It was the last day of our mini holiday with Elian. I was just over tired and stayed in bed, enjoying the fluffy pillows and sweet smelling sheets. Elian got up before me only to find Adam in front of the TV, pacifier in place and a very wet diaper sandwiched between his legs, in no hurry to get changed. I told myself to just stay in bed and let Elian take care of Adam, witch she was ready and willing to do anyways. This is what Elian told me that took place when I finally got up to face the day.

“Adam and I had a great morning Beth. I wanted to get some breakfast into him before I changed him into something a little more appropriate for the day. His diaper still had some capacity left and he didn’t seem uncomfortable in it. First I pulled his baby pants down halfway, just enough so that I could pull his wet diaper up and re pin it on him tightly and then I pulled up his baby pants once again. I checked the leg elastics for leaks and wetness and they were ok. Adam looked hungry so I fixed some warm oatmeal and sirup in a bowl and sat it on the table. He waddled over to the table with his wet diaper wedged between his legs, puffed out in front, looking just like your typical baby boy. Adam got up on the chair and asked for a spoon and I told him that I had a better and cleaner idea for him. He had this puzzled look on his face as I opened the drawer where I keep Jeffery’s bibs. As I drew out the big kid sized plastic bib out of the drawer he had an unmistakable grin on his face. I let it unfurl to its full size as I fastened it around his neck and tied it at the back with a bow. The bib that I had made for Jeffery was just a little large on Adam but it would do just fine. It had a pocket at the bottom for spilled food and it was made of a nice soft nursery print vinyl, just perfect for a fussy little boy.

Al ready for his feeding, I pulled his pacifier out of his still sucking mouth and mixed up the oatmeal in the bowl with the spoon making a clicking sound as I did. “Ready” I said, not waiting for an answer. The full spoon made its way to his lips and then, not waiting for permission, I said “open” and at the first sign of it happening, the spoon delivered its load only losing a small amount on his pudgy cheeks as it did. I made sure to clean the spoon off on his upper lip as I pulled it back and out of his mouth. The process started out slowly but quickened with every progressive spoonful. I fed him as quickly as possible not allowing him to wait for the food. As soon as he swallowed there was more waiting, this lead to a few spills and a scolded him for not opening wide enough or being to slow. With the bowl growing empty I saw him eyeing the baby bottle full of white formula, warming in a pot on the stove. I wiped the sticky mess off his face the way mothers do and asked him if he was ready for his bottle and if he wanted me to feed it to him. Was there any doubt, I tested the formula temperature on my wrist and that’s when you arrived at the table.

“You looked still half a sleep so I decided to let Adam feed himself and I put a blakei on the couch so he could lye there and nurse his bottle. He looked mad at first but as soon as I gave him the bottle, inserting it into his mouth and then positioning his hands to hold it at the right angle, he forgot about me and got busy at the task at hand so to speak. Beth, let me make you some breakfast and after he finishes his bottle I want to show you something else that might come in handy when you get him home.”

I wondered what Elian had up her sleeve this time when she asked me what time Adam usually did his number two. I told her first thing in the morning, usually. Adam nursed his bottle and watched TV cartoons at the same time, pausing his nursing when the caricatures on the screen spook and he wanted to hear what they were saying. Then he resumed sucking on it during the action parts, toying with the nipple in his mouth as he watched the TV. Elian went into the bedroom and came back with a, well what looked like a real rubber panty and I thought she was going to put it on Adam. She showed it to me, opening it up, and showing me how soft and stretchy the white rubber was. The panty looked like a snap on baby pant because of the snaps on the two sides and it also had snaps across the rubber crotch flap but it had no seat in it. She asked me to come to the bathroom with her and she would show me where it went. In the bathroom she lifted the toilet seat to show me the snaps under the seat at the front. She snapped the crotch part of the panty to the underneath of the seat and let the rest of it drape out of the center over the seat and bowl with the side snaps out at the sides. Now the only thing that was missing was Adam and he was just about finished his bottle. I went to get him and I told him that Elian had another surprise for him in the bathroom. It was time to get his wet nighttime diaper off anyway.

“Adam dear, come with me to the bathroom please. I need to get you out of that wet diaper and you need to do your number two. I think Elian has another surprise for you too.”

“Ok Adam, that’s far enough, just stand there and I’ll get your baby pants down and that wet diaper off of you! Beth get me a warm wash cloth will you, he needs some washing and cleaning before we set him down on the toilet. Adam do you need to do your number two honey?”

“Well, ----- I think so, I mean maybe!”

“Do you want a helper?”

“What is a helper aunt Elian?”

“It’s just something to help you go poop. It will make it a little easier for you to go, with a helper you can just relax and let it happen. It wont hurt or anything.”

“Ok I guess!”

Elian scoped out a gob of Vaseline as Adam watched and then she asked him to bend over. The wet diaper and baby pants were still down at his ankles and I asked if she wanted me to remove them. She told me to wait until he was seated securely on the toilet. Adam did as she said and she coached him to relax so as not to hurt him.

“Adam you may feel a little discomfort at first but I think that it won’t feel bad in a minute or so. Now that you are nice and slippery inside I am going to put the helper in and then I’ll be finished!”

I removed the foil from the suppository and placed it on the end of her greasy finger. She held his cheeks apart with her other hand while her finger found its way into his rear pushing the suppository deep into his warmth.

“There, all done, that wasn’t that bad was it? Now let’s get you seated on the toilet so you can do your business comfortably.”

With that she lifted him up and sat him on the vinyl cushioned toilet seat. She widened his knees and brought the rubber restrainer / splash guard up, covering his private parts, and stretched it out around his waist. She fastened the sides to the back of the seat, snapping the half rubber pant into place, feeling at the front of it to see that it wasn’t too tight over his tummy.

“There Adam, all secured and ready for your poop, are you comfortable? Here are some of Jeffery’s comic books to read while waiting.”

She reached down at his now suspended feet and removed his diaper and baby pants, slipping them of together and putting them in the tub. She ran the water over them, rinsing them out and putting the diaper in a pail that she had under the sink and then she draped the baby pants over the curtain rod, so they would dry.

“Adam I hope you were watching me wash out your diaper? When you get home you need to do that every morning to help your mother, Ok?”

Adam nodded and we left for the kitchen for some coffee while Adam had other things to do while sitting on the toilet.

“Beth, you see this way you can leave him set there without worrying about if he is going to finish or just do a half job. He knows that he has to wait for you to approve before being freed. It will also help him relax and concentrate on what he has to do and not what’s on TV. If you see skid marks in his underwear or diaper, it’s because he is not finishing properly.”

“Elian should I use a suppository every time?”

“No, just when he needs it, you know when he is a little cranky or his tummy is hard or he is complaining about being full. You can always add fiber and a tablespoon of mineral oil to his bottle before bed. He won’t even notice it and he will be ready in the morning. I just did that so he would enjoy an effortless poop and we would be curtain of an accident free day. The purpose of the rubber restrainer is so that he will know not to rush and that you have the final say about when he will be freed from his duty. It is better that he takes his time and does the complete job anyway. I like it because I don’t have to worry about him alone in the bathroom and I can remove the restrainer when it’s not in use. Jeffery knew that I ment business when he saw it in place and there was never any argument about taking his time pooping after that. I made up two of them for you to take home with you and it’s easy to install on any toilet seat. One time I even installed one on a wooden chair in the kitchen. It was for when Jeffery wouldn’t sit still, when he had homework or when I wanted to feed him. All you have to do is screw the snaps onto the wood at the back and front and you’re done, as simple as that, and he will be unable to escape once the restrainer is snapped on in place.”

“Elian how did you know how to do all these things, I mean where did you get all of the ideas?”

“Necessity is the mother of invention Beth, I will tell you about my first experience with another boy that needed to be put back in diapers.”

One evening I get a call from Jenny, you remember the lady from child protection, well after she asked me how Jeffery was getting along, she tells me that she has this child in foster care that is having some trouble with going to the bathroom. The faster mother is at her wits end and is threatening to send the child back. Well I asked her what I could possibly do for her, in this case. Jenny tells me that the child has this problem of withholding his poop and then gets extremely constipated ending up in the hospital. I asked her what she needed me to do. She explained that the child had some runny poop accidents in his pants and that she had thought of my Jeffery and wondered if I could make the child some more absorbent underpants and maybe some plastic pants. I asked her if she thought that putting the child back in diapers would help. She said that she knew that I was very understanding and that I did have the experience of diapering an older child. Jenny told me that she had given my phone number to the mother of the boy and that she would call me for an appointment. I didn’t know what to say, I thought about it the next day and as luck would have it Mary, the boys mother called me that evening.

She was nice enough to talk to and she explained that the boy, who was just nine at the time, was being teased at school for pooping in his pants and having to go and get changed by the nurse all the time. She explained that from not pooping and getting constipated that the boy would have some runny poop accidents and soil him self. She told me that Jenny had suggested that maybe some plastic pants would help with the control the mess and smell. Mary asked about Jeffery and why was it that he was still in diapers. I guess that Jenny had told her about him, but I didn’t know just what she had told her. I thought about her question for a moment and decided that the less that she knew the better. I just said that Jeffery had been struggling with toilet training and we had decided to give him a break from it for a while. Then I explained that I was using cloth diapers and plastic pants on Jeffery because he was more comfortable in them and he didn’t get as much diaper rash with the cloth diapers compared to the disposables. I asked her where they lived, and to my surprise, it was not far away at all. So then I asked her to take the boys measurements and come over with them and that I would show her the things that I had made for Jeffery.”

“That must have been quite a meeting Elian. I mean it must have been a touchy subject back then and you could have said no to her. Even bedwetting was a private matter and most parents and kids just suffered in silence and did what they could. I remember you saying that Gerber made the toddler sized baby pants for big babies and you said and I know by the way they fitted on Adam that you were right when you said that they were probably made and intended for use on older bedwetting kids. They were almost too big for Adam and it’s a pity that they stopped making them that large. I know they want the kids to wear disposable diaper pants just to keep on making money. Did you tell her that her son would probably still fit into the Gerber toddler sized baby pants Elian?”

“Yes Beth, I told her! After talking to Jenny she wanted me to help her sort the diapering of her son, out. She showed up at my place the next evening after calling me at dinner time, I think it was Tuesday, anyway she was very nice when I answered the door and invited her in. I had told Jeffery to put on his pajama bottoms over his diaper because we were going to have a visitor. She was obviously nervous as I directed her to the living room where she sat at one end of the couch. She sat down and crossed her legs and arms as much to say that she really did not want to be there. I called in Jeffery and introduced her to him. She gave him the once over politely visually checking out his puffy pajama pants. I broke the ice by inquiring how her son was doing and asking if she had brought his measurements. She asked what I was going to do with them and I just told her straight out that I needed them in order to make her son some extra absorbent underwear, diapers and some plastic pants to go on over them.

At that point I asked Jeffery to go and get one of his clean diapers and a pair of his plastic night time pants. He wasn’t long bringing them to me, proudly holding them up and asking if they were the ones that I wanted. I told him to give them to Mary who asked Jeffery if he like wearing them and if he was comfortable in them. He replied that he liked the cloth ones better than the disposable ones that he had to wear during the day time at school. Mary felt how soft and thick the cloth diaper was and asked if I was going to stitch the diapers together the same way for her son. I showed her how I had made Jeffery’s diapers so that they would soak up his pee and wick it up into the thick padding in the front and rear. I had made the one that I showed her thick at the sides to, so it would help keep the bed dry if he slept on his side. She said that she liked the soft vinyl baby pants too and how I made the elastic at the waist and legs. I told her that she had a choice of how to diaper her son if that is what she really wanted to do. She could ether diaper him so that his accidents were easier to deal with by using training pants and plastic pants on over them, or she could let her son return to diapers as if he was a baby again and let him mess in them if he needed to. This way the withholding and constipation problems would be taken care of and then she could toilet train him again and hopefully that would solve the problem. She liked the second option but was worried about how her husband would handle it. She hoped that the diapers would help her son get through this.”

I hope you enjoy the read