24/7 startups, and unexpected pitfalls?

[Little Sherri]

I had another busy and fun weekend spent almost entirely in diapers - I had to come out of them for swimming. We went to a beach about 2.5 hours from where we live, down on lake Erie, and the water was gorgeous - probably the best fresh water swimming temperatures one can possible expect at this latitude. Meaning the water temperature was in the mid 70's (low 20's). This time, I decided to manage things a little differently - previously, when we did this, I stripped my diaper off in the changeroom and spent the day in a bathing suit, and I would dip into the lake strategically in order to keep the pressure off in the wee department. However this time we were plagued by deer flies, which are uncommon at this time of year, but, it's been a wet summer. Or maybe Satan was involved. Anyway, I had to keep applying insect repellent, so I didn't want to get in and out of the lake 20 times. I had brought a few of my slim Prevail gym diapers with me, and my compromise was to leave a diaper on under my bathing suit, other than for select windows when I planned to swim. 

I was a little self-conscious about having a diaper on under the relatively light fabric of a bathing suit, and I left a t-shirt on the entire time to make it less likely that it the top of the diaper would end up visible. Although the Prevails are cloth-backed and white, so nothing about the waistband screams "diaper" unless one were looking very closely. After a while, I relaxed - the relatively billowy fabric of the swimsuit, and the slim build of the diaper, made me confident that even if an errant bulge or crease appeared briefly, nobody would have enough data to construct a clear image of what was going on under my outfit, even if they wanted to, which, I assuaged myself further, nobody likely would. 

I could theoretically have ridden the diapers out to failure - wetness is not exactly unexpected on a bathing suit - but I wanted to mitigate swelling and sagging, so I went and changed myself a couple of times while we were there. I wonder if my wife was confused about my "needing to go to the bathroom" that many times. It's not a common occurrence, these days. 

[Little Sherri]

Well, everyday you learn something, even after 2.5 years in diapers. On a side note, I'll have to ask my mom when I stopped wearing diapers during the day. I think I was in my third year. It seems likely that I will overtake the last time I wore 24/7, within about a year. Overtaking the last time I wore diapers at night... now that would take about 10 years.

But back to my main point... I've been in a Bambino Magnifico from last night until right now... so, about 23 hours. That said, I didn't wet it last night while I slept, so, let's say I've been using it for about 15 hours now. That is still pretty impressive for one diaper. My kids have both been out for most of the day, which is how I was able to continue to operate while wearing a diaper that has swelled up to the size of a generous pillow. Finally, at about the 13 hour point, I started getting press-out leaks when I sat down, although the upper part of the back of this thing is still largely dry. My plan was to trim a couple of hundred feed of hedges, so I saw no reason to change, and then do a bunch of sweaty, dirty work, and then take a shower and change again. But I feared that my diaper might reach the point where it leaks even standing up, so, I put on a pair of plastic pants, and some cargo shorts that are oversized and have an actual camouflage print on them - part of the work is along the rode so I wanted to tone down the diaper bulge as much as I could. From the front it is fairly obvious, but from behind, which is the profile one would see while driving by... my silhouette was deemed acceptable. 

So, what did I learn? I learned that I have become quite adept at doing physical work in warm weather while wearing big plastic diapers without experiencing chaffing... but not under plastic pants. My pants stayed dry, but now I have a burning sensation along the leg elastics of the plastic pants under and behind my nether region. For those of you who wear plastic pants every day, or at least frequently, and who are active, what is your secret? I could have applied diaper cream everywhere the elastics were likely to travel, but that would have been a LOT of diaper cream. 

These are Rearz plastic pants, generously sized, and usually very comfortable. I can sleep all night and do office work in them all day with no issues, but I haven't worn them while doing physical labour in humid conditions before. 

[oznl]

4 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

For those of you who wear plastic pants every day, or at least frequently, and who are active, what is your secret? I could have applied diaper cream everywhere the elastics were likely to travel, but that would have been a LOT of diaper cream.

As a daily-driver plastic pant when I’m physically active, I’m a huge fan of the Gary Wear active brief and I experience minimal chafing with them.  Outside of cloth (for which their cut and PUL construction is not really suitable), I wear these EVERY day.

An “honourable mention” for comfort goes to the Babykins lycra-banded waterproof pants however the Achilles’ heel  with these things is that once that Lycra gets wet, it’s going to wick dampness quickly enough to your outerwear.  Again, they are useless with cloth but those thick Lycra leggings are very skin-friendly.

I think creams and oils are the enemies of elastic so I keep them away from those zones.

To be honest, the threat my plastic pants most regularly save me from is actually press-out leaks at the seat.  They will deal with (minor) leaks down at the crotch but probably only until you sit down.

Working at home alone outside in a similar scenario, I might have just worn some black shorts and chanced it.  In hot/humid weather they’d be going in the wash anyway and after some summer yard work in Queensland, you'd be hard pushed to differentiate the ones that had been peed in from the ones that had simply been sweated in anyway.

[Little Sherri]

7 hours ago, oznl said:

I’m a huge fan of the Gary Wear active brief

I have to look into these again. You've mentioned these a number of times before. 

 

7 hours ago, oznl said:

Working at home alone outside in a similar scenario, I might have just worn some black shorts and chanced it.

I could probably have gotten away with it sans plastic pants, in retrospect. Although when I typed the above, I was wearing them, and at that point, they probably were protecting me from press-out leaks. But had I not worn the plastic pants, I probably wouldn't have had to then sit down in the office and write about them...

On a related note, I committed another cardinal sin. I took off those plastic pants - large clear ones, with a nursery print on them - in the shower, and then I rinsed them thoroughly... and hung them on the shower control knob. The people who have been staying with us have left (soon to be replaced by other people who will be staying with us), so it wasn't quite the same potentially catastrophic situation as when I left a balled-up diaper in the sink, but, my wife was nevertheless unimpressed. She opened this morning with "Could you clean up the bathroom please?", which confused me, because I had cleaned it yesterday, and emptied the garbage. So, I asked for more specifics - what exactly was the issue? "Do I REALLY need to spell it out for you? There are Pampers in the shower stall. There."

THAT confused me even further. I do have Pampers in inventory, mostly to lend to people with kids who need them, sometimes to use as stuffers, but I hadn't employed one in a while... so, I drew a complete blank, but, the tone of her voice suggested that further probing would not elicit a friendly response, so I finished my coffee and headed upstairs, to see the now-dry plastic pants hanging in billowed folds. Our shower stall has a glass wall, so, if one of my kids had come into our bathroom to avail themselves of the various tinctures and ointments in the medicine cabinet, they might have seen a curious sight, for sure. Those plastic pants could have been mistaken for a shower cap, but... a shower cap for a horse, maybe? They're pretty big. I have to stop leaving evidence behind. Maybe I should put a sign on the inside of the door that says "Did you put your diaper away?" THAT wouldn't draw any attention... 

[Stroller]

On 8/17/2021 at 2:47 AM, Little Sherri said:

For those of you who wear plastic pants every day, or at least frequently, and who are active, what is your secret?

I wear thin polyurethane pants from Arizona Care.  They are UK-based and not exporting at the moment, so not much practical use for you I'm afraid. The elastic is not enclosed, and I wear them with the elastic against my skin.  In practice that means I very rarely get any problems from them.  When I used to wear PVC pants I had a lot of trouble with chafing and weals, and I could never have managed full-time in nappies with them.

Usually, as you know, I'm in cloth nappies, but at the moment we're on holiday in Scotland so I'm in disposables. Hiking every day, with plastic pants on 24/7.  In fact I'm typing this in my overnight Crinklz Astronaut and my jamas with the teddy on the front, first thing in the morning.

[Little Sherri]

I've been intermittently wearing the Prevail Perfit 360 around the house this week, because I have family in town, including my brother, and for reasons I haven't completely figured out yet, I worry that he might notice me wearing a "real" diaper, maybe because we grew up together and he certainly saw me wearing diapers as a kid more than almost anyone - we shared a bedroom for much of my early childhood. So I'm surprisingly self-conscious about it - I didn't think I would be, but when I drove to the airport in a Lil' Monster, for the first time in a long time, I was acutely aware I was in a diaper, and a couple of times I wished I'd worn something slimmer. That almost never happens to me. 

So, I pulled out the pack of Perfits, which are meant to replace my discontinued Breezer 360 "gym diapers", because they are very discreet - slim, quiet, cloth-backed and white. They don't hold that much, but as long as you don't push them way beyond reason, they're reliable. The cloth backing doesn't seem to weep moisture at all. In this diaper, I felt perfectly comfortable around everyone, and this is what I plan to wear at a barbecue at my sister's place this weekend, where all my siblings, and my parents, will be in attendance. I'll just have to bring a few. There's no way I could wear say, a Lil' Splash or a Megamax around my sisters, my brother and my parents, and not feel like I had a blinking sign on the back of my shorts that says "diaper". 

My thoughts on them so far are that, once on, they look a lot like a pull-up, but more snug fitting, with no billowing flouncy side panels. But the tabs run the full length of the stretchy wing, so when closed neatly, they do have a pull-up look. They fit the way I'd imagine that a Pampers Cruiser would fit, if they made like a size 9 or 10, though - very comfortable and secure. I just need to get through the next couple of weeks, and then once school starts up again, and the guests depart, I can put on a big old Barnyard or Alpaca, and waddle around the house all day in crinkly self-satisfaction, probably to the slight chagrin of my spouse.  

[Little Sherri]

Well, I got over my shyness about wearing "real" diapers around my extended family. I was burning through too many Prevails, and, we had a plan to spend the day in the city, and I just didn't want to have to deal with finding a place to change a diaper, nor face the possibility of an unexpected product failure, so I took a deep breath and put a Lil' Splash on for the daytrip. Predictably, it went fine - I wore a onesie over it, and then oversized cargo shorts and a long shirt over that. Since then, I've reverted back to wearing plastic diapers - I'm in a Rearz Essential right now. 

The day we chose to walk most of the city was supposed to be around 36 C all day, so I was generous with the diaper cream and the baby powder, and those seemed to work their magic, because I had no issues with chaffing. I was in that diaper for a good long stretch, probably because I was shedding more liquid into the air than into the stuffing, and by the end of the day, I had maybe a slight tingling of a diaper rash starting up, as a side effect of the wet diaper being in contact with my skin for 14 hours. I'm sure the heat and humidity didn't help matters. But I took a shower and used cream when I got dressed afterwards, and today, so far, my skin feels fine. 

When my mom and my sisters and brother were together, I had to resist the urge to bring up any conversation about diapers - I'm always curious to hear their memories of our shared childhood, but at the same time, I know that I'd be taking a highlighter to a topic that I should be sidestepping or downplaying, standing there as I was, in one. However, the topic did come up, specifically because my young niece does not need any protection overnight - she graduated at a young age and never looked back. My mom asked about it, however, because of my history, and the fact that it runs in the family, at least in theory. My brother said that, nope, luckily they hadn't needed anything, but then said "I'm glad she didn't, because I don't know that I could do that to her, anyway."

Then my youngest older sister, the only one I actually lived with as a kid, jumped in and said something like "Well, they make way better products now. They don't look or feel like diapers anymore." 

My mom said "I don't know if that's a good thing - I think kids end up needing them way longer if they think they're just wearing underwear." So, I had to jump in - I said simply "How so?"

My mom expounded further: "Well, kids have an incentive to want to get out of diapers pretty quick - kids always want to be older and more grown up. If they think it's normal to wear pretend underwear to bed, they're probably not going to work too hard to get out of them. Which is exactly what the companies that make them probably want."

"So, you think that it's better to put kids in actual diapers for bed, if they need them - that they'll outgrow them faster?"

"Well, that's kind of what we thought with you, but it took a while anyway, so maybe if there HAD been any other option, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. But we didn't have a choice in any case - they didn't make anything else back then. We figured that if wearing diapers wasn't enough incentive to keep your bed dry, then there wasn't much else we could do." 

I found the whole conversation fascinating, even though it only lasted maybe a few minutes at most. 

[BabyJilly_S]

On 8/25/2021 at 4:40 PM, Little Sherri said:

Well, I got over my shyness about wearing "real" diapers around my extended family. I was burning through too many Prevails, and, we had a plan to spend the day in the city, and I just didn't want to have to deal with finding a place to change a diaper, nor face the possibility of an unexpected product failure, so I took a deep breath and put a Lil' Splash on for the daytrip. Predictably, it went fine - I wore a onesie over it, and then oversized cargo shorts and a long shirt over that. Since then, I've reverted back to wearing plastic diapers - I'm in a Rearz Essential right now. 

Very similar with me and my family. They (I assume) have no idea.

After the last Christmas day when I wore underwear I then wore a pull up which made me feel that I wasn't "cheating" on wearing full time. Subsequently I tried a Abena M4, which is very good and quiet for those stealth missions to visit them. 

At one point though I was out and about wearing my usual Dotty Diaper ABDL one and decided to pop in before I had even thought about what I was wearing. Queue moment of panic as I crinkled when I sat down - at least to my ears...they seemed oblivious to it though as did my sister and her husband. 

Since then I have worn BetterDrys and Dotty Diapers over there with no odd glances .....

 

 

[Little Sherri]

1 hour ago, BabyJilly_S said:

Queue moment of panic as I crinkled when I sat down - at least to my ears...they seemed oblivious to it though as did my sister and her husband. 

Yup, I know exactly what you're talking about. I think that people like us have finely-tuned "diaper radar" that most people don't. I have been wincingly aware of my diaper making crinkle/crunching noises while I'm, say, climbing a ladder in someone's bathroom with a buddy of mine, to fix a ventilation fan, or, when I got up from sitting on the floor at my sister's place, with several people around, but nobody notices anything. Not to say that that means one should be a cowboy about it, and put on a big ABDL diaper under nylon running shorts, and then go to church with the family, but, if you take reasonable precautions, you can get away with wearing decent diapers pretty much anywhere. For me, the key is a onesie, some oversized shorts or jeans, and a longish shirt. 

[Little Sherri]

Just a quick comment today; as I mentioned, some of my extended family has been home from distant places for most of the past couple of weeks, for the first time since Covid, so I've been hosting various of my siblings and my parents at my house for dinner or coffee here and there. My sister, surprisingly, seems to have decided to pick up the gauntlet with respect to going over some of my "diaper grievances" with my mom, which is ironic, because SHE (my sister) was the one who taunted me more than anyone else when I was a kid. 

I myself have not had to bring the topic up at all - indeed, I tend to avoid it, because, of course, I don't want to talk about shameful secret underwear while wearing, well, shameful secret underwear - although the shame part for me has largely worn off by now. But as a kid, shame was a daily companion. However, I am obviously always intrigued by the topic (I can hear you all saying, "No way, wouldn't have guessed that"), and if it comes up organically, I listen intently. 

So once again, my youngest older sister, apropos of nothing, dropped a comment about my parents "making me" wear diapers as a kid, and my mom said "I don't think he minded - I used to have to hound him to take them off in the morning. He'd wear them all day if I didn't say anything, so I don't think that us asking him to wear one under certain circumstances, when it made sense, fits the definition of child abuse." 

This was interesting, because I do recall on occasion that I would go upstairs to change out of my pajamas, and just decide to leave my diaper on, but at the time it was more of an expeditious decision than one directly related to my DL side... I think. It's hard to say - it was a really long time ago. But I used to also rush brushing my teeth, or I'd shower but not wash my hair, because I wanted to get "back in the game" - get back down to whatever we were doing or watching on TV, asap. So hauling a pair of shorts up over my diaper made sense, if my mom said to get out of our PJ's, because otherwise I'd have to shower off before getting dressed, and that might have taken me away from the Roadrunner or Transformers, or whatever we were watching, for a few more minutes. But at the same time, I do remember becoming periodically aware of my diaper, and not minding the feeling that it was there. So maybe it was a mix of both. But if my sister noticed my diaper sticking out as I sat on the floor in front of the TV, she'd immediately tell my parents, so it's hilarious that now she's the one who apparently wants to relitigate wrongs from 35 years ago. 

[Little Sherri]

Also meant to mention that, per @oznl's suggestion, I changed my diaper a bit earlier last night, and went to bed already somewhat wet. The problem was that, this morning, it was really hard to tell if anything had changed - certainly nothing of seismic proportions occurred. I did have a dream about being in a diaper and really needing to pee, and then asking myself why I needed to pee when I was wearing a diaper... that's all I can recall about it. I guess I need to weigh my diaper in before I go to bed, and then weigh it again in the morning, but that would require a level of accuracy that I can only get from a digital scale... and the digital scale we have is a kitchen tool that is sometimes usurped for brewing purposes, but, if I were to park it in our washroom and explain that I was also using it to weigh wet diapers, I don't think my beloved would appreciate that. The bathroom scale isn't accurate enough to detect anything smaller than an absolute soaking, which would, presumably, be obvious in any case. Maybe this is Amazon time... digital scale with large tray...

[Little Sherri]

Quick product reviews from the last couple of days... family was out, so I wore a Rearz Elite for a good long time Sunday to Monday, probably about 18 hours. Great diaper. They swell magnificently but are very reliable and have otherworldly capacity, and they stay very comfortable. I only took it off because I was worried about my skin getting irritated eventually, and I had to meet up with a buddy, for which the "dead racoon in pants" look is not ideal. The hook-loop tabs allow for easy repositioning to reclaim some altitude from the forces of gravity.

I wore a Lil' Splash out to do some minor electrical troubleshooting for a buddy, and we had some beers afterwards, and it held up very well. I wore it to bed, don't seem to have used it overnight, but I am continuing on my quest to find out if hitting the sheets in an already-wet diaper will bring back the overnight wetting that I used to sometimes experience, but which has fled the building since around last fall, seemingly, with rare exceptions. Today I am in a white Megamax, and I love these diapers - they are so, so comfortable, with a great combination of tremendous capacity, and, at least in medium size, they are still slim enough to be worn during the day. The plastic these are covered with is different somehow - I wish I knew more about the grades of plastics available for diaper backing, so that I could be more articulate about what I'm experiencing. It's very buttery? How's that? 

I discarded the Splash for this Megamax, again out of concerns for developing a mild diaper "sunburn" if I am in the same one for too long. One thing about deliberately sleeping in a wet diaper is that I have to keep more of an eye on how my skin is doing, in contrast to when I go to sleep in a fresh diaper, because then, basically, the clock is reset in the morning if I'm mostly dry, and I can go for 8 to 12 hours, before swelling and leak concerns push me to change it, rather than the biochemical weaponizing that is occurring within. Going to bed dry causes me to average 2 diapers in 24 hours, whereas going to bed wet requires me to average 3 diapers in 24 hours, because the overnight diaper can no longer last for 2/3rd's of the next day, or more. 

Unless I experiment with dumping 125 ml of warm water into a fresh one, right at bedtime? I have no idea if that would carry the same psychological "exculpation" that wetting an already-wet diaper is supposed to carry with it, for my subconscious, so that it relaxes and allows events to transpire without contacting the executive suite, at least in theory. Some warm tap water would not be much of an irritant over the 8 hours I typically sleep. As an added bonus, I could tell visually if anything notable took place in there while I was gone from the world, without involving the kitchen scale, and risking the ire of my spouse. I'm assuming half a cup would be enough. Maybe I need to set up some trials. it's amazing how complicated we can make these things - wearing toddler's underwear is supposed to be the least complicated thing in the world. They make it look so easy. 

[oznl]

On 8/31/2021 at 4:10 AM, Little Sherri said:

Also meant to mention that, per @oznl's suggestion, I changed my diaper a bit earlier last night, and went to bed already somewhat wet. The problem was that, this morning, it was really hard to tell if anything had changed - certainly nothing of seismic proportions occurred. I did have a dream about being in a diaper and really needing to pee, and then asking myself why I needed to pee when I was wearing a diaper... that's all I can recall about it. I guess I need to weigh my diaper in before I go to bed, and then weigh it again in the morning, but that would require a level of accuracy that I can only get from a digital scale... and the digital scale we have is a kitchen tool that is sometimes usurped for brewing purposes, but, if I were to park it in our washroom and explain that I was also using it to weigh wet diapers, I don't think my beloved would appreciate that. The bathroom scale isn't accurate enough to detect anything smaller than an absolute soaking, which would, presumably, be obvious in any case. Maybe this is Amazon time... digital scale with large tray...

I really thought I had commented on your point here.  Looks like I probably didn't hit "submit" or something.

But anyway...

Yes, there is an infuriating (or is it delicious?  I guess it depends on your taste) ambiguity to all of this and for me, there were countless “Did I or didn’t I?” prognostications along the way.  Many of them chronicled in this place.

And then, more than two years later, the planets aligned and I went to bed sans-nappy, having first changed all the sheets so my conscious mind would NOT want extra laundry and somehow woke up at 3am in a cold, wet swamp of a bed with no clue how or when it happened.

Assuming this is ACTUALLY what you want…

I’m not sure that attempting to measure before-and-after nappy weights to evaluate any nocturnal incidents is moving your headspace to the right zone.  I think we need to push this behavior out of our conscious minds and through protracted practice, develop some new muscle memories which will eventually, become new default behaviors.

Every time I *tried* to set myself up for bedwetting, (or even planned to observe it) I invariably failed.  I was reminded of Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” comment on flight: “There is an art to flying, or rather a knack.  The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss”.

I *definitely* think going to bed a bit wet and making a point to empty yourself every time you stir during the night is the path forward (or is it a path backwards?) though.  If this is something that for whatever reason you don’t want to do, perhaps a part of your brain doesn’t want this anyway.

  Let’s face it, it’s an odd thing to want.

My 2c is make a habit of going to bed a bit wet and using your diaper at intervals through the night.  Stop fretting about it (or even specifically trying to catch it out) and see what happens after a few months.  Enjoy the ride.

For me at least, it was a total mindf#@ck when I woke up and realized I’d truly, properly and comprehensively wet the bed and THAT was why everything seemed so cool and wet down there.  It still seems a bit surreal.

(I'm still on my 2-nappy-per-day cadence: changes are at my evening shower around 6:30pm so you can see why I'm already a bit wet when I go to bed, and change again at around 7am.)

[BabyJilly_S]

My overnight process seems also to be up to that "did I or didn't I?" step. Maybe half a dozen times I have woken up in the morning  unsure if I remember making my nappy as wet as it seems. Normally I am woken up with the "can I have permission to wee please?" to which I say yes before going back to sleep and I do generally remember these. It doesn't help that I don't seem to be able to tell how much I am going, once I have started or when I finish, so I may not actually be there yet...

Where my process differs is that I guess am actively attempting this by making sure I drink plenty in the two hours before I  go to bed. In my mind you cant wet if you haven't got anything in there to wet with, so I make sure there is plenty in the tank. Usually by the time I have changed into my overnight diaper, got into bed and led down I need to go so I just let that first one out. Then its just drifting off to sleep whilst listening to some hypno to get me nice and relaxed..

[Little Sherri]

14 hours ago, oznl said:

I’m not sure that attempting to measure before-and-after nappy weights to evaluate any nocturnal incidents is moving your headspace to the right zone.  I think we need to push this behavior out of our conscious minds and through protracted practice, develop some new muscle memories which will eventually, become new default behaviors.

This is a good point - overthinking and/or obsessing over it isn't likely to "deemphasize it" or "automate" it, or whatever is required to shut down the security systems that have been in place for decades. 

 

14 hours ago, oznl said:

I *definitely* think going to bed a bit wet and making a point to empty yourself every time you stir during the night is the path forward (or is it a path backwards?) though.  If this is something that for whatever reason you don’t want to do, perhaps a part of your brain doesn’t want this anyway.

 

  Let’s face it, it’s an odd thing to want.

It is an odd thing to want, for sure. I'm not sure I want it, but I'm also not sure I don't. I've armchair psychoanalyzed myself on this topic repeatedly, and one of the things I suspect I am doing with this whole grand project is "taking back" diapers on my terms, as an antidote to the damage done by the background radiation of anxiety and shame that I experienced the first time 'round. And of course, back then, I wet in the bed flagrantly and decadently and prolifically and had no say in the matter. So, just like wearing plastic diapers feels right, and is my preference, despite being arguably less discreet (but far more reliable), because the diapers I grew up in were plastic, so it goes that I think I will feel greater satisfaction when I can go to sleep, be undisturbed by a need to pee, and awaken in awe of my damp nappy. It has happened to me a few times, and it is, as you said, disturbing but also exhilarating. What can I say - we are a strange lot. 

One thing going to bed in a wet diaper seems to have enabled, is more diaper dreams. I had a couple of them last night, but the only one I can remember involved my wife. We were at an exhibition, or amusement park, but it felt more like one of the temporary annual ones, than like a permanent installation. We have one in Toronto (or HAD one in Toronto, pre-Covid) called the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition), which was always a bit of an anachronism - I think it started up in the late 19th century. It features rides, ridiculous foods (Donut-based triple cheeseburger, anyone? Deep-fried chocolate bar? Poutine with pizza toppings?), exhibits (The Truck of the Future..), hucksterism (introducing Wonder Mop, the mop that does everything, us it to wash the dishes, clean the car, plunge the toilet, dust the blinds), and a lot of walking around. She and I were there with a few friends that I can't identify but that I felt close to, and at some point she commented on my wardrobe, and said "I can't believe you wore THAT tonight." I looked at myself, and found that I was, improbably, wearing pajama pants below a t-shirt, specifically some fuzzy ones I have that come out in deepest winter. So I said something like "Well, they do a great job keeping everything covered up...", and she said "HA!! You really think so? Did you even look at yourself? Anyone who looks at you knows what you're wearing."

When she said that, the dream went from vaguely interesting, to, frightful. I then walked away from our group to try and find a mirror, and when I couldn't find one, I viewed my reflection in a window, and, it became startlingly obvious that I was wearing a huge diaper - it puffed out majestically at the back and stuck up out of the top of my pajamas. I then realized that the window I was using to view myself in, was the front of a restaurant, and that there were people seated at tables, looking at me look at myself. I bolted out of sight of the diners, but I was still surrounded by people coming and going in all directions, and I could now feel the enormity of the diaper - why in God's name had I chosen the biggest disposable ever made? I then had the the thought that I needed to go buy some other pants, and it seemed like there were clothing stores at this exhibition (which in reality there would not be, except maybe for jocular t-shirts and hats), but the stores were all packed and had giant lineups, and suddenly my wife and our group were impatient to carry on - I could see them looking at me - and I felt like a trapped animal, or like a kid on their first day at a new school who just realized he wore his sister's socks. I very badly wanted to cover up my diaper... and that was it, I woke up, still reeling from the angst. 

The interesting thing was, the entire time, although I was desperately seeking a way to better cover it, in the dream, I never thought about taking it off...

[oznl]

9 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

One thing going to bed in a wet diaper seems to have enabled, is more diaper dreams.

It’s interesting that falling asleep wet threw you directly to “diaper dreams”.  That suggests that some kind of switch got thrown in your subconscious.  I personally suspect that's a step in right direction (assuming this is what you want).

I believe it was “pee dreams” that stood at the gateway between wakeful-wetting and sleep-wetting for me although I can well remember a phase of exposure-themed dreams, many unpleasant.  In the beginning, the pee dreams did not automatically mean “pee” but seemed to be a reflection of a delayed or muted waking response.  This response got progressively more and more muted until I started things like falling back asleep still peeing and then onward to dreaming my way vividly right through a pee.

Those pee dreams faded as bedwetting established itself but they still happen from time to time.  I suspect they now have more to do with what phase of sleep I am in when I wet.

If your trajectory follows mine, the next thing will be occasionally finding your bladder emptier than you might expect in the morning and your diaper seemingly wetter than you remember making it and wondering “Did I or didn’t I?”

 

[Little Sherri]

I had another "diaper dream" - of a sort - last night. This was a weird one, @oznl. Well, they're all weird ones, I guess, but this one centered on a strange darkness. I was out for a walk on the streets around a buddy's cottage, which is something we've done many times. We have gone up there with another family and we've borrowed the place and gone up there ourselves, and we've rented cottages around his place, depending on the circumstances. We like the area. 

Per the prescription, I had gone to bed a bit wet, having put on a Lil' Splash maybe 90 minutes before turning out the lights. 

in the dream, I was walking down the street wearing thin running shorts and a t-shirt, over a diaper. I have no idea what kind it was, but in the dream it felt substantial. I was walking with a group of people - I think my wife was among them - and had fallen a little behind them, looking at the neat cottages we were walking past. In the dream, I was marveling to myself about how lucky I was to just be out for a walk with friends, wearing a great diaper, and it was natural - I wasn't self-conscious about it. I was quite sure that my running shorts did very little to disguise it, but in my dream, that didn't matter. It was like I was "out" about it to everyone we were with, and they were all fine with it or didn't care, or I didn't care what they thought. The atmosphere was very liberating. As I crunch-crunch-crunched my way along, I felt an urge to pee, and immediately thought, "Silly me, I'm wearing a diaper and I'm needing to pee.", so I started wetting my diaper.

Here's where it got weirdly dark, and maybe I need to read up on some Freud to get further insight into the meaning of this: the group I was walking a bit behind stopped, and they were looking across a lawn into the front window of one of the cottages. Inside the front room was a casket covered in a royal blue sort of velvet draping, almost the way a flag would be draped over a casket, and on top of it, it had tufted blue buttons, and looked very formal. Nobody was in the room with it, and although we were standing on the road, I could see a lot of detail. Someone who was with us said "That's so-and-so (they said a name, I think it might have been Betty, can't recall, and in any case I don't know a Betty from up there), she passed away a while ago, and she wanted to placed in the front room of her cottage. It's weird walking past her everyday, but you get used to it." I had so many questions! She wanted to be interred in the front room of a cottage? And they let her? It's a bit ripe in there, presumably? The group started walking again, and I stayed standing there for another moment because I was still peeing, but I was also frozen in wonder and slight horror at the strangeness of what I was seeing. Then I felt that for some ominous reason, I shouldn't let the group get too far away from me. With that, I woke up, feeling a weird sense of foreboding. And also notably wet. 

[BabyJilly_S]

Freud would probably just ask you to tell him about your mother

Dreams are really interesting though and I wake up and sometimes and can remember them.

Generally it is thought to be your unconscious (subconscious?) mind mulling over and thinking about previous recent events so psycho analysis of them is sometimes easy, for example I am an NCIS fan and one dream I had after a long binge session I was working with them on a case (that was rather fun). 

In your case I could attempt it and say that the first part is the desire for how you wish your life to be (accepted in diapers) and the appearance of the corpse would be you acknowledging that your previous life (in big boy underwear) is now dead.....

Its quite fun sometimes to do that, though for the sake of your sanity I wouldn't put to much stock in anything you dream, it all gets jumbled about. 

 

 

 

[oznl]

Yeah, like @BabyJilly_S I’m wary about imbuing TOO much meaning into dreams but they CAN reflect stuff that's rattling around in one's mind.  I’ve read that large areas of one’s brain are actually de-activated during REM sleep which is apparently what is behind much of the general weirdness.  Much of our critical thinking and judgement faculties are out to lunch and this is what makes it perfectly normal for large, fluorescent penguins to engage in conversation with you during dreams.

If we strip away the social overlays from death, we are left with core concepts like “ending” and “change”.  Therein lies your answer I suspect.

I don’t have a good explanation for the “out and about in diapers” element of your dream but I’ve had strikingly similar ones maybe a year or so ago which is when, in retrospect, I suspect I was transitioning to bed-wetting.

9 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

The group started walking again, and I stayed standing there for another moment because I was still peeing, but I was also frozen in wonder and slight horror at the strangeness of what I was seeing. Then I felt that for some ominous reason, I shouldn't let the group get too far away from me. With that, I woke up, feeling a weird sense of foreboding. And also notably wet. 

Concerned that changes might separate you from your friends and family?

I do believe that the “pee dream” element however is much simpler and more physiological: you are starting to process signals from your bladder without them immediately waking you.

I don’t need to tell you where that leads.  You might have already had your first “Did I or didn’t I?” moment.  It’s not like you’re not primed for it after 2.5 years diapered.

Looks like the "falling asleep wet" trick has moved the needle here.

[Little Sherri]

I've discovered an unexpected failure mode, unrelated to the specific diaper I was wearing, but rather, related to wearing diapers in general... what about a nearly catastrophic shorts failure? Background: I was at a buddy's place with a few other buddies, and we were making beer on his newly-upgraded equipment, shuffling back and forth, assisting with getting the hops or a hose or a scoop or the paddle. We were drinking beer, as is legally required when making beer, and my plan for the evening was not to have care and control of a vehicle, so my wife had dropped me off. I'd brought my "grab bag" from in the trunk of my car, which contained a diaper and some lotion and a plastic bag. I had on a Rearz Lil's Splash that was newly installed immediately prior to my arrival, so I didn't think I was even going to need a backup diaper, but, better safe than sorry. 

I was squeezing past another guy, sliding my butt along the edge of a workbench that had a bottle opener screwed to it - generally a very convenient arrangement. However, the opener caught the edge of the back pocket of the cargo shorts I was wearing, which I noted by the sudden resistance I felt... and by the tearing sound I detected. Shit. I slid back the other way, extricated the fold of torn material from the metal edge of the bottle opener, and then stepped backwards around the edge of the workbench, and made a beeline for the side door. Everyone was busy and nobody, as far as I could tell, made note of my quick exit. Outside in the yard were his wife & kids, but they were distracted, and I ducked behind the garage, which is the traditional peeing area, so, I was pretty certain nobody was going to walk up and have a look, at least right away. I surveyed the damage. There was an L-shaped tear along the top and side of the flap that covers the back right pocket, about four inches in length, and an inch down on one side. When I tugged my pocket, I could very clearly see my diaper through the opening. Not good. I had no car and no replacement shorts or pants on hand. However, I was wearing a fairly long t-shirt, and when I tucked it in thoroughly, it hung down past my newly-installed "pants window" most of the time... but it needed constant tending. Why had I not worn a onesie? Sheer hubris. With the oversized shorts and the long t-shirt, I felt that I didn't need it. If I had had one on, all that would have been visible through the hole would have been black fabric. Sigh. 

I then spent the rest of the evening checking that my shirt was tucked in about every 5 minutes, certainly every time I changed position or bent to pick something up. I felt plastic with tip of my finger on a few occasions when I tried to discretely probe the tear, so I kept that side of me pressed back against the wall or the workbench, or pressed back into a chair. I continued to enjoy myself, but overlaid on a background of heightened anxiety and a feeling that I needed to make sure I didn't drink so much that I forgot about my self-made predicament, whereas normally I enjoy socializing and basically forgetting about my diaper for a few hours. Instead, I acted almost like I had to drive later - I moderated my intake so that I didn't suffer an excess of jovial inattentiveness. 

Finally, the hour came to summon an Uber, and I headed home, whereupon I was able to have a close look at myself in the mirror. If I bent over or moved my shorts around, my diaper became clearly visible through the tear, at least, clearly visible to me, already knowing that it was indeed a diaper I was seeing. But even viewed by an outsider with no expectations, I'm pretty sure that swatch of coloured plastic peaking out had a bit of a diaper vibe to it. I have to take it on faith that my frequent tucking and deliberate positioning, coupled with the drunkenness and inattention of my friends, kept everything under wraps for the few hours I was there. Note to self: throw a light pair of gym shorts into the go-bag. Apparently structural failures can occur in more than just the diaper itself. 

[Stroller]

2 hours ago, Little Sherri said:

Apparently structural failures can occur in more than just the diaper itself. 

Yep.  Zips fail as well.  I'm always in a onesie so that doesn't matter too much for me.  Plastic pants can fail catastrophically - luckily that's not happened to me in public, but since I'm usually in a cloth nappy that would be pretty serious.

So far so good...

[BabyJilly_S]

Sounded like a job for a manly fix using the eponymous Gaffa (Duct) tape  

Works when you get tape failure too.....

 

 

[jeremy12312]

On 4/20/2021 at 10:16 PM, oznl said:

…south of the Mason-Dixon line...

Just having caught up on about 11 months of this thread, today, this sticks out in my mind. @oznl, do they teach The War Between the States in Australia?  Or did the phrase just get carried over from pop culture?

@Little Sherri, thank you for keeping such detailed records of your journey. Today was a good day, catching up on this one. 

[oznl]

5 hours ago, jeremy12312 said:

Just having caught up on about 11 months of this thread, today, this sticks out in my mind. @oznl, do they teach The War Between the States in Australia?  Or did the phrase just get carried over from pop culture?

No, I can't recall specifically being taught about the American civil war at school Jeremy but...

1. I'm a renaissance kind of guy, I've read a LOT and remember stuff

2. I've been to the USA so many times for work over the last 20 years (before COVID killed my career) that I'm reasonably fluent in North American.  I can even drive competently on the wrong side of the road ?

If I'd used the "Siegfried line" as an analogy, I'd have lost most of my addressable audience!

 

[Little Sherri]

This has gotten kind of long, hasn't it, @jeremy12312? I'm glad someone finds it entertaining. I had no idea when I started this that I'd still be going at it, but apparently I have yet to run out of things to say about navigating an adult world in baby's underpants. 

Today was no exception. I shall entitle this "The Silence of the Diapers". Based on @DailyDi having mentioned the new InControl Active Air cloth-backed disposables, I decided to test drive them. I'm still burning through the last of my Prevail 360 Breezer gym diapers, after which, I have to pivot to one of their newer lines, because the Breezers have been discontinued. I tried out their Perfit 360's and I think I've settled on them as a reasonable facsimile of their predecessors, however, they have very limited capacity, compared with most ABDL diapers. Generally, these days, other then if I'm exercising, I wear plastic diapers, but, when/if the world returns to "normal", the thought did occur to me that having a silent, slim-fitting option that had some range to it might not be a bad thing. However, with most Rearz diapers, I occupy a size right at the upper limit of medium, and lately I've been buying everything in large except the Megamax. The sizing guide for the Active Air suggested that I was within the limits for a medium, which would probably be the most discreet option, but, I would rather go with a relaxed large then an overstretched medium, if reliability is the primary concern. So, I ordered samples, rather than a bag or a case, just to get a feel for the fit, and, if I like the product or not. 

Yesterday, I put on the first sample, a large. Notably, I swapped out a Barnyard for it, which may have contributed to what I am about to report on, because a Barnyard is a big and crinkly diaper. I had gone with the Barnyard because yesterday was the first day that both of my kids were out of the house, at school, all day, so, I indulged in putting on a really big diaper before bed last night, since only my wife was going to be around, and I put on some running shorts over it this morning. I crunch-crunched my puffy derrière around the house for most of the day, until that Barnyard was nearing its capacity limits, which also coincided with the end of the school day, hence the swap over to the Active Air. My wife was on her computer on our bed when I waddled in, dropped my shorts, pulled a new diaper out of the drawer, and headed into the bathroom. I emerged a short time later, in a silent, cloth-backed diaper with hook-and-loop fasteners and the "parking spot" landing zone InControl is known for.

Surprisingly, my wife took note of the swap. She rarely comments on my diapers, but, she looked up and said "Are those new?" I pointed to the diaper - "These?"... "Yeah, those - I don't think I've seen those before." I said that, yes, they were new - I was trying out a sample. 

Her: "Are they cloth?" (I bought an Omutsu a few weeks back that she'd seen me in recently so I thought that might be what she meant by cloth.)

Me: "Not like a cloth diaper, but a cloth-backed disposable."

Her, watching me get dressed: "They're REALLY quiet. You should buy more like that."

Now THIS was interesting. Again, she's almost never expressed any opinion or preference, one way or the other, or any curiosity, really, as to why one day I might be in a slim white medical diaper, and on another day, a giant plastic one featuring pink and blue unicorns or whatever. But, also, she hadn't really ever mentioned the sounds diapers can make, at all, and this put me in the position of having a lot of questions. It had taken me a while to develop the confidence to wear plastic ABDL diapers most of the time, and part of that process was realizing that, although I can usually hear my diaper, nobody else knows or cares what they are hearing... right? RIGHT? Please say I'm right. 

Me: "Well, I like the plastic ones better, generally - they last longer and they're more reliable. These ones are definitely quieter under thin materials, though - I was thinking of using them for the gym or for running, mostly. But the plastic ones I usually wear are pretty quiet under most of my clothes, just not shorts like these." 

Her: "I can usually hear it when you're wearing the plastic Pampers." (Ironically, Pampers aren't plastic-backed these days, but I felt this was a bad time to geek out on the finer points of diaper construction...)

Me: "I'm pretty much always wearing something plastic - are you saying you can ALWAYS hear them?"

Her: "More or less."

Me: "Do you think that OTHER people can hear them?"

Her: "I assume so. They might not know what they're hearing, though." 

Me: "Well that's disturbing. But I honestly haven't really ever had the impression that anyone could hear anything..."

Her: "Well if I can hear them, other people can hear them. If you're worried about it, buy more like those." 

With that, she went back to what she was looking at on her computer, leaving me to silently leave the room and head back over to my office, there to think back on the last 2.5 years, at least 1.5 of which I've spent mostly in plastic ABDL diapers. Getting into and out of the car with buddies, tiling bathroom floors, squatting up and down in confined spaces, repairing ceilings in quiet basements while on a ladder with my diaper area essentially at head level to everyone else in the room... hmmm.