Wearing Diapers up to 24/7 - Pros, Cons, and Options

By BitterGrey

There are a number of pros, cons, and options to consider when deciding how often to wear diapers. These are listed below, ordered from those relevant to ABDLs who rarely wear diapers to those affecting ABDLs who wear diapers on a twenty-four-seven basis. They are referenced to the cost/benefit curves of diaper economics, where this order would be left-to-right.

Pros

There are a number of factors affecting the benefits curve for an ABDL who wears and wets disposables. They include gratifying a paraphilia, a qualified independence from bathrooms, and the option of developing incontinence.

• Gratification of the paraphilia: The first feature is the gratification of the paraphilia. This is analogous to feeding the hunger that drives ABDLs to be ABDLs. In theory, this benefit can be concentrated into only a few minutes perhaps every few months. Following the analogy, not eating lets the hunger build up, but most opt to eat regularly. This feature might only be present in those with infantilism or a diaper fetish.
• Quick changes: Another benefit that decreases with increasing time spent in diapers might be the enjoyment of changes. Babies are generally changed on their backs. As ABDLs spend more time is spent in diapers, less time might be devoted to each change, and the changes might increasingly occur in public restrooms. As a result, the changes will be more practical, often using a standing position. This much less babyish position also precludes the direct sprinkling of baby powder.
• Restrooms: Wearing diapers gives a qualified independence from restrooms. When wearing diapers, you won't need to go to a bathroom every time you pee. However, you will still need them. For example, if you realize that your diaper might imminently leak, you might still find yourself desperately searching for a restroom. Once there, your options will be limited. For example, at some events there will be a line for the stalls and only an open trough will be available without a wait. Another case in which you'll need a restroom is for defecation. Unless you are highly confident in your efforts to control the odor with chlorophyll^DEF, you'll need a restroom either before or after. If you don't mess the diaper, then you'll need to open tapes (which won't stick as well afterwards), slide the diaper down, or change. You'll be in the restroom either a little longer or a lot longer than you would have been otherwise. While diapers might give a qualified independence from restrooms, you might actually be spending more time in them.
• Incontinence: Wearing diapers constantly permits the development of full urinary incontinence and/or bedwetting. With practice, ABDLs who wear often but not constantly might develop some measure of conditional incontinence^DEF, where wetting is easier or less conscious when wearing diapers.
• Transitions: A number of habits and practices lend themselves to wearing diapers 24/7 or not at all. After some time in diapers, the bladder might adjust to peeing more often. Transition from one set of habits to another might be annoying. Additionally, there are some practices that work well for wearing 24/7, but not intermittently. One example would be spreading out the next diaper to protect the changing surface before laying down and taking the previous diaper off. At the transition of out of diapers, there is no next diaper.
• Habituation: A final factor affecting pros is habituation. Simply put, the newness of any new state will wear off. Incontinence and diaper wearing are not exceptions.

Cons

Offsetting these benefits are, not surprisingly, a number of costs. Their relative importance will vary with the individual. They include binging-and-purging, shy bladders, leaks, indirect costs, and of course, the expense of the diapers themselves.

• The binge-purge cycle: When diapers are rarely worn, there is a risk of the binge-purge cycle. This is a dangerous state, not only because of it's impact on self-image, but because of it's stability. The negatives would rationally lead one to wear less or not at all. Along with guilt, this amplifies the purge stage, and the conviction to never wear diapers again. Since this isn't an option for paraphilic infantilists and others with a condition driving their desires, a binge inevitably occurs. This cycle can be avoided by intentionally wearing diapers sometimes, or finding some other way to vent these desires.
• Shy bladders: If diapers are worn infrequently, less than maybe a few times per month, shy bladders might be a recurring problem. The retrained bladder might revert between diapers, and you might need to be retrain it again. If diapers are worn more frequently, the bladder will still need to be retrained to be able to wet in a diaper, but will stay retrained.
• Diaper prices: With increasing time spent in diapers, overall cost of the diapers obviously increases. However, the marginal cost of the diapers also tends to increase. This factor is less clear. This increase is because the risks of embarrassment or damage from leaks tends to increase. Economically, risk is the probability of a leak times the embarrassment or damage the leak might cause. Even if the probability of a leak is the same, the risk of leaks is higher at times when a leak would be more embarrassing or damaging. To moderate these risks, you'll need to moderate the probability of leaks. The probability of leaks increases as more of the diaper's capacity is used. Changing a diaper at only a third of its theoretical capacity wouldn't be atypical. As a result, you'll need to change more often and/or wear higher capacity (more expensive) diapers at times. Since those who don't wear diapers often don't wear them during these embarrassing or damaging times, this factor causes the marginal cost to increase with more frequent diaper use. Reducing diaper prices might involve complicated wearing patterns discussed below.
• Luggage:In addition to the monetary cost of the diapers, there are non-monetary costs such as the need for luggage. This might range from a diaper bag when running local errands, to an additional suitcase or two when traveling. The inconvenience of the additional suitcases can be replaced with that of having to arrange shipments to the hotel.
• Laundry:Even if disposable diapers are used, there will be additional laundry due to leaks. Preparing for this additional laundry might also involve additional luggage, in the form of extra clothing, etc.
• Risk of discovery: Wearing diapers more of the time and to more places increases the chances of a chance meeting with someone you didn't plan to wear diapers around, or that someone will notice the diapers.
• Odors: The smell of the diaper might be a factor. While disposables do a good job of reducing odor, some have their own distinct smell. Odors are a particular problem in poorly ventilated rooms.
• Rashes: Diaper rash becomes more of a problem when the skin can't air out between diapers.
• Opportunity costs: If diapers cause you to miss an opportunity, that is a cost. Someone who spends time alone instead of with friends, because he wants to wear diapers but doesn't want to do so around friends, needs to include that isolation among the costs. Diapers cost him an opportunity to be with friends. Similarly, the swimmer, cyclist, or soccer player who gives up time at their sport to wear diapers has to include that lost time as a cost.
• The environmental impact: All those disposable diapers add continuously to landfills. (However, a non-politically-correct kinky economist might add that war, famine, pollution, and overpopulation are also threats to the planet; and that these can be tied directly or indirectly to overpopulation due to heterosexuality. Homosexuality and the paraphilias might be our planet's only hope.)
• Divided wardrobes: Another category of cost that affects those who wear diapers sometimes involves the need to have a divided wardrobe. Your size will be different depending on whether you are wearing diapers or not, and on how thick they are. For example, you might wear jeans with a 36" waistband when undiapered, 38" when in a moderately absorbent disposable, and 40" when in thick cloth diapers. Depending on how baggy you are willing to dress, you might need to have multiple sizes in your closet. The pant lengths might also be different. ( One tip to avoid having to check size tags each time you get dressed it to buy blue jeans in your undiapered size, and black jeans in your diapered size. ) This is not a problem for those who wear rarely (maybe only at home in their sweats) or who wear similar diapers all the time.
• Being passably incontinent: If friends or coworkers notice your diapers, they will probably assume you are incontinent, except if they notice that you aren't always wearing them. Since most people don't know (and don't want to know) that much about incontinence, being passably incontinent is far easier than being passably female is for a male transvestite. However, there are still some mistakes that you can make, such as wearing pants that don't fit well over your diaper.
• Adaptation: Finally, with any change in the amount that diapers are worn, some other adaptations might be effective. With experience and adaptation, the costs of a new level of usage might decrease. This might offset the effect of habituation, which might reduce the benefits of the new level.

Options

The above factors were discussed in reference to an ABDL who wore and wet disposables. There are, of course, many other options. Most basically, these other options include using cloth diapers, or wearing but not using diapers, or using more complicated wearing patterns.

Effects of Using Cloth

The discussion so far has focused on disposables, for two reasons. First, the costs are more easily quantified and more linear with usage. Second, younger ABDLs are more likely to be interested in disposables.

Cloth diapers involve a higher initial investment: One cloth diaper or one good plastic pant will cost about as much as a bag of disposables. To wear all or most of the time, you'd need to buy plastic pants and cloth diapers for half a week, plus a real diaper bag, diaper pail, etc. After that investment, the marginal monetary costs are usually lower. There are exceptions. For example, washing and drying one cloth diaper in a load by itself will cost more than using one disposable. See Cloth Diapers without a Pail for more detail on managing intermittent use of cloth diapers. Since the cloth diapers and plastic pants will eventually wear out, their replacement cost also needs to be considered.

While monetary costs are generally lower, the non-monetary costs of cloth are higher. The diapers should be washed within a few days of being used, and this might require you to do laundry a couple times per week. Cloth diapers might also be more prone to leak, further increasing the amount of laundry. (Together, these give rise to the joke that ABDL really stands for 'Always Busy Doing Laundry.') Cloth diapers will also be thicker than an equivalently absorbent disposable. Thus they are harder to conceal or might need to be changed more often. When changed, they need to be packed out, instead being of disposed of in a nearby trashcan.

In terms of benefits, the effect depends on the ABDL. While older ABDLs (born before 1960) might enjoy cloth diapers more than disposable, increasingly, ABDLs prefer disposables. The cloth diapers might serve as diapers to avoid binging-and-purging, but might not be the same.

Wearing but not Wetting

The discussion so far has focused on ABDLs who wet their diapers. The economics are simpler for those who don't. Not wetting some or all of the time would reduce the benefits for those who enjoy wetting. However, this also eliminates a list of costs. The risk of leaks is gone, retraining wouldn't be an issue, and odor will be less of a problem. Disposables could be worn longer if they weren't used, but the padding will still disintegrate over time. Cloth diapers should still be changed daily, similar to underwear. Cloth diapers also wouldn't need to be as bulky since they wouldn't need to be as absorbent. Without pee, and smaller in bulk an number, the cloth diapers will be easier to launder. Additionally, those who wore cloth but did not use them would have the option of going without plastic pants. If plastic pants are worn, they could still be used after they start to crack.

Pulling the diaper down to use a urinal or toilet might be awkward. Passing the penis out one leg might be more practical. Either way, be careful not to compress the urethra. Undoing tapes will reduce their strength later, but since they won't need to hold a soaked diaper, this might not be a problem. The backsheet might stretch, which also might or might not be a problem.

Complicated Wearing Patterns

To reduce the cost of diapers, you may also end up engaging in one or two remarkably unbabyish practices. Neither of these are without their costs. The first of these two practices involves stocking a range of absorbencies, or using doublers to achieve variable absorbencies. Stocking multiple absorbencies reduces monetary cost by permitting you to adjust absorbency based on expectations, but at the cost of added complexity.

A still more complicated approach is the first-half/first-half/second-half/second-half pattern. Use of this pattern might be unique to cheap economists. Let's say that leaks would be much more costly during the day, and that you could get through the day with two diapers, plus doublers, if leaks weren't costly. In the morning, the first diaper is used without a doubler. Figuratively, it could only be half-used, since using the other half of its capacity would include a high probability of leaks. At lunchtime, the second diaper for the day is put on, and the first is bagged and packed out. Ideally, this diaper would have enough capacity to get you through the rest of the workday without a significant risk of leaks. After leaving the workplace, add a doubler if evening wetting requires it. Using the rest of the second diaper's capacity will cause a higher probability of leaks, but because those leaks won't be at the office, there is less risk. Then, just before bed, put the first diaper on with a doubler. Again, since leaks at home are less embarrassing and damaging, the risk of leaking might be less even if the probability is higher. This will involve putting on a cold, wet diaper, which might be a positive or negative experience. Men considering this pattern might wish to consider positioning themselves up-up-down-down. That is, the be "up" during the day, and using mainly the front of the diaper. Then, in the evening, flip to "down" to use the middle and back; the second half. While the first-half/first-half/second-half/second-half pattern might have the minimal direct cost of wearing and using disposables, there are other costs involved. For example, that first diaper would have twenty four hours of bacterial growth by the the time it is replaced with the first diaper for the next day.

Do you have Questions, tips, suggestions, or other feedback?

Reader Comments: "Always On" commented "I have been 24/7 for 4 years now and know I will never go back. I love the convenience and security of never having to worry about daytime leaking and wet spots on my pants as well as never to again have to worry about waking up in a soaked bed. I treat it as a fact of life and just acknowledge the issue. I remove my diaper when I'm at the Dr. for exams and put on a new diaper when I'm finished. Neither the Dr. Or any nurses have ever said a word. I also take my diaper off at LA Fitness after a work out, shower, and put on a dry diaper right there in the locker room. Many have watched this and [I] have yet to have one guy say anything. I think as long as you just treat it as a matter of fact you'll find few that will seem to care one way or the other. I love it."

Related Topics: A non-ABDL artists blog on his Ten Days in Diapers