do it, would not have resulted in my waking up, presumably. 

That said, I don't have a lot of notably wetter morning diapers to report. It happens, but not predictably.

I wish I had a better memory of what it was like to be a bedwetter as a kid; I don't have any recollection of waking up in response to a need to pee at all, but then again, that was 35+ years ago, so the details are fuzzy. I believe that for the most part, I just went to bed, slept like a rock, and woke up in a wet diaper. It was pretty rare for me to go to bed already wet, because my diaper usually went on within a couple of hours of bedtime, so anything that happened, happened overnight. If I needed to pee while I was watching TV with my brother and sister in the wind-down hours after dinner, I'd pull down the front of my diaper and use the potty, because those over-stretched toddler diapers would leak if I deliberately soaked them before going to bed. They had just enough capacity to deal with my overnight output, most of the time. 

[Little Sherri]

Another string I was reading reminded me that I hadn't mentioned the follow-up visit I had with that urologist I saw earlier in the summer. He went over my bloodwork, and basically said that all indicators are that everything looks good. It was a pretty quick phone meeting, over in about 10 minutes. What is interesting, from the perspective of the topics typically discussed here, is this: for those of you who perhaps didn't read that episode, or who don't recall it, I went to a urologist for the first time, due to a referral that had nothing to do with wearing diapers, BUT, I did the appointment wearing a diaper-like product, one of those awful man pull-ups. I went to the office in a Megamax and just barely got a chance to change in the washroom prior to my appointment, as I was running late. I ended up being examined by both the doc, and a resident, and I had to take my pants off for part of the examination, making me grateful that I'd decided to swap out the massive plastic diaper for something a bit more subtle. Still, there I was, awkwardly trying to take my clothes partway off, knowing that these highly-paid professionals were going to see my disposable underwear. At the time, nothing came of it - nobody mentioned that I was wearing a smaller relative of the diaperus maximus species. 

So, I wondered, would it come up during the follow-up appointment to review the results of the first appointment? Well, it didn't. He made no mention of it, which I found interesting. It wasn't part of the scope of his investigation, and he left it at that. Victory is mine. 

[WBxx]

1 hour ago, Little Sherri said:

Speaking of wearing diapers to bed, I've noted more incidents lately of the following: I dream about struggling to pee, and eventually, I wake up and find myself needing to do so, but, I'm mispositioned somehow, which is legitimately making it hard to go. I tend to sleep tummy down, so equipment situations can, ahem, arise, wherein it would be both difficult, and also, ill-advised, to just let go, IE while pointed right up at the waistband. I believe that this is evidence that, somewhere in my subconscious, I am "trying" to wet the bed, because my first cognizant moments are seemingly in response to reports of an inability to do a thing that, were I able to do it, would not have resulted in my waking up, presumably. 

My solution (per someone on another forum), position diaper so front is an inch or two higher than back.  Then tuck front coversheet back under padding forming a barrier against leakage and point up.  Utilizing this method front padding is often saturated to the top when I wake with nary a drop escaping.  Best part, there’s no waking to a kink in my voiding mechanism.

Strangely I don’t recall any concern with positioning down below or for that matter leakage in general during the period (till about 9) I was diapered for bedwetting in my youth.  Expect cloth (fabric) was the difference.

[oznl]

11 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

I wish I had a better memory of what it was like to be a bedwetter as a kid; I don't have any recollection of waking up in response to a need to pee at all, but then again, that was 35+ years ago, so the details are fuzzy. I believe that for the most part, I just went to bed, slept like a rock, and woke up in a wet diaper.

It's been 55 years since I was a bedwetter the first time around but I suspect it was (and sometimes now is again) as you describe.  I have loads of nights where I'm woken because I CAN'T pee for some reason but recently, I've had some nights as you describe above.

Last Saturday was an absolute cracker.  I'd drunk far too much red wine and well aware that I was likely to fall asleep in my chair any minute, I changed out of a soggy Abena L4 into a Babykins layered pull-on cloth nappy and plastic pants before heading to bed and falling asleep more or less instantly dry.

Suddenly it was 6am and as I surfaced through the layers of sleep I became aware that it felt like I was wearing a wet towel down there - which I kind of was.

My nappy wasn't merely damp, it was soaked.  My crotch, hips and bum were all wet (but the bed was dry).

Knowing that I will invariably pee at least three times per night I realised I had absolutely zero recollection of ANY nocturnal peeing.  I'd slept through ALL of them.  I notice that in these scenarios, my first insights are not "oh, I've wet the bed!" but more along the lines of "Huh?  I'm wet?".  It's subsequent deduction that connects the dots.

The thing that's really baking my noodle is why I should find this kind of night so strangely and deeply satisfying.

[Stroller]

On 7/29/2022 at 3:28 PM, Little Sherri said:

I don't have much to report, other than my continuous slight sense of wonder that I wear diapers full-time.

Well that rings a bell!

 

On 7/29/2022 at 3:28 PM, Little Sherri said:

These days, my pacifier is pretty much invariably still in my mouth when I wake up.

...and that

 

On 7/29/2022 at 3:28 PM, Little Sherri said:

I'm still a little "bashful" about my pacifier use in front of my wife

...but definitely not that.  Mine's in my mouth quite often during the day, particularly when I get a bit tired or stressed. My wife's fine with it and doesn't turn a hair these days

 

On 8/5/2022 at 7:19 PM, Little Sherri said:

So where, and how, do you change your diapers?

It does depend on the nappy.  When I'm wearing shorts at home, I'm generally in pocket nappies with side poppers, and they're just as easy to put on standing up.  So it's generally in the bathroom.  Last winter I was in dungarees all the time, with velcro fastening nappies.  Again, just as easy to put on standing up, so that's what I generally did.  Overnight it's a terry square with an added soaker, and there's no way that's going on standing up.  I used to lie on the bathroom floor, which wasn't comfortable at all.  Now I use our bed, which I can do as I go to bed first - my bedtime's 10.  I suppose I'd prefer to change on the bed all the time, but it's no big deal changing standing up with my daytime nappies.  Disposables I really don't like changing on the floor or standing up.

Of course what I'd really like is always being changed on the bed by Mummy, but being realistic that's not likely to happen!