• Thu, Jan 24 - 6:10 pm ET

Diapers & 10 Other Unnecessary Baby Items Hindering Your Child’s Success

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  • Zoe

    My mother has been a kindergarten teacher for 45 years, and for the first time ever she is getting 4-year-olds who aren’t toilet-trained because of over-dependence on the convenience of disposable nappies. It used to be extremely unusual to have a child over the age of 2 in nappies, and now it’s standard. I’m not sure about it hindering walking, but I don’t think it’s healthy to have a child sitting in its own filth for the first 4 years of its life. Is this entire article sarcastic? I’m sorry but I don’t really get it. I don’t have kids but my nieces and nephews were all completely trained by the age of 2 with the odd nighttime accident until the age of 3 – they hated soiling themselves.

    • bumbler

      I believe the US average age of potty training is 3 years old now. I’ve never waited past 18 months but even I’ll admit the convenience of disposable diapers is a hard habit to kick. My grandma said she potty trained her kids ASAP because she was boiling and hang drying cloth diapers back in the day, and it was a huge pain in the arse, and gross. I also wonder how people can bear the cost of 4+ years of diapers? Especially if you have multiple kids. Huh.

  • Eileen

    I thought this article was going to be about the EC (elimination communication) movement. A friend of a friend of mine dated this doula for awhile, and she was always talking about how she doesn’t believe in diapers; that parents should spend all their time trying to communicate with their infants, to pick up on the subtle cues that mean, “I need to go.”

    A nice idea, perhaps, but only if you plan to spend 24 hours a day watching your baby and accidentally getting peed on.

    • bumbler

      I’d never take on EC because I am more than happy to enjoy the spoils of the developed world (ie, disposable and/or cloth diapers), but I do believe EC is the global standard. I mean, it’s not like people in rural African countries have an Amazon.com Huggies subscription, but they also don’t have carpeted floors, it’s legit to let your baby pee on the street in public, and the babies are always strapped to the mother or other female family members. I think sometimes we forget to think about how the majority of the world survives without western conveniences. You can say is gross or uncivilized, but many-a-babe in this world never don a diaper. I wonder if those women would sign up for diapers if it was an option, like we have, or if they’d stick with their own methods?

    • Victoria

      Yes, but those places also don’t have preschools, kindergartens, childcare, grocery stores or other advantages that frown on my lil’ darlin’ ‘eliminating’ all over the place. Also, I love carpeting. Also, all kinds of ancient people used moss/sealskin, animal skins or whatever they had to cut down on filth in their living conditions. Everyone has their own preferences, but a clean dry baby is definitely my preference. Dipes do not not equal chains. The little mister gets around just fine.

    • Victoria

      Heheh! “Movement.”

  • SusannahJoy

    well yeah, how else are they going to learn “that the world isn’t always unicorns and rainbows”? I’ll admit, I was a little worried about this article going in (“is she seriously going to argue that diapers are bad?!?”), but I really laughed at those one liners. Great job!

  • lea

    I do feel bad for all those adults who have to crawl and shuffle around on the floor all day because their parents just had to put them in nappies, so the poor mites never learnt to walk properly.

    Wait, what?

  • http://www.facebook.com/paul.white.3532507 Paul White

    I’m not giving up diapers, I don’t care what the study says. I am not spending my whole day cleaning up poop and getting peed on.

    I do that enough WITH diapers

    • Tinyfaeri

      Here, here. Besides, Babygirl’s a poop ninja. Half the time we’d never see it coming.

  • Anon

    Did you even READ the article from Scientific American? All they said is that toddlers in diapers had more trouble walking than naked toddlers (and that toddlers in bulkier cloth diapers had even more problems than toddlers in thinner disposables) and if you think about it for two seconds it makes sense. Don’t adults walk differently when they wear diapers/large pads, and they already know how to walk? It didn’t say that there was noticeable difference in development later on down the road or imply that you shouldn’t use diapers. Read before you get offended!

    • Ellie

      It’s a joke, duh. Lighten up.

  • Tea

    Well, in theory, everything but Lullabys and blankets, babies have been going without for most of history.

    Clearly the best strategy is to raise your child hunter-gatherer style.

  • Kim Lewis

    This is funny.

  • Leb

    Welllll, I agree with pacifiers, bottles, and strollers. Over-reliance on pacies and bottles can lead to orthodontic problems, and some claim a dependency on oral-fixated soothing that can lead to over-eating and weight problems down the road. Haven’t seen any hard evidence on the second claim, but the first is well established. As for strollers, I’m increasingly dismayedby the number of 4, 5, 6 year olds (and older!) I see still being pushed around in them. They’re not babies, let them walk! If they whine, so what? Kids that age whine about all sorts of things, but the NEED activity an exercise (not to mention learning patience as a life skill), and walking counts. It might be easier for the parent to strap in their preschooler and hand him their iPhone so he stays quiet during a mall trip, but in the long run I don’t think that’s doing the child OR the parent any favors.