Diaper Upsizing Thought

[Dale Ridge]

Not too awfully long ago, I was visiting a relative at a dementia care facility, and noticed in the bathroom of his/her room that there was a package of Tena size Large, standard disposable diapers.  The patient was really on the small/medium band width, and I'm just now wondering if the care facility was purposefully using a larger than normal size diaper on the patient to increase the overall holding capacity of the diaper.  Does this make any sense?  I mean using a size L on a medium size patient, or a size M on a small size patient, does anyone think this would increase holding capacity and increase the mean times between diaper changes????? 

And, would this perhaps be something for me to try, (using a L size diaper on my nominal M body size) to increase holding capacity thru the night? 

Would be interested in your thoughts........ 

[TinyBunny]

The front of the diaper should entirely cover the belly button, so use the largest size that complies with this rule.  There is an exception: if the user is a bit chubby then they might prefer a diaper that doesn't come up as high.  I like my new cloth diapers for this reason.

 

But yes the official capacities are higher as the sizes increase.

I mean the smallest size that complies with this rule... sorry.

[Cruiser 03]

The difference between small and medium and large extra large isn’t in the absorbency it is just a larger plastic shell.

[WetDad]

Not true for every vendor. With NorthShore the padding dimensions are different for each size, same for Seni.

[Little Sherri]

I've 

On 1/3/2023 at 1:57 AM, Cruiser 03 said:

The difference between small and medium and large extra large isn’t in the absorbency it is just a larger plastic shell.

I've found that this differs depending on the manufacturer. I've had low-end medical diapers where the only thing that changed going up a size was the width and length of the plastic or cloth-like shell, whereas with better products, and particularly with ABDL diapers, every component seems to scale up. 

That said, I've discovered that there are useful limits to how much additional capacity can be realized via going up a size. I once tried a Rearz Alpaca in XL as a sample because I was curious about exactly this - could a super-sized diaper be a hack to super-sized absorbency? I was a medium in terms of waist size at the time, but tended to wear large in a lot of brands, because I have large legs that made the bottom tabs struggle to hit the landing zone on some medium-sized diapers. 

The XL Alpaca went half way up my belly and half way up my back, and the tapes came most of the way around at the front. The diaper was absurdly large on me, and useless for wearing anywhere other than around the house, because it would have been visible from space. On top of that practical consideration, I noted two other confounds to extracting optimal performance from oversized diapers: first, how likely was it that I'd ever have utilized the upper third of the back of the diaper, located, as it was, in the same postal code as my shoulder blades? I'd have had to we while hanging from monkey bars, perhaps. And even at the front, I'd have needed to be lying on my belly for a good stretch to involve the padding up around my diaphragm. And, second, once the thing was somewhat saturated, I got some run-off leakage around the back of my thighs, even though the diaper probably had 50% + of it's capacity remaining, because it just didn't fit that well on me. You're better off in a properly-fitted diaper with a booster, than you are in an oversized diaper, in my opinion. 

[PuraVidaDip]

The absorbency does increase with size for most all vendors. Same absorbency per square cm, but more area = more absorbency.

I sized up my nighttime diapers. I find the larger ones aren't effective for my daily use (sitting down, walking around a bunch), but if I am just walking around my house or lying in bed, size up to the belly button helps.

So, for active diapers, I go true to size or maybe size down a bit. For inactive, size up. True to what the nursing home might have done. They could have just been out of the smaller size or it was a mistake.

[ken2988]

I have also found for longer trips or where I will not have the ability to go somewhere and change diapers, that an insert makes a huge difference in capacity.  While I do have a few family members that know I need diapers for incontinence, it is not widely known by most people I work with.  As for the women that I date, most of them didn't have an issue with me wearing diapers when I finally got around to telling them.  In some cases the women even had fun with it and asked to change me.

[Thickpasticpants]

I use medium briefs, usually Abena Abri-M4. I made a mistake ordering and asked for L4, the large model. Well, maybe it absorbed more, but the opening between my legs resulted in leaks. So, I would say go with your true size. If you need more protection use a booster pad. 

[ValentinesStuff]

Most likely it is just laziness. If they just stock one size, they don't need to keep track of which size to keep in each room. One size fits all.