My amazing OBGYN, Dr Paula Penkin, always marvelled at Aidan’s length whenever I went in for a prenatal check. She told me she thought he was going to be a basketball player! Though he came early, at 37 weeks, he was an impressive height and weight when he was born – 56cm long and 3.98kg’s. We opted-in for a metabolic blood test after he was born, which came back completely normal. Our boy simply had the “tall” gene! When I think back to my school years, I remember being the tallest in my class no matter the grade, and it looked as though Aidan might follow suit.
Our little cub grew at such a rate, that he had outgrown the largest size of Pampers Premium diapers available in our country by the time he was two years old. Because he was wearing the biggest size diaper already (size 6) and growing like a weed, I had to buy him size 4 t-shirts and size 5 pants! It seemed a bit crazy at the time, but he started as he meant to go on, and we still have to buy him clothing far above his age group. He was nowhere near ready for pull-ups or potty training, so we were completely stumped for diaper options.
I emailed Aidan’s excellent paediatric neurologist for help, expecting that working within the special needs space, she would know where to source the next diaper sizes up. But to my surprise, she had no idea. She directed me to all the pharmacy chains I’d already tried. I had bought about 20 different brands by that point, all in their biggest sizes, but nothing gave my kiddo any extra room. I tried to find a medical equipment company that might have a special needs range. But after three or four days of searching with no luck, it was clear that such a thing didn’t exist here in South Africa.
I honestly spent nights lying awake in the darkness next to my precious son, wondering what all the other special needs families out there did when they grew out of infant diapers?! Surely someone, somewhere, had a helpful idea for us? I decided to take it to Facebook and see if any South African autism groups could help me. But my posts went mostly unanswered. The occasional parent would tell me to put him in a pull-up, but Aidan was going through a stage of digging into and removing his diapers. I suspected a pull-up would be a disaster of gargantuan proportion. Eventually, after repeated posts in all the same groups about the same thing, a mom who had more information, spotted my post and replied! She directed me to a private local company that did slightly larger sizes of diapers, and I was so excited to find it that I ordered a ton of them. Aidan was going through up to five diapers a day, so we needed sufficient supplies!
Unfortunately, this brand was a disaster. It had a bit more room for him but low absorbency. His diapers had to be changed more often – every couple of hours – and the dreaded nappy rash, which caused kicking and screaming on the changing table, was back with a vengeance. So I set about researching the best bum creams and ointments to keep it at bay, so we could make these diapers work for Aidan, for as long as humanly possible. He stayed in these awful diapers awhile. And because he had to wear the same brand at night, he often woke up crying with an overfilled nappy. This was hugely impacted by the number of bottles of formula he was still drinking overnight, but that’s a tale for a separate blog. Read about our challenges with bottles in my blog of the same name!
Eventually, I couldn’t take my son peeing through his diapers every night. I was depressed by the fact that he was waking up wet every morning, which I felt robbed him of his dignity, and resolved to do better for him. I got desperate and went onto Amazon, knowing that Americans had a sleuth of special needs products and care items available in mainstream chains like Walmart. Any special needs mom could just stroll down to her corner branch and buy whatever she needed! The question was: Does Amazon ship diapers to South Africa?! And the answer was… yes! But… at vast expense!
We bought Pampers size 8’s for him from Amazon for a couple more months – up until they were just too tight across his tummy. We spent an absolute fortune on these shipments because Amazon sends in bulk, and charges by weight. It was clear that buying from the USA wasn’t going to be a long term solution for us.
The worst idea I had in this whole saga, was to look to local adult diaper ranges for help. Even the XS size was absolutely massive on our big little boy. Aidan hated them with a passion, unfortunately. So diaper changes once again became an absolute battle of wills! And let me tell you, this boy of mine has a will of iron. Of course, there were no other choices, he had to just deal with it, but my general anxiety around diaper changes went up massively for a period of months. Aidan, being a canary down the mine shaft for other people’s anxiety, would pick up on it instantly, no matter how hard I tried to hide it, and he’d absorb it and then mirror it all right back to me. There were lots of tears – his and mine. I began to resent the fact that even a simple thing like sizing-up my toddler’s diaper was unbelievably difficult, and required mad troubleshooting and weeks of research. Why was absolutely everything in our lives so extra?! Eventually we had to make his iPad part of every diaper change, as it was the only thing that kept him nicely distracted while we completed the task.
When Aidan went from a size XS to S, in the adult diapers, we noticed a change in their physical appearance. There was a much stiffer lining on the inside, designed to keep a lot more liquid inside the diaper. This brand boasted a no-leak guarantee which sounded great and all, but the diapers were meant for adults… not children. So this meant that there was a really abrasive plastic frill rubbing up against my son’s soft, delicate skin. He was just three, and still required the cushion and gentle protection of an infant diaper. But he’d outgrown every option! What on earth could we do now?
I confess, I was just at a total loss at this point. I worried about it for days, but couldn’t find a shred of energy left to work out what to do next. I was just so overwhelmed by this problem that nobody else I knew had. I was so fed up of asking people for advice and nobody being able to give me any. I felt so let down by the lack of available resources for people with disabilities in South Africa! It was actually an absolute disgrace that we were so far behind other countries for things like this. Aidan was growing up in privilege, but so many black African kids with the same disorder weren’t. I thought a lot about the plight of these families at this particular time. I felt desperate for those mamas with no answers and no basic necessities for their precious kiddos. I thanked God for everything we did have, even if we were currently struggling for answers.
The day I took Aidan’s adult diaper off at bath time, and saw chafing on the inside of his thigh, was the day I finally propelled myself back into action. I had to find a solution for him! And it was at this point that we finally went into young boy pull-ups. Aidan is a three year old the size of a six year old, so he’s already wearing the largest size of Huggies DryNites pull-up available – sizes 8-15. When we popped them on, they didn’t seem nearly as roomy as I was hoping they’d be, and I knew with a sinking heart, that they were likely going to be another temporary fix. At some point soon, but hopefully not too soon, we will be staring down the barrel of an adult diaper again. We can only pray that Aidan’s sensitive skin can handle them by then. Or, that we happen upon a softer brand of them. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
