swim diapers

I have a small pacakge of huggies swim diapers for my girls. Aside from looking more like a pull up, what is the difference between them and regular diapers? They do not seem any different from standard diapers in terms of water proof. We have this little kiddie pool and the girls have used it with the regular diaper and with a swim diaper and I can't really tell a difference- they are both "bloated" (diapers not the girls!) when they get out of the pool...


What do you use? What is your experenice with them? Also, I am thinking about just going the reusable route with swim diapers, any suggestions?

Thank you!
Carly

 

I don't think that any public pools will let you in with reusable swim diapers.

I think the swim diapers are less prone to falling apart in the water than regular disposables, and might be a little less bulky when wet.

 

We have used the iPlay swim diapers and they work very well. Our local pools do not allow disposable swim diapers unless they are covered with tight plastic pants, so I figured, I'd just use the ones that already have the pants built in!

Also, swim diapers are really only for poop containment, not pee.

 

We can't use disposable swim diapers at our pool or my IL's pool. We bought resuable swim diapers. Saves us tons of money in the end because my girls love to swim and we're always at the pool. We love these swim diapers. Handmade in the USA with lots of fun patterns.

 

To the contrary, public pools won't (shouldn't, at least) let you in with just disposable swim diapers. The disposable kind are not as effective at containing poop, and therefore poop-borne bacteria, as the re-usable kind. The Centers for Disease Control requires re-usable swim diapers with plastic or rubber lining for public pools. My particular swim club pool requires that infants wear a disposable swim diaper under a re-usable swim diaper. I bought a re-usable kind made by Swimways and sold at Toys R Us. I think they cost about $8.

Swim diapers, whether disposable or re-usable, do not contain pee. They only contain poop. So do not make the mistake of leaving your kids in disposable swim diapers for very long outside of the pool. You'll soon have a wet mess on your hands. The pee just runs right through them.

 

We use the reusable swim diapers from One Step Ahead for our backyard kiddie pool and private pools, and the disposables for public pools. FYI- They run kinda big in the waist.

 

This is all great information. I feel silly because I didn't realize that the swim diapers do not contain the pee. (Maybe I will think twice next time I show the girls how to blow bubbles in the water with their mounth!)

 

The disposable swim diapers can't be absorbent like a regular diaper or they'd poof up like a regular diaper. You must not have had them really sit and play in the water in a disposable diaper because those will poof until they explode into a million little gel balls. It's not a fun mess to clean up!

We used the washable fabric swim diapers from Target. They were very nice. My boys never pooped in them but the legs were snug enough that I doubt it could escape. OTOH, we borrowed disposable swim diapers once when we made an unplanned pool stop. I looked at how they fit (or didn't fit, really -- they're skinny kids) and was glad the boys were mostly PTed because I don't think the swim diapers would have contained anything.

 

The pool we have is really an adult ankle pool. They do not sit in that long (they sit in it then get up and walk around, or play in the water with their bottom outside of the pool!)