For traveling, nothing beats a good, highly absorbent disposable diaper, either on little babies or big babies. But disposables have their drawbacks as well. Most really absorbent disposables for adults like Molycare Ultras do not come up high enough on the back and waist to provide complete protection for bedding and clothing if the baby is lying down. Attends come up higher on the bottom and waist, but they are not absorbent enough for overnight use on an adult baby who is a heavy wetter. (Remember, it is not all that unusual for a large adult baby boy to void 1500 ml [ 1 & 1/2 quarts] of pee-pee during the night!) Moreover, disposable diapers tend to be noisy as well as expensive. They promote heavy perspiration and can cause rashes even when the diaper has merely been worn and not filled with pee or poop. For twenty-four hour a day, seven-day a week protection, cloth diapers are the best solution. They are:

• Much cheaper, even if a diaper service is used,
• Cooler in the summer or in warm rooms,
• Less noisy and embarrassing,
• Less likely to produce rashes,
• Ecologically less destructive since they are reused rather than thrown away. Home washed diapers are particularly eco-friendly since home washing uses less water and energy than diaper services.

If you don't have the time, energy, and a washer and dryer (or clothesline), then consider using a diaper service. A number of studies have proven using diaper services are save money over using disposables if the time (as labor) to wash them is not factored into the overall cost.

Cloth diapers come in a number of types and varieties; contour diapers are available in shapes like hourglasses to fully fitted briefs with waterproof plastic covers with nursery prints and velcro fasteners. Prefolds are also available in either the hourglass shape or in the standard rectangle. Commercial "heavy" cloth diapers of any sort usually have either a sponge or a terrycloth "soaker" to improve their absorbency. Unfortunately, soakers like these make diapers very difficult to clean and sterilize properly to prevent bacterial or yeast infections. Moreover, they raise the cost of the diaper exponentially.

Laundering techniques must match the type of soaker, or merely washing and drying them will damage them to the point of uselessness. Most cannot be bleached with any variety of bleach including borax and if vinyl covered, they cannot be dried on a clothesline as the ultraviolet radiation from the Sun evaporates the plastisizer in the vinyl causing them to harden and crack.

A contour diaper sufficient to handle a few dribbles from an AB while he’s at work cannot be adjusted to handle the volume of pee that may be loosed by an adult bladder overnight. Simply doubling (or tripling) a rectangular diaper usually causes standard diaper pins to spring open during the night if the baby wriggles or turns over in his sleep. Also, the doubled or tripled fabric still allows leakage from the bottom through the leg openings and has a tendency to "bunch" up between his legs and may painfully "strangle" your baby boy’s testes. At best, the bunched fabric will make him walk like a toddler (which he may enjoy) who has not mastered walking, but the potential for creating "dirty messes" around the house is rather too high to allow your big baby to toddle around without full protection.

This is a (fully tested) flat rectangular diapering technique from my files that insures a tight and comfortable fit and puts the padding where it needs to be as well as forming a "cup" fore and aft, i.e., to "catch" any "accidents" your baby boy has. Further, this technique uses two (or three) standard, inexpensive, flat rectangular adult diapers without sponge or terrycloth "soakers" that make other diapers so difficult to launder and disinfect.