Babies may have their diapers changed five or more times a day. Parents and other primary child care givers often carry spare diapers and necessities for diaper changing in a specialized diaper bag. Diapering may possibly serve as a good bonding experience for parent and child.Children who wear diapers may experience skin irritation, commonly referred to as diaper rash, due to continual contact with fecal matter, as feces contains urease which catalyzes the conversion of the urea in urine to ammonia which can irritate the skin and can cause painful redness.

The age at which children should cease regularly wearing diapers and toilet training should begin is a subject of debate. Proponents of baby-led potty training and Elimination Communication argue that potty training can begin at birth with multiple benefits, with diapers only used as a back up. Keeping children in diapers beyond infancy can be controversial, with family psychologist John Rosemond claiming it is a "slap to the intelligence of a human being that one would allow baby to continue soiling and wetting himself past age two."Pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton, however, believes that toilet training is the child's choice and has encouraged this view in various commercials for Pampers Size 7, a diaper for older children.Brazelton warns that enforced toilet training can cause serious longterm problems, and that it is the child's decision when to stop wearing diapers, not the parents'.

Most children no longer wear diapers when past two to four years of age, depending on culture, diaper type, parental habits, and the child's personality. However, it is becoming increasingly common for children as old as five to still be wearing diapers because of their parents' neglect or the child's opposition to toilet training. This can pose a number of problems if the child is sent to school wearing diapers, including teasing from classmates and health issues resulting from soiled diapers. Teachers' groups—who are attributing the epidemic to an increase in full-time day care use—are requesting that diapered children be banned from the classroom.[citation needed] The disposable diaper industry has been accused of encouraging this trend by manufacturing diapers in increasingly larger sizes. "Super-comfortable nappies" have also been criticized; the advanced technology in modern diapers wick wetness away from skin, leaving the child oblivious to their accident and when they need to go to the toilet. Paediatric nurse June Rogers claims that the attitude of parents plays a major role in the problem, and that toilet training is simply not a priority for many of them.

Children may have problems with bladder control (primarily at night), until eight years or older, and may wear diapers while sleeping to control bedwetting. The Children's Health and Wellness website claims that diapering a child can prolong bedwetting, as it sends a "message of permission" to urinate in their sleep. Dr Anthony Page of the Creative Child Online Magazine claims that children can get used to their diapers and begin to view them as a comfort, and that of the children surveyed, most would rather wear diapers than worry about getting up at night to go to the toilet. In a series of online surveys, Robert A Pretlow, MD, of eHealth International, Inc., cites an identical figure. He argues that if Internet users are representative of society as a whole, these surveys imply that a fetishistic or emotional attraction to diapers may be responsible for these "comfort" cases, and that "these behaviors are a significant cause of enuresis and incontinence." He called for further studies to be done on the topic.