Interesting Question About Todays Bed Wetting Commercials

[wayney]

I just saw a commercial on TV about good nites diapers for older kids and it made me wonder something. I'm 34 yrs and and back in the late 80's early 90's I can't remember ever seeing commercials like that or ever seeing diapers bigger than an XL that fit up to 65lbs. So my question is this. What did our generation do in this situation ? I realise there is cloth diaper and all but I really doubt many parents went to that extent to keep kids dry.

[AutieAB]

I just saw a commercial on TV about good nites diapers for older kids and it made me wonder something. I'm 34 yrs and and back in the late 80's early 90's I can't remember ever seeing commercials like that or ever seeing diapers bigger than an XL that fit up to 65lbs. So my question is this. What did our generation do in this situation ? I realise there is cloth diaper and all but I really doubt many parents went to that extent to keep kids dry.

Well according to Wikipedia (hardly the best info source but good enough), Goodnites were originally released in '94 which would explain why there were no adverts in the 80's and early 90's. Another reason would be that diapers for older kids and adults have become far less taboo subjects over the past decade or so. 10 years ago, you'd never have seen an advert for 'protective underwear' or other such euphemisms on mainstream TV channels but these days people are more encouraged to discuss things which are perceived to be embarrassing so there's more of a case for advertising.

Now if we could just dump that 'Depends are for elderly people' image we'd be sorted

[sirpoopsalot]

We slept in plastic sheet. I never really had a problem with bed wetting other than a rare night time accident but remember sleeping over a friends house and he would have to change the sheets every morning. He would soak up the excess with a towel and put the plastic sheets right in the washer. For some reason I thought this was very cool and I was a little jealous. Go figure.

[enelyababyg]

I think I wore cloth diapy's with plastic but that was so long ago I don remember dat well alot

[babyfett]

My mom was a nurse. She took at as being young and having small bladders.

[justindiapers]

Well according to Wikipedia (hardly the best info source but good enough), Goodnites were originally released in '94 which would explain why there were no adverts in the 80's and early 90's.

Hmm, that would explain why my parents never bought Goodnights for me. I had always kind of wondered about that. Anyway, I had plastic sheets and had to wash the (cloth) sheets most mornings. It wasn't too bad, except that, like runaway said, plastic sheets were a big pain when friends came over due to the noise of the sheet.

[Red Barchetta]

I can't really say much on this topic,

I have ALWAYS just had a "standard" diaper, and plastic pants.

And yes, even in the '80s-'90s there were disposable diapers (not pull-ups) that would fit, you just didn't hear about them very often at all.

[dandelion]

I can't comment on bed wetting in the 80s, since I was born in '85, but I do remember around 1995-96 I had a friend who wet the bed occasionally (maybe once or twice a week). It was really interesting to me even then, so I asked questions about it to find out as much as I could. Basically, his family just had rubber sheets on every one of their kids' beds (they were 12,10, and 6). To deal with the bed-wetting, they were really into preventative measures, so no one was allowed to have anything to drink within about two hours before bed and his parents made sure that we peed in the toilet before we got in bed.

I remember that they experimented with using diapers once, but my friend hated it and his parents would rather wash his bedding every week rather than have him be upset. His family was pretty liberal about the bed-wetting/diaper sort of stuff, since all the kids had occasional bed/pants-wetting accidents. In fact, their daughter (6) was still in diapers and drank from a bottle. Going there after school was always very intriguing for me, because the first thing they did when they got home was get the daughter into a fresh diaper and give her a bottle. Since I was out of diapers at 18 months, she always seemed really old to be in them and I was very jealous of her.

As a bit of an off-topic anecdote, it was at this house that I had my first "accident." My friend had peed in his bed (which I knew because he got up before me and stripped his sheets) so I decided to do it too, and pretend it was an accident. I felt bad immediately after, since I had just made even more work for my friend's poor mom, but she was really nice about it, and best of all, she didn't tell my parents.

[rusty pins]

My opinions on it. I was born in the very late 50's and the times were a lot different. I wet the bed until I was 6 years old and was diapered every night in cloth diapers and gerbers plastic pants. Bedwetting was more common back then than you might think, it just wasn't advertized all over TV and such. Because it was common and all the psychiatrists wern't so concerned about harming a kids ego, diapers were just the common way that parents delt with bedwetting. I was never treated like a baby or different because I wet the bed and had to wear diapers. Now, here are the changes that I've seen happen over the past 45 years! Women went from stay at home Mrs Cleaver (Leave it to Beaver) moms in the 50's and started to become liberated in the 60's. Disposable diapers started becoming popular with the mass production of Pampers. You started seeing TV commercials for them in the late 60's and early 70's all the time. Then came other disposable diapers like Kimbies (the for runner of Huggies), and later LUVS. Now you have working mothers and using disposable diapers became a time saver as opposed to washing cloth diapers. Also, with 2 incomes families could afford the disposable diapers easier. With both parents working there came a higher standard of living. 2 cars per family, 2 or more TV sets, a lot of the extras. Because of that, families got into the habit of having nice things and therefor, either out of necessity or whatever, got used to both parents working. Unfortunatly, inflation really seemed to escallate in the 70's. Now it sometimes became necessary for both parents to work in order to make ends meet and put some money away in the saving's account. That also left less time for parents to spend with their kids since many mothers were now working instead of being at home mom's. Perhaps the really young kids were placed in day care or a grandparent watched them in the day. Without busy working Moms being at home all day to take care of the kids, I believe that going into the 80's and 90's kids just started getting toilet trained later in life. With all the different diaper commercials I believe it started becomming more acceptable with 2 working parents that kids would just be in diapers longer. Diaper manufacturers recognized this trend and started making bigger and bigger sized diapers to fulfill the growing need of older kids in diapers. I think diapers for older kids just became more acceptable over time and so did bedwetting. That's why you see commercials for goodnites on TV and even 10 and 12 year old kids discussing why they may wet the bed and how the goodnites make them feel better. Face it, if there wasn't a need for them, you would not find goodnites on store shelves in those huge sizes that fit kids up to 85 pounds! Also look at the Pull ups which are supposed to be training pants. Look at the largest sizes of pull ups! That tells us that parents do keep their kids in diapers longer at older ages than 45 years ago. Instead of babies in diapers, they have actually become kids in diapers. I believe it's due to changing society, the high standard of living in the United States that we have become acustom to over the past years and just general acceptance that older kids will often still need diapers!

[kittyclaire]

well i dont know how it is in the rest of the world but here in the netherlands i never ever saw a commercial or something for diapers, neither do you hear anyone about it...a little like how you described it was before my time^^

[DiaperDude06]

Now if we could just dump that 'Depends are for elderly people' image we'd be sorted

I sent a e-mail to P&G (the maker of Depends). I told them they should have more younger people in their commercials and ads. I told them that I feel old when I buy their product.

They told me they would give the message to their marketing division. Then they sent me two coupons of $2 off any Depend product.

[wayney]

I sent a e-mail to P&G (the maker of Depends). I told them they should have more younger people in their commercials and ads. I told them that I feel old when I buy their product.

They told me they would give the message to their marketing division. Then they sent me two coupons of $2 off any Depend product.

Since whe does P&G make depends ? P&G makes Pampers and used to make Attends. Kimberley Clarke makes Depends and Huggies.

[Red Barchetta]

Since whe does P&G make depends ? P&G makes Pampers and used to make Attends. Kimberley Clarke makes Depends and Huggies.

[Guest diamondback688]

KC also makes Goodnites, if i remember correctly.

[DiaperDude06]

Since whe does P&G make depends ? P&G makes Pampers and used to make Attends. Kimberley Clarke makes Depends and Huggies.

Sorry, that was who I meant.

[rusty pins]

Good idea and good intentions by requesting they use younger people in their adds, but I would bet my week's salary that thier standard response is to drop your request in good ol' file 13 (trash can) and mail you the standard $2 off coupon.

[Floaty_Boy]

I just saw a commercial on TV about good nites diapers for older kids and it made me wonder something. I'm 34 yrs and and back in the late 80's early 90's I can't remember ever seeing commercials like that or ever seeing diapers bigger than an XL that fit up to 65lbs. So my question is this. What did our generation do in this situation ? I realise there is cloth diaper and all but I really doubt many parents went to that extent to keep kids dry.

I was a bedwetter in the late '70s on to 1980. My parents' solution was humiliation, beatings, and forcing me to wear to bed the largest baby plastic pants they could find without a diaper underneath. And sometimes all the next day (under clothes for going out or to school, with nothing over them at home or when family came over for a higher "embarassment" factor) The thinking was that I was only doing it because I was too lazy to get up and use the bathroom and wearing the plastic pants by themselves would be hot, sweaty and uncomfortable and would make me "want" to get up and pee in the toilet. And having friends/neighbors/family see me in them would make me "want" to grow up and quit being a lazy baby.

I think some comedian once said that it's a wonder any of us survive our parents...

--Floaty

[AutieAB]

Good idea and good intentions by requesting they use younger people in their adds, but I would bet my week's salary that thier standard response is to drop your request in good ol' file 13 (trash can) and mail you the standard $2 off coupon.

A coupon that anyone can print directly off their website anyway...

[Guest Craig]

Rusty Pins makes sense - pretty close to my experience. I just used cloth diapers and plastic pants as instructed and furnished by my parents. I'm several years after him, but not old enough to have had Goodnites or jumbo-sized Pampers (size 6, 7, 18 or whatever size they're up to now) as an option when I was a kid.

They were irritated by it all, especially my father, and they didn't want to deal with the bedwetting problem. I had already apparently earned a "D" in potty training by not getting it right during the day until about age 3 I'm told, so I was already off on the wrong foot. So as soon as I could handle diapering myself for bed the ball was in my court including the "pre-laundry" rinsing.

When I got older I switched to various disposables for overnight to dump the laundry work.

[pottypants]

I was born in the 40s, and disposable diapers wee just not around. I wet the bed until I was 11 or 12, and the only protection I ever had was a rubber sheet under the regular bed sheets. My mom, up until I was 9 or so helped me out of my pee soaked Pjs and stripped the bed sheets every morning and washed them. After I reached 9, I stripped my own bedding and got out of the wet Pjs by myself. I never slept over, or had a friend sleep over with me until I was in my teens. The worst part was having my pee stained sheets on the clothesline everyday.

[tndyperboy]

I was a bedwetter until my early teens; being that I was born in 1956 it was cloth diapers and plastic pants. That was my mother's solution to the problem until I outgrew the diapers. After that it was the plastic mattress cover and changing the bed. As I got older it was my responsibility to deal with the wet bedding etc. With 2 other children my mother just didn't want to mess with it. I don't know why my mother didn't get a larger size diaper and I never asked. My father also did not "deal" with the bedwetting son very well. Years later I found out he was a bedwetter and his father (who he never talks about, long story) beat him for it. At least I was spared the pee stained sheets on the clothes line, we always had a washer and dryer. As for disposable diapers I don't remember even seeing one until the early '70s. Though I have a cousin that was born in the mid-1960's and I seem to think my Aunt used disposable on him.

[Guest Craig]

Huh. Reading the comment above I now wonder if that's why my father was so hostile to a bedwetting problem. Maybe not though. The only time I remember his ever mentioning the subject is something about some guy in his Army outfit being a bedwetter, and that guy being transferred "out of their unit" really fast. That story made an impression on me as a kid.

I know it's a real topic of debate, and I'm not convinced one way or the other, but I wonder what effect my continual use of diapers for bedwetting as a kid has had on my attitudes about diapers throughout my adult life. But that's another topic....

Thanks for sharing the thoughts - it's a help!