I've read several sites talk about how to diaper a child in a spica cast. I have yet to post anything about because I figured others have covered it even if I do it a bit different. However, I've decided it's time share a bit of what I've learned from personal experience. From what I have read you should us a size 1 or 2 diaper; I would like to strongly disagree. Dr Brock's nurse gave me a paper before leaving the hospital that says use a diaper one to two sizes smaller then the one they wore pre spica. I totally agree! When Kaitlyn poos it can go up the back, front, or even in the sides of the cast. A smaller diaper allows the poo to freely go up. A bigger diaper pulls the poo out of the cast as you remove it.
Another thing I've learned has been about diaper styles. In the hospital we used size 3 Pampers; they worked well. If we didn't put a diaper over the one inserted into her cast it would fall out because of the smaller size. On the way home from the hospital I bought size 3 Huggies; these were a bad purchase. Huggies have a lot of elastic in the back which pulls it all together preventing it from staying nicely tucked into the cast. If you have a smaller opening in your cast then more power to you on using Huggies. I don't suggest them. My suggestion is to save those Huggies until your little one is cast free. Our third package of diapers were size 4 Luvs. Luvs are our normal brand. For someone who hasn't ever used Luvs, they are cut like Pampers. The larger size is working great!!! I have been thankful on more then one occasion we're using the bigger diapers. By the way, before surgery Kaitlyn was in size 5.
For a while we used the shell to her cloth diapers to cover the diaper area and to hold the inserted diaper in place. The more she started getting around the harder the cast was on the cloth diapers. We moved to a simple rotation with disposable diapers that is working well. We insert a size 4 diaper (with a super absorbent pad) and strap a size 4 diaper over top her cast. Did you know those diapers can stretch? If you are using a really cheap diaper that doesn't have stretch... pay a little more. So your child is diapered. At the next diaper change you take off the outer diaper and set it aside. The inner diaper and pad are thrown away. The outer diaper now gets the tabs pulled off (you don't need those scratching your little one), a super absorbent pad placed inside, and the combo inserted into the cast. Now diaper outside her cast with a fresh diaper and you're done. Rotating the diapers keep you from throwing away your money on a larger diaper to cover the cast. The stretched out tabs are going to be pulled off anyway so don't worry about the stretch you put on that diaper.
Diapering at night... Even when they aren't in a cast nightly diapering can be a challenge. Since being in the cast Kaitlyn seems to pee more at night. I have yet to do it, but putting the mattress at an incline (head up) will cause the pee to run down into the diaper rather then up the cast. We had a lot of trial and error at night until we learned what really works for us. I put two pads in Kaitlyn's nighttime diapers and I use a size 5 diaper. The first time or two I tried this it did okay, but I still had a partially dry diaper that leaked. I thought about buying different pads at night that didn't have a plastic back, but then came up with this...
I cut two pads up the back.
I pull the back open a little so there's a nice gap for all the pee to flow through to the diaper.
Here's the diaper with two pads, cut up the back, as close to side-by-side as I can get them. The smaller the diaper you use the more these two will have to be overlapped. Because more pee runs to the back I insert this mega diaper with the pads starting at the back cast edge.
Taping the cast has little to do with the actual diapering process, but it's important. While I had the camera out I thought I would take some shots of her taped cast.
All the white you see is waterproof medical tape. It comes in different sizes, but mine is 1" wide. I tried the slimmer stuff and goodness was that a pain to put on. Under all the white is a Gortex lining that covers the underside of the cast, some foam, and gauze. If you don't tape the Gortex within a day or two of the child coming home from the hospital the lining will rip. You don't want this happening. On her second cast the Gortex ripped on both knees before I could get it taped down. Thankfully I was able to pull it together and tape it down. Once you have waterproof tape all around the cast openings you then need to add Duck tape to hold it on. The waterproof tape sticks well to the Gortex, but not the cast. Duck tape comes in most to all cast colors. As you can see the hospital Kaitlyn had her surgery at uses a darker purple then Duck tape supplies a color for. However, their pink is spot on. As you can see from the front shot the tape between Kaitlyn's legs is damaged. From time to time I have to take off the Duck tape (carefully) and add more waterproof tape, then more Duck tape. Near the end of her being in the last cast I wouldn't take off the old tape, I would just add to it. When she had her cast down to her toes I still put both tapes on the toe area. I also put Duck tape around her ankle/heel and knee areas to protect them from all the crawling she was doing. I found myself almost nightly adding more tape to the knee of her one fully casted leg so I started putting a man's tube sock on that leg. My main reason for taping the knee and heel was to keep more cast from being applied to her existing cast, making her even heavier. Heaven knows I don't want her heavier.
EDIT: Near the end of Kaitlyn's cast time I realized we still had a lot of size 4 diapers. I swapped the size 5 at night for the 4. We never had an issue with leaks with the smaller diapers. I think the pads were the trick not the size of diaper.
A couple weeks ago Kaitlyn rode into my parents room, found my cousin's toy ball, expanded it, and came out like this. We laughed so hard. I have never seen her play with it before and had no idea she knew she could get in it. She thought she was hot snot riding around with it on. Hehehe...
Here's the one I 
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If you look close in this picture you can see I made the waistband out of bandanna remnants. This skirt was really easy. I love the results.
Here's Kaitlyn riding her tricycle with her new skirt. What? You've never seen a pirate wear a sun hat? Of course they do. Hehehe... I would just like to point out Kaitlyn isn't fat she is still wearing her spica cast.
The tricycle has become a new set of legs for Kaitlyn. She goes all over the house even in places I didn't think the thing could fit. Sometimes we even have problems getting her to eat because she doesn't want to get off it. I was very tempted to take it to her doctor's appointment today so she could have more mobility; we left it at home.
Check out this home. Where's the roof?
This is the end of a long fishing pier. There wasn't anything left of the pier itself. There was a truck on the front portion of the pier that is now stuck on the beams just like the one you see here. Only a crane could remove it.
Here's the entrance to the hotel. There was a car stuck on the other side.
I remember going to the beach and looking through the souvenir shops. Sadly they are gone. When we drove to where they had been this is what greeted us.
We drove through this neighborhood while heading to the beach. It was a small subdivision with street after street looking something like this. Notice the stairs are still standing on the first one, but the house is gone.
Could this be the house from the previous picture? Do you think anyone is home? We saw this house out in a field.
This was the sight that greeted us as we drove into Galveston. There were sail boats down streets, on the side of the road and like this one in a business parking lot.
If you notice behind this boat is a main road. It's almost leaning on the roof of a picnicking area. We didn't walk to the table because we couldn't tell if the roof of the place had been braced with a couple 4x4's onto the picnic table or if that was how they originally made it.
