BRILLIANT. From Shauna:
My son wakes up soaked – jammies, sheets and all – EVERY morning. We’ve tried all sorts of ideas, but nothing worked. Finally, I lined his diaper with a heavy absorbency maxi-pad – and it works! I think this would also work for traveling. 🙂
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Excellent idea!
We just recently replaced our bed wetter’s GoodNights with incontinence pads. MUCH cheaper and, although not insuring against a wet bed, seem to make her more alert to the need to pee.
It should be said that this hack can work in reverse, too, for a mama in sudden need while traveling…
A friend of ours does this and said she makes a few slits in the plastic of the liner so overflow goes through to the diaper and not over the sides and out the diaper… 🙂
This is such a good idea! We’re trying it tonight!
I bought Diaper Doublers but after a few days, my daughter had a terrible rash. I think because the diaper actually pulls the moisture away from the skin and the doublers just rested right on her skin, soaking wet all night. I would think that sanitary napkins would work more like the diapers and work way better than the Doublers I bought in the store.
I must second the post by anonymous. I once tore the sides, front, and back off a diaper and used it as a maxi pad in an emergency. Worked like a charm, and was actually quite discrete. Don’t knock it until you’re in the middle of a meeting, your flow goes crazy, and all you have is an extra diaper in your bag. Run to the bathroom and make the best of what you have to work with. Heck, you’re almost like MacGyver!
We found that when our daughter started to have overflow at night it meant it was time for the next diaper size. Just because it fits doesn’t mean it fits, this is precisely the reason diapers have overlapping weight ratings.
We just faze the bigger size in starting at night, until we use up the stock of the smaller size. When traveling we just take the larger one.
Not a maxipad, but using a pantiliner is a great bit of protection for the potty-training child. You know, the one who won’t wear a diaper, but can’t be *totally* trusted in undies yet?
What a great idea! Our son is finally remembering to get up and go, but since he was one year old he was wetting everything every night. We did the up-the-diaper size, but eventually he was still overflowing the largest size. Night-time pullups seemed to leak less than size 6 diapers or regular pullups, but if we have this problem with our younger son, I’ll remember this hack for sure!
I’ve actually seen this one in action…I’m a flight attendant and I had a mom who thought she was prepared for anything…except that her baby would have diarrhea and pooped about five times on a 2 hour flight. Wouldn’t you know, she was the only mom on board. She ran out of diapers, and wound up cleaning out the diaper as much as she could, then lining it with the pads we had on the plane. Gross, but effective.
The idea is simply splendid! Double protection indeed.
anonymous2: I’ll take you a bet MacGyver NEVER had to deal with the diaper menstrual solution. Chewing gum and duct tape to fix a car? Feh! He’s got nuthin’ on Parenthackers.
My grand-daughter is a chronic bedwetter, a few weeks ago she stayed the night and of course there were no overnights. I lined her panties with maxi-pads. It worked great, of course I had a pad across the seat, the front and the center of the panties but there was no leakage. And she’s a heavy wetter.
Great – even more waste for the landfill! That’s the great thing about cloth diapers – you can add more or less cloth and adjust absorbency. And while they’re not environementally perfect, at least they don’t take 500 years to biodegrade! 🙂
If your son is that frequent a wetter, he may also need to be changed in the night – it’s not healthy to be left in a wet diaper for hours on end.
Maddy, I’m assuming you don’t use disposable tampons/pads or wipes, plastic garbage bags, saran wrap or aluminum foil. That’s awesome. Seriously. I know it’s gratifying to not contribute to landfill when you can avoid it.
Anyway.
I’ve often thought of the emergency diaper use for other things. Thankfully traffic hasn’t ever been quite that bad. I have, however, used the hospital maxi-pads stuck to my shoes as floor cleaners.
I used Diaper Doublers for this problem and they worked great. You can usually find them at the supermarket.
Diaper Doublers gave our child a horrible rash; Also, we found that a size 5 varies tremendously from brand to brand. Needing a bigger diaper, we found that Huggies is one of the larger, in that size. Pampers Cruisers is larger than Pampers Baby Dry. Our grocery store brand was not only the cheapest, but smallest and leakiest!
Huh. I’ve just noticed my son, who already wears a size 6, has started getting a little leaky overnight sometimes. I switch between g diapers, which are cloth with flushable liners, and disposables. I’ll bet if I lined a disposable with a flushable, he’d stay dry. I will experiment with this tonight.
I appreciate these ideas because waste management seems to be one of the bigger issues of caring for baby. Mine has started to sleep through the night, with the exception of being extremely annoyed by her soggy diaper. Huggies Overnights have more of the gel stuff in them, but continue to be annoying.
It’s kind of sad that we think of diapers as an emergency sanitary supply. But, I believe all that stuff should be plentiful and free.
LOVE the idea of using a pantyliner for a potty-training child who might dribble a little in her “big-girl-undies,” before making it to the potty. Yes, I know it is more waste that will clog our landfills, but it is MUCH LESS than a diaper or pull-up would contribute. They take up less space in the diaper bag and since I’m a preggie mommy at the moment, I have a whole box full that could go to good use and clear out some much-needed closet space. Thanks for the great tip. This should be a hack itself.
I’m wondering how the panty liner would work for a boy? I think I’ll try it!
As for nighttime wetting, I resort to picking up my almost 7 year old, carrying him to the bathroom (he’s out cold), standing him up (remarkably he doesn’t fall down), undoing his jammies and then telling him to go pee when he’s aimed correctly. I’m thankful that I did it when he wakes up dry and feel guilty when I forget and he wakes up wet. Can he make it all the way through the night without wetting? Yes, about half the time. But taking him pee takes me 2 minutes, vs. an hour or more changing the bed and washing the sheets.
If you limit the amount of liquid a child drinks after 6 or 7pm depending on bedtime it helps reduce the amount of urine produced during the night. This in turn helps the child stay dryer and sleep better through the night. There are also bed pads that have a wetproof backing on them that go under the child that help keep from having to change all the sheets. Just change the pjs etc and replace wet bed pad. They sell the on Amazon.com and in medical supply stores etc. Also, remind the child to go potty before bedtime which helps them form a good habit.
One thing I learned in raising four kids is that always ask your kids to pee before going straight to bed.. this always works because their bladders would have longer time to feel full and give them the need to pee.. by the time my babies reached 18 months thats when they started to stop bed wetting within the night.. but I still have to be precautious at times because they still tend to pee especially if they had been playing the whole day.. then that’s the time that I had to teach them to empty their bladders before going to bed.. and by the age of three they would wake up in the middle of the night if they would feel the urge to pee.. so by then my sheets are already free from that stinky smell every night.. asking them to do this evry night would also teach them a good habit of keeping themselves dry within the night and having a good sleep..
Simple and smart. Thanks, Manel.