Diaper help needed

Arrowhead

My daughter has a child just coming out of diapers and I have a child just going into diapers. For the most part, my wife can take care of her own toileting. However, she occasionally has incontinence, both bowel and bladder. Last night, I put a diaper on her for the first time. If you have experience with a diapered patient, I would appreciate knowing what to expect, plus any tips and/or advice. Thank you for your help.

Battlebuddy

   It’s not a great stage to enter. But I guess the stage before diapers is the worst . Accidents, messes etc. so I think that if you can get diapers to stay on it’s such a big relief . Remove all the undies and never look back. 

   I never got the hang of diapers and only use pull-ups . One trick I used is to change them when the pull-ups have been pulled down on the toilet. Pull the old one off , and when slip a clean one on. Of course you have to help with wiping at that stage.  Not fun. 

   Start buying baby wipes by the case, blue gloves and high quality products. I use the Tena pro skin incontinence pull-ups and Abena  Abri flex premium for night. And also a good paste for keeping diaper task at bay is important too. I use Boudreaux Butt paste. 

Cobalt

My son never once questioned the transition to diapers. Maybe it is because he had so many hospitalizations and surgeries that he was used to them?

My tips:  we use pull-ups during the day.  They seem like underpants to him.  During the night, he was tabbed diapers, easiest to change a diaper quickly during the night and when he wakes.

If he has a pull-up on and when need to change it, we use scissors to cut the sides and remove.

We also watch carefully if he has a rash or redness developing.  We use a lot of general "baby wipes" from Costco, the sensitive skin kind. We also buy large, thicker and softer wipes for adults.  You need those for big messes.  We also keep CeraVu cream on hand and sometimes a clear skin protectant.  Over time, you have to be more and more careful about skin integrity and guard again irritations and possible infections.  Good luck!

PS. If your loved one has documented issues with bed sores or skin breakdown, check with the insurance company will cover the cost of diapers.  We have monthly deliveries of diapers (2 kinds), nitrile gloves, and disposable bed pads.  I spent almost $3,000 in my son's first year of using diapers all the time before I learned of this benefit.  You have to have the PCP verify it is medically necessary.

GothicGremlin

Prior to memory care, I did pretty much what Battlebuddy does. I never had a problem getting my sister to wear Depends though. I thought I would, but I referred to them as the "other underwear", and somehow that made it okay. Once I got her comfortable with the "other underwear", I made all of her regular underwear disappear.

Yes to baby wipes and gloves, and all the other. 

I've never dealt with straight up diapers, the pull up Depends work really well particularly if you use that trick that Battlebuddy uses. I used that trick too.

mommyandme (m&m)

We’ve had to switch to diapers now, she was in pull-ups. Unfortunately she can’t seem to understand the sitting and standing without it being a safety issue in the bathroom.  I now have  to change her while in bed with diapers.  I’ve always called the pull-up/diaper…underwear, trying to save her some dignity. She wasn’t too keen on the pull-up when we changed over so calling them underwear helped some.  Fortunately hospice has been supplying the toileting products: diapers/pull-ups, wipes and gloves.  Have no idea what the costs would be…yikes.  

This is just no fun. 

MN Chickadee

The in between phase is hard. Expect it to happen with more frequency. My mother went from just every now and then to full incontinence over the course of a couple months. If it has happening more and more I would just make the switch to depends and save yourself a lot of headache. The extra cleaning and laundry it makes without the depends can really zap a caregiver's energy and ability to keep up. The first month we bought the fanciest, softest Depends in pretty colors we could find and replaced all the underwear in moms drawer and she didn't really notice. After she was used to them we started buying generic, usually the generic Sams Club ones because the price was the best. Eventually we started special ordering night time ones with maximum absorbency.  There is actually a huge range in absorbency among these products so if you are struggling to keep the bed dry come back here for suggestions of brands. The pull up style is nice when they are still toileting some on their own because they pull up and down like underwear. During the day you can still have her go to the bathroom on a schedule to get as much as possible in the toilet. Usually every two hours is a good rule of thumb. You might find there is a specific time of day she has a BM and can try to get her to sit on the toilet then. Some people really like a bidet to clean up after bowel movements, there are ones that you add on to a regular toilet seat.  We also needed to keep up on skin care once she was in Depends. Just like babies they can get irritation and rashes from the diapers. Keep some barrier cream on hand and watch the skin carefully. Most facilities change the depends just as often as they toilet a person, every two hours to help keep things fresh to prevent rashes and UTIs.