Is this the first written reference to having a poop knife?

Our kids have been out of diapers for a couple of years. We loved these bamboo diapers[0] Nearly as good as pampers. Much softer and much better for the environment. I have no relationship to the company.

And disposables dropping at 10cents a pair. Holy crap! I thought they were expensive now.

Finally we had a crazy trustee in our condo assoc that wanted us to scrape the poop off before we threw diapers away in our community barrels (in sealed bags of course). We just smiled and nodded.

[0]https://dyper.com/

I enjoyed the article. Nappies are very impressive and something I never really thought about before becoming a parent.

Reminds me of something I often slightly chuckle about as a parent.

I’ve often encountered non-parents, particularly teenagers, who remark how the thought of changing nappies horrifying and a really big deal. But as any parent knows, changing nappies is really one of the easier parts of looking after babies and toddlers.

This was really interesting! I’d never considered how challenging it is to manufacture and mass produce them.

The books it mentions of business/corporate histories look worth a read too.

Nowadays some parents went back to opting for cloth diapers. Apart from the obvious environmental aspect, there's the idea that ultra absorbent and comfy diapers disincentivize babies from signalling that they are about to poop. Apparently, babies can communicate when they need to go even quite early on, in what's called "elimination communication". This also makes them a lot easier to potty train later on.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elimination_communication

Spock! A classic. My parents, when raising me in the '80s and '90s, had a copy of his book and tried their best to follow what it said. I still recall the cover with the smiling baby. An amusing anecdote my father now has retold many times over (as fathers do) is that despite Spock's best advice there was something that I refused to do. His friend, a psychologist, pointed out that while Spock's advice might be good, my father could not expect me to behave as described because I had not read the book.

Another thing that's interesting here to me is the two fingers below the diaper to avoid sticking the infant with the pin. Two fingers under the diaper is still standard enough guidance that we and others we know received it at the hospital when diapering our child, though the reason expressed was one of tightness. I wonder if perhaps the former is the origin and the latter is a backformation.

And finally, the environmental question. Since my wife and I are quite old[0], and I want us to have more than one child I have pushed our household to the extreme end of consumerism[1]. We live in a 2 story flat in San Francisco, and until recently we had a changing station downstairs and two upstairs, with a diaper pail by each.

Here I encountered the problem that plagues anyone who has many battery-powered appliances - what convenience you gain in use, you lose when it comes to replace batteries. The Diaper Genie tall can we have is a very effective device at keeping smells in, but multiple cans means the time between replacement is doubled - something which you are rapidly made aware of by your senses[2], when it's time to replace the bag. The convenience is still worth it.

I do have a friend with more children than us, who will probably continue to have more children than us, whose family uses cloth diapers. So it is not an impossible task, and for someone adequately concerned about the environment and appropriately disciplined, perhaps quite straightforward to do.

0: if you want to see what happens when you have a baby near 40, https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Pregnancy

1: my rationale was that by easing the difficulties of pregnancy, I might reduce any resistance my wife might have to having the next child.

2: "Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output" - Chairman Shen-ji Yang.

Seems easier to just sit em in the backyard and hit em with the hose

This is the first thing I read this morning and I'm not even a dad yet (or maybe never).

I miss this side of HN nowadays.

Great read. Being an engineer in the mid 20th century must have been fun and satisfying.

We pay for a diaper service. The price is comparable to disposables. The population density where I live helps with the price I'm sure.