Baby rubber pants... (old-fashioned cloth diapers)

Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
The diaper rash thread got me thinking about this one.

Okay all of you old-fashioned moms...

For those of you that used old-fashioned cloth diapers, did you always use rubber pants?

For those that didn't use rubber pants 24/7/365, did you still have favoured times of the day/night when you used the rubber pants?

How about laundering the rubber pants... what was your method?

Anyone use old-fashioned snap-on rubber pants over traditional pull-on style pants?

Did rubber pants (at change-time) go into the diaper pail with the wet and dirty diapers, or did you have a separate/alternate pail for wet/soiled rubber pants?

Did you hand-wash or machine wash the rubber pants?

Hands-up if you used plain old-fashioned white rubber pants...

How often did you change the rubber pants? Every diaper change? Every other diaper change? When needed?

Was it double diapers with rubber pants (at nighttime) in your home?
 

Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
For those of you that used old-fashioned cloth diapers, did you always use rubber pants? Yuppers! Even though I knew how uncomfortable for baby they could be and the diaper rash that often resulted from using them, this old momma used rubber pants around the clock.

For those that didn't use rubber pants 24/7/365, did you still have favoured times of the day/night when you used the rubber pants? 24/7/365 in our house (always), however, for those rare occasions when my kids went without rubber pants, nighttime, naptime, and outings were 3 occasions where I was adamant about ensuring my kids were wearing rubber pants.

How about laundering the rubber pants... what was your method? Hand-wash (mostly) using mild detergent, followed by a good rinsing, then out on the outdoor line they went. Washing machine laundering when I was behind or extra busy.

Anyone use old-fashioned snap-on rubber pants over traditional pull-on style pants? I kept a couple pairs of snap-ons on-hand, but seldom used them. I much preferred pull-on rubber pants. Super quick and easy at change-time! Easy on/off. No fussing with snaps...

Did rubber pants (at change-time) go into the diaper pail with the wet and dirty diapers, or did you have a separate/alternate pail for wet/soiled rubber pants? Both. Mostly into the diaper pail, but sometimes I'd run them downstairs and deposit them in the laundry room wash-basin until diaper-wash day.

Did you hand-wash or machine wash the rubber pants? Both, though hand-washing was my favoured method. Washing by-hand extended the life of the pants, helping to avoid rips and tears that the washing machine agitator was so good at doing. My old top-loading machine used to eat rubber pants! LOL!

Hands-up if you used plain old-fashioned white rubber pants... Yuppers... plain white for my kids! Baby siblings wore white, too. White and pastel ones when I used to babysit.

How often did you change the rubber pants? Every diaper change? Every other diaper change? When needed? All depended on the change. If diapers were extra wet or soiled real bad, rubber pants got changed, but when I was on top of checking and changing, I often reused the same pair of rubber pants for the entire day.

Was it double diapers with rubber pants (at nighttime) in your home? Sure was... daytime, too! That's how I was taught when changing baby siblings, and it's what I remember from when I used to babysit.
 
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Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
One thing I definitely remember... larger fitting rubber pants were much easier to pull off and on at change-time. Less red ring action around the child's legs...
 
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AppleCori

Well-Known Member
I never used cloth diapers or rubber pants, but I do use rubber gloves on occasion.

I use these disposable rubber gloves when we clean out the mice cage, or when I use chemicals or when using the pooper-scooper for dog waste in the yard.

When I’m done, my hands are all clammy and sweaty. It’s like a greenhouse!

I can’t imagine wearing them all the time!
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I am not sure, but I am not a kid anymore :p and even back when my son was born there were disposable diapers. I really think it was mostly our parents who used cloth diapers as that was the only option.

I could be wrong but I also believe paper diapers were friendlier to skin so there was probably less diaper rash. I remember one of my kids having sensitive skin so I put ointment on the skin if it got pink.

I again could be wrong but I think wet cloth diapers plus rubber pants may have caused a lot of diaper rash that probably doesn't exist as much now. And that is probably, plus the ease of use, why young mother's even in my day went with disposables. Also, the smell is not as bad!
 

Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
I never used cloth diapers or rubber pants, but I do use rubber gloves on occasion.

I use these disposable rubber gloves when we clean out the mice cage, or when I use chemicals or when using the pooper-scooper for dog waste in the yard.

When I’m done, my hands are all clammy and sweaty. It’s like a greenhouse!

I can’t imagine wearing them all the time!
Another hater of rubber gloves here, too, Apple. Aside from the sweaty feeling they give, my fingers and hands just aren't as nimble as they typically are when I'm wearing rubber gloves.

Rubber pants aren't as confining or constricting as rubber gloves mind you... they're more loose-fitting, baggy, and more plasticy, but still, they were bad for producing a hot greenhouse effect on baby's bottom, but using plain cloth diapers without waterproof panties would be disastrous.
 

Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
I am not sure, but I am not a kid anymore :p and even back when my son was born there were disposable diapers. I really think it was mostly our parents who used cloth diapers as that was the only option.

I could be wrong but I also believe paper diapers were friendlier to skin so there was probably less diaper rash. I remember one of my kids having sensitive skin so I put ointment on the skin if it got pink.

I again could be wrong but I think wet cloth diapers plus rubber pants may have caused a lot of diaper rash that probably doesn't exist as much now. And that is probably, plus the ease of use, why young mother's even in my day went with disposables. Also, the smell is not as bad!
Absolutely, I remember disposables being around in the 70's, though I knew of not a single mother that used them.

I think kids bottoms are all different, some fair well in plastic diapers, while others can't tolerate the paper. Same goes for cloth, though I do believe that with cloth diapers being natural cotton, at least the old ones that I used were, wearing cloth wasn't the problem per se, but rather, the wetness factor was. Cloth, once wet, stays wet.

I blame the use of rubber pants in our house for 99% of all the rashes my kids suffered from. They hold in the heat and don't allow air in, even though I was staunch when it came to checking and changing.

Improper laundering of cloth diapers is another big diaper rash causer (is causer even a word). LOL!
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Where I lived everyone used disposables. The last kids I saw in diapers were my siblings. You are in Canada. Maybe it was different?

I still remember the stink...ewwwww!
 

Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
Where I lived everyone used disposables. The last kids I saw in diapers were my siblings. You are in Canada. Maybe it was different?

I still remember the stink...ewwwww!
Hmmm... I don't know if Canada was, or is any different than anywhere else, but I definitely believe families residing in smaller communities and towns in our country were more apt to use cloth diapers than their counterparts in larger metro centres, though I do know a handful of mothers that live in big metropolis cities that used cloth diapers well into the 80's... even 90's.

Yes, being that diaper pails and rubber pants were both made out of plastic, odour was a real fact when it came to using cloth, as plastic tends to hold onto and absorb odours.

I coined the term "poo-poo pants" for rubber pants when my baby brother was a baby (last born in our family), because of how bad his rubber pants used to smell! Seemed baby brother knew how to time a good pants-filling impeccably when I had to babysit him. Mom and dad would no sooner exit the house to go shopping, and within short order baby brother would fill his pants!
 

Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
The last kids I saw in diapers were my siblings.
You remind me of my mom... cloth diapers were "diapers", and disposable diapers were "Pampers".

When mom said the word "diapers", she was referring to cloth diapers and rubber pants, and when she babysat at our house, her saying was... "cloth diapers, the real baby way".
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Honestly, I called them diapers... Lol. Not Pampers. And I truly knew nobody who used cloth. It was a lot easier, cleaner and less stinky....why use cloth?

I am in a small area now and everyone uses paper diapers. At least in this area. Most mom's work. I seriously think it would be hard to find a day care center or babysitter who would do cloth diapers when they can do it a lot more easily with disposables. I worked at Head Start and we had a slew of littles who needed diaper changes! In the toddler room 0-3) none were trained so we did lots of changing.

Fortunately, I usually worked on the bus, which was diaper free ;) Even if a kid pooped, they got changed once they got to school and we're in their room.
 

Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
Honestly, I called them diapers... Lol. Not Pampers. And I truly knew nobody who used cloth. It was a lot easier, cleaner and less stinky....why use cloth?

I am in a small area now and everyone uses paper diapers. I don't really know what the difference is. Most mom's work though. I seriously think it would be hard to find a day care center or babysitter who would do cloth diapers when they can do it a lot more easily. I worked at Head Start and we had a slew of littles who needed diaper changes! In the toddler room 0-3) none were trained so we did lots of changing.

Fortunately, I usually worked on the bus, which was diaper free ;)
Honestly, SOT, I think all of the cloth diapers I changed on baby siblings made me choose cloth when I became a mom. Who knows, maybe had my sibs worn disposables, I might have used Pampers instead of cloth.

Another reason (I think) why I chose to use cloth diapers as a mom, was because that's all there was when me and my baby sibs were little, so that's what I remember. I remember my mom folding diapers, rubber pants hanging on the clothesline, and the plastic diaper pail in the bathroom, oh, and the safety pins, too. It was all I knew.

Then around age 11, I started babysitting around the neighbourhood, and all of the moms used cloth diapers with rubber pants. That was the 1970's. I remember one household with 5 kids, 3 in diapers, and sometimes I'd change the 3 in diapers assembly-line style, one after another, all in diapers, rubber pants, and pins.

Babysat for an aunt, too, and she, too, used cloth diapers with rubber pants. I babysat for her weekly... two cousins in diapers, so plenty of changing.

As far as any difference goes, I really don't think there's any difference at all between the two, other than the fact that one diaper is disposable, while the other is cloth, and both serve the same purpose, but I do think it's what you are used to, possibly exposed to at a young age.
 
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Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
SOT. Was giving a little extra thought into why cloth.

I was a stay-at-home mom, so it was nice always having a supply of reusable, washable diapers on hand. When one of my kids needed changed, I'd pick them up and pack them off to their room, pluck a diaper from the stack sitting on top of the dresser, then lay them down inside the crib and go to work changing them. Never ran out of or low on diapers.

Cloth was super duper cheap, too! Oh, and I never had to worry about sizes. I'd simply fold the diapers to fit whoever I was changing, and the diapers fit right from birth until they were at the toddler stage. One of my sons wore diapers until age 4! Yes, they still fit perfectly, with room to spare had he needed to wear them longer.

There was also something that made me feel more like a real mom using cloth diapers. I can't put my finger on it, but it just did. Also think cloth diapers and rubber pants were more diapery looking... more babyish. I'm sure that's subjective though.

Always felt more old-fashioned pinning diapers when changing a bottom, too. It just felt right.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Old Hand, that is obviously true for some people. They like what is familiar. I am more apt to jump on the new and, to me, faster, easier option. I did paper diapers with no thought, cell phones, computers, etc. Now...this doesn't mean I am GOOD at figuring out technology ;p....I am not. I'm hopeless!! But my husband and kids are helpful and now I do everything on my phone, all our bills too.
Neither husband nor I use checks and barely carry cash... Addicted to those debit cards. Do you still use checks? Bet ya do!!

I had a horrible childhood and lived in a town where nasty rich people picked on me so I have no attachment to how things were done in my home or in any way as a kid. I have more of an attachment to my teen/20s which were more fun, but I struggled a lot until my mid 30s so I sort of learned to embrace the new and go with the newest, as I embraced my evolving and new life that got better and better.

Old Hand, it sounds like you had great reason to embrace a fun, loving childhood do you still feel warm and fuzzy about it and that is wonderful. Great!!! Awesome!!!

My childhood is something I rather forget. i left the town I grew up in and do not feel attached to it in any way. I left my parent's religious path to find my own and again feel no attachment to Judiasm. I may as well have been raised an alien...it is hard for me to remember being Jewish and anything about it. I moved from Jewish people so I don't know any....this was not on purpose, but the types of places I like to live in do not normally attract Jewish people. I did not embrace my parent's values....I have my own. So see why we think differently,? I rarely try to remember when I was a kid and long ago I even threw out my family photo albums of me with my family...I don't even have young pictures of me and my parents and I dont care. I do have many pictures of my father and me when I was an adult. It's like my life really started at 35-40.

I am very happy you had a nice experience as a child. For me, I enjoy the now, which is so much more loving and accepting than the then. I am NOT looking for sympathy as my life NOW is amazing...there is nothing I want that I don't have today so I am lucky. But my early years were not years I wish to copy, relive or reminisce about. If my mom had used paper diapers I would probably have done cloth diapers just to blot out that memory and to do it differently than she did... lol. I most definitely raised my kids nothing like her and I did a much better job. My kids feel loved, if not cherished. I did not feel loved or supported in childhood, but I do now! :)

It is always so interesting to "talk" to you! You are a very cool young lady!
 
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Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
Old Hand, that is obviously true for some people. They like what is familiar. I am more apt to jump on the new and, to me, faster, easier option. I did paper diapers with no thought, cell phones, computers, etc. Now...this doesn't mean I am GOOD at figuring out technology ;p....I am not. I'm hopeless!! But my husband and kids are helpful and now I do everything on my phone, all our bills too.
Neither husband nor I use checks and barely carry cash... Addicted to those debit cards. Do you still use checks? Bet ya do!!

I had a horrible childhood and lived in a town where nasty rich people picked on me so I have no attachment to how things were done in my home or in any way as a kid. I have more of an attachment to my teen/20s which were more fun, but I struggled a lot until my mid 30s so I sort of learned to embrace the new and go with the newest, as I embraced my evolving and new life that got better and better.

Old Hand, it sounds like you had great reason to embrace a fun, loving childhood do you still feel warm and fuzzy about it and that is wonderful. Great!!! Awesome!!!

My childhood is something I rather forget. i left the town I grew up in and do not feel attached to it in any way. I left my parent's religious path to find my own and again feel no attachment to Judiasm. I may as well have been raised an alien...it is hard for me to remember being Jewish and anything about it. I moved from Jewish people so I don't know any....this was not on purpose, but the types of places I like to live in do not normally attract Jewish people. I did not embrace my parent's values....I have my own. So see why we think differently,? I rarely try to remember when I was a kid and long ago I even threw out my family photo albums of me with my family...I don't even have young pictures of me and my parents and I dont care. I do have many pictures of my father and me when I was an adult. It's like my life really started at 35-40.

I am very happy you had a nice experience as a child. For me, I enjoy the now, which is so much more loving and accepting than the then. I am NOT looking for sympathy as my life NOW is amazing...there is nothing I want that I don't have today so I am lucky. But my early years were not years I wish to copy, relive or reminisce about. If my mom had used paper diapers I would probably have done cloth diapers just to blot out that memory and to do it differently than she did... lol.

It is always so interesting to "talk" to you!
Hugs to you, SOT. Always love your conversation (so, so much)!!! And your started threads are always so crazily awesome!!!

My heart bleeds for you, because the way I see it is, all children should have a happy and healthy childhood/upbringing. Mine was poor, but still fun.

You know, you probably did the right thing by banishing all hurt from your life (albums gone, etc). I think reflecting on that sort of thing would never allow one to properly heal, which is so important.

Well, one thing is for sure, we all love you here a lot! :)

And like yourself, I cherish talking with you, too!!!
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Thank you!!!

I do sometimes still think about it, most recently since my father died, but usually I am just grateful for what I have. I am truly blessed.

I threw out the album when my mother was still alive but not talking to me....the Brady Bunch pictures were a sham to me. I have a few pix I saved of my loving grandmother but none of my mother or my father (when I was young) and only one of me with grandma. I don't miss it and Bart, my only bio. son, never knew her so is absolutely not interested in seeing her or other relatives who he never knew.

My house has pictures everywhere of my husband, kids and grands :) and, of course, our pets!

Old Hand, being poor can be such a blessing. I think it makes family closer. I was never rich, just my neighbors were. Raising a family we did not have much money, but we had so much love. I never cared much about material items....ever. My kids tell me they had great childhoods!
 
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Pink Elephant

Well-Known Member
Thank you!!!

I do sometimes still think about it, most recently since my father died, but usually I am just grateful for what I have. I am truly blessed.

I threw out the album when my mother was still alive but not talking to me....the Brady Bunch pictures were a sham to me. I have a few pix I saved of my loving grandmother but none of my mother or my father (when I was young) and only one of me with grandma. I don't miss it and Bart, my only bio. son, never knew her so is absolutely not interested in seeing her or other relatives who he never knew.

My house has pictures everywhere of my husband, kids and grands :) and, of course, our pets!
That's what's important, SOT, all of things that warm you from the inside out and make you feel good. Really, reflecting on life, it sure does go by awfully quick. So quick it's depressing.
 
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