Gently waking, I opened my eyes to see aunty Rosies’ face beaming down at me with a look of utter adoration. Snuggled deep in my blankets, I gazed up at the centre of my universe and smiled back. As I stood up in my cot aunty Rosie looked at me for a full minute. Slightly small for my ten years, my bottom bulged out. My legs were slightly parted by the familiar bulk of my wet towelling nappy, my clear plastic pants showed above the waistband of my snug pyjama trousers and a faint, not unpleasant smell of urine mingled with my warm, sleepy smell. Lowering the side of the cot, my aunt gathered me safely up into her arms. One hand around my back, the other underneath my bottom pressing the wet nappy into me, she carried me across the room and into her big warm bed. Freeing a breast from her nightgown she pulled me in to her sweetly scented bosom and guided my mouth to her nipple. As she patted my well padded bottom and held me close, I started to gently suck. My full bladder, stimulated by standing up in the cot, started emptying involuntarily. Fortunately auntie had plenty of experience with little boys and the nappies she pinned me into every night were thick and absorbent, able to handle several wettings.

Feeling the flow of urine into the nappy under her hand, aunty Rosie put a finger down the front of my pyjama trousers and plastic pants. With a gentle smile that belied the formality of the nappy check she murmered “what a wet little boy”. After ten years, the ritual was just that – she knew what to expect and I don’t remember ever waking up dry.

Perhaps I’d better explain. I had come into aunty Rosies life as a new born. She adored babies and had worked for many years in childcare centres and nurseries, whilst longing for a child of her own. Coming from a staunch feminist family, she had no real interest in men, and after many years of failed IVF treatment she had started to become resigned to not having a child of her own. The death however of her mother had resulted in a significant legacy for her and her sister Anne, sufficient for them both to give up work. At this point the question of a child arose again. Anne therefore agreed to undergo IVF herself, in order to maintain the family name and help her adored younger sister. Although naturally wishing for a girl, my arrival was a supremely high point of both their lives, and after being handed over to aunty Rosie as the main caregiver, Anne agreed to live with us and become part of the family. Using a small part of their legacy the sisters bought a large, comfortable house in the country. Engaging a housekeeper, Margaret, they settled back into a life of quiet simplicity and domestic bliss.

After yearning for so long for a child, now my aunty had me she wasn’t going to let me just grow up and flee the nest, and without making a conscious decision simply delayed the whole process of my development in order to maintain my dependence for as long as possible. The rich experience of breastfeeding – the intimacy, the stimulation, and the reliance on her I continued to show filled her with maternal feelings so she just continued to breast feed at night and in the morning. Similarly my nappied state. She was in no rush to potty train me. I was physically slow to develop anyway, and even now had frequent accidents in the daytime and wet my bed every night, so there just didn’t seem to be any point in putting me into pants, causing stress to everyone involved. Along with aunty Rosie there was Anne and Margaret, so there were always plenty of hands to change me, bath me, wash nappies and dry them. I was therefore kept in nappies, almost exclusively terry nappies apart from occassional outings in disposables or training pants where discreetness was an issue. At home I usually wandered about just in a nappy and plastic pants, and was changed on the floor or upstairs in my aunties room on the changing table. Similarly my sleeping in a cot was not a deliberate act. My aunty just decided that until I was dry at night there was no point in getting me a full size bed – the plastic covered cot matress did a far better job of protection that any plastic sheet over a normal mattress. Again, my sleeping in nappies in a cot at ten years old simply reinforced to my aunt that I was still a baby, not yet ready for any sort of responsibility.

I blinked back to alertness as Margaret came into our bedroom carrying a heaped breakfast tray. In her early fifties, she was more a part of the family than any sort of servant, although she took responsibility for running the house and home tutoring me. With a daughter of her own now living overseas, she had plenty of experience of childcare, and she almost looked upon Rosie and Anne as her own daughters, and me as her grandson. She sat on the edge of the bed now as aunty Rosie had her breakfast, both helping to feed me whilst at the same time discussing the plans for the day. Once finished Margaret took the tray whilst Rosie lifted me out of bed and carried me through to the bathroom. Standing me up in front of her she took off my pyjama top and pulled down my pyjama bottoms and I stepped out of them, facing her in just a sagging, saturated nappy and clear plastic pants with a blue nappy pin on each side. Deftly unpinning the nappy she allowed the whole soggy mass to fall to the floor with a loud plop. Picking the bundle up, she popped it into a nappy bucket and then sat me on the toilet. As she ran the bath, I sat on the toilet and and my body made rude noises as I emptied my bowels. Although I had little control over my bladder – by concentrating hard I could stop myself from wetting for a few seconds when my bladder was full - I was fairly reliable when it came to solid motions. I did have the odd smelly accident, mostly dealt with by Margaret, but generally a mornng bowel motion ensured that my nappies, whilst wet, stayed clean.

After washing me all over with a flannel, interspersed with kisses and caresses, aunty Rosie carefully dried me and carried me over to the changing table in the bedroom. Lying on my back, naked, I gazed up at her as she went about her business. Taking a clean terry towelling nappy from a pile at the bottom of the changing table, she carefully folded it into a kite shape. She then grasped my ankles and lifted my legs up while sliding the nappy under my bottom. Reaching between my legs, she pulled the thick material up and pulled over one of the sides. As she held the material together, she expertly undid a nappy pin with the other hand and snugly pinned the front and side of the nappy together. Repeating the process on the other side, she then reached into a draw on the side of the changing table and bought out a pair of white pull on plastic pants. Shaking them out, she pulled them up my legs and over my bottom, carefully tucking the nappy in around the waistband and legs of the plastic pants to ensure no material showed through. A white t shirt, socks, and dungarees completed my dressing and with a gentle pat on my bottom I was sent off to play for a while.

Today being a weekend day, there was no schooling so we were going to spend the day with her friend Gwen and her foster daughter Lorna. They lived next door to us, and since Lorna was my age my aunt and Gwen had hit it off immediately we had moved into our house. Lorna had been abandoned in Pakistan as a toddler. Gwen, working over there as a nurse, had adopted her and brought her back. Lorna and I grew up together and shared many memories. Some of the shared memories were reflected by my current nappied state. Lorna had also been slow to train, perhaps due to her abandonment as a child. She hadn’t mastered daytime control until she was six so it wasn’t that long ago we were changed together. Even after that she sometimes messed her pants. Night time control for Lorna didn’t come easily either – she still wet at night for many years, and whenever we had sleepovers either aunty Rosie or Gwen would put us both in our nappies at night time together. Sometimes, if we went on holiday, we would even sleep in the same bed, both safely encased in our babyish nappies and plastic pants. Lorna was starting to have some dry nights now though so Gwen had been letting her put on her own pull ups at night, and lately she had even been keeping those dry. As I still needed my babyish nappies both day and night, and still slept in a cot, I was becoming very much the baby in the relationship.

Now, when I was changed in front of her, she would often help, passing a nappy to my aunty, or picking out a pair of plastic pants for aunty to put on me. Inevitably she would try and find the most babyish ones she could. They tended to be larger and baggier (I had larger ones for my thicker night time nappies) even if I was having my nappy changed in the daytime. Gwen had also passed on some of Lornas night time attire to my aunty Rosie, so pink plastic pants, and even ones with ruffles had appeared on my changing table. Normally my aunty wouldn’t put these on me, but when Lorna handed them to her with a mischevious smile, she would often smile back and I would find myself walking round not only with a large, padded bottom, but a pink frilly one to boot.

When we arrived at their front door, Gwen opened the door with a big smile. Although I waddled slightly, my daytime nappies weren’t as thick as my night time ones, and the dungarees were loose enough to partially disguise my nappied state. What gave me away however to anyone standing close to me was the swishing sound my plastic pants made as I walked, and particularly if I sat down. Picking me up, Gwen patted my bottom and, as the tell tale rustling of my plastic pants gave me away, she smiled the smile of an experienced mother. As Lorna arrived I slid down from Gwen and went to meet her. I was hoping she wouldn’t notice my nappies as I had started to feel a little self conscious around her now that she had outgrown even her night time pull ups. She said nothing to me though, and I hoped that she thought that perhaps I too was done with nappies, and that any rustling sound was at worst caused by a pair of training pants. Alas, my relief was short lived. My aunt was sitting on the couch talking to Gwen, when she looked over at me. Noticing something, she called me over. Standing me in front of her, she undid the shoulder straps of my dungarees and pulled them down to my ankles. I was revealed to all in the room (especially Lorna) in my puffy plastic pants and an obviously very wet nappy. In fact it was this very wetness that had attracted my aunts attention. A I played with Lorna, I wet myself once or twice and two tell tale marks appeared through my dungarees where the leg bands of my plastic pants had let a little of the moisture through. Noticing this, my aunt had realised that her baby needed changing.

She carried on chatting to Gwen as she pulled my plastic pants down to my knees. Gwen similarly was unconcerned at the sight of a ten year old in front of her having his nappy changed. Lorna however had a slightly smug smile on her face as she came over to watch the whole proceedings. Unpinning the nappy, my aunty pulled it from between my legs and placed it into a waterproof compartment in my nappy changing bag that Lorna had helpfully passed up when requested. Pulling out a clean nappy, aunty Rosie basically folded it in half (a slightly different nappy fold for daytime use) and laid it on her lap. Reaching out, she turned me around and sat me on the nappy. Pulling up each side and pinning them in turn, she then stood me up and pulled up my plastic pants, again tucking the nappy in carefully to ensure that all the nappy was safely inside the plastic pants. As my dungarees were wet, she pulled them off my ankles, and with a quick swat of my now dry bottom, I was allowed to toddle off with Lorna. All disguise gone, I spent the rest of the day in front of Lorna - a pretty girl my age wearing a short dress and panties – waddling around in a terry nappy held in place with two pins, puffy white plastic pants and a t shirt. I needed changing twice more that day. Aunty Rosie changed me one time, lying me down on a changing mat in front of her and Gwen and Lorna. The second time Gwen changed me – “for old times sake” she said with a fond glance at Lorna.