Teenbaby or TB is a term used in the Adult Baby (or Infantilist) community to describe teens (13-20) who like acting like babies. It's a paraphilic fetish. Being a TB usually involves;

Wearing, wetting, and dirtying, diapers.

Wanting to be treated like a baby. This can, in some cases, be a truly overpowering desire to regress to being a baby all the time. In most it manifests as roleplaying with a partner (sexual or otherwise, often also a TB).

Having, and playing with, objects associated with infancy. These include, but are not limited to, pacifiers (dummies), bottles, oversized baby clothes (romper suits, plastic pants, onesies etc.).

Being a TB can be a nightmare (I know, I'm one), for several reasons;

It's rare. Estimates range from 1:1000, to 1:20000. This is much rarer than being gay, bi, into BDSM, or being a furry.

Around 1-3% of TBs are female. 85% of male TBs are straight. This obviously creates ridiculous competition for the few girls in the TB community.

The TB/AB community is not very large, and as such not very visible. My furry friends have much less problem hooking up with other furries, than I do with other TBs; and he has fewer problems when he tells people he's a furry.

However, being TB can be a lot of fun, and besides, most people who try to supress it fail.

A TeenBaby is a teen who acts (or has desires/hidden desires to act) like a baby.

This usually includes :

• Wearing and using diapers / nappies, plastic pants, and possibly pull-ups or training pants.
• Cuddling up with soft toys and comforters, like plushies, pillows, or blankets.
• Using other babyish items such as dummies and sometimes childrens books or baby food.
• Wearing babyish clothing, such as a pacifier on a chain around the neck, a onsie, or footed pyjamas.
• Wanting to be treated as a baby or younger child by other people. Contrary to myth, most TBs don't want to be babied by their parents, because they consider this gross and an intrusion by parents into their personal life. They would prefer to be babied by other teen babies or better yet, someone slightly older who is of their preferred sexual orientation.
• Using the internet and in particular web forums, mailing lists, chats and virtual reality environments to interact with other TBs.

Being a teenbaby is related to, but not the same as, being an adultbaby, a babyfur or a diaper lover.
Broadly speaking :

• Adult babies are 18+, teen babies are 13-18.
• babyfurs are furries / furry fans who are also adult babies / teenbabies.
• diaper lovers are not interested in the baby apparel or treatment, like teen/adult babies are. Instead, they enjoy using diapers for other reasons, such as to fulfil a sexual fetish, comfort, or convenience.

This means that, contrary to expectation :

• Being a teenbaby is not necessarily a sexual fetish, or indeed, at all related to sexuality. It is possible to be a non-sexual TB.
• Teenbabies will probably come into contact with furries, but not necessarily.
• Teenbabies will probably come into contact with members of the adultbaby community, and 18-19 year old teenbabies are also adultbabies.

Ultimately, the causes of a teen becoming a teenbaby are unknown and needs to be researched, but probably won't be because most people simpy don't want to know.
In the absence of a scientific investigation, various theories have been conjectured as possible causes, including :

• the mind's attempting to cope with bedwetting, pants-wetting or other non-voluntary infantilistic behaviours such as thumb-sucking. Unable to stop one infantilistic behaviour, part of the unconscious mind ceases attempting to grow up and starts to regress to more childlike behaviours, so as to form a coherent psychology. This causes urges or tendencies towards TB behaviour, which may be perceived as forign or difficult to understand, even by the teen experiencing them. Acceptance generally comes only with time.
• the mind's attempting to cope with severe stress caused by non-infantilistic sources such as parents divorcing, misery at school, social disapproval of one's sexuality or lack of a loving family. Babies are usually loved unconditionally, and this powerful emotional support can seem ideal to teens who are struggling with difficult circumstances.
• the person consciously wishing to regress to an earlier stage in life, either due to displeasure at their existing position in life, or due to their wish to re-live their childhood, perhaps because they missed out on it. This reason has been cited particularly in the cases of transsexuals, who often realise that their body sex is incorrect given their brain sex during puberty, and start to miss the childhood they never had as their correct sex.
• Jealousy due to a second baby arriving and stealing the spotlight. A toddler who sees attention on them dry up as a second child is born may experience jealousy and retain the association that babies get all the love well into their later years. If a stressor is present during the difficult teenage years, this long-hidden association from childhood may resurface and encourage them to regress.

There is, however, no consensus as to what causes a teen to become a teenbaby, even within the teenbaby community itself.

There is, however, some agreement that certain factors (e.g. parents divorcing, bedwetting, childhood treatment, being the first child) do make it more likely. However, as teenbabies are exceptionally rare, and factors such as parents divorcing are common, it is usually agreed that the causes are not well understood.

Teenbabies often experience feelings of guilt, and alienation. Those with all but the most liberal parents may avoid telling any of their family due to fearing for their safety, worry about parental hostility, or the worry that discussing such things with their family would be deeply humiliating. Teens experience a powerful pressure to grow up and are often keen to have more power and responsibility. They don't want to undermine the "I'm mature now!" message they are trying to send to their family, by letting their families know they secretly enjoy wearing diapers and acting like a baby. Feelings of isolation are common, and many teenbabies turn to the internet as a way to find others who share their desires and thus provide them a place they can feel they belong. Only once they have reasonable levels of self-confidence about who they are do they tend to willingly share this secret with their loved ones.

Teenbabies are a diverse group, so generalizations are often wrong.
However, based on observation, I have come up with a few that I accept provisionally :

• If someone is a TB at the age of 16-18, they are almost certainly going to remain a TB or AB their entire lives. Quitting is nigh impossible, and most people who try end up on a very self destructive path of guilt leading to purges and possibly self harm. The biggest danger a 16-18 year old teenbaby faces is that of their parents trying to "cure" them. This has an almost nil rate of success and almost always leads to the teen becoming depressed, and ceasing to trust the parent(s) who are pressuring them.
• Those that accept their TBism as a minor part in life tend to do well. They tend to go on to become healthy adult babies who have jobs and can support themselves. They will still indulge their adult baby tendencies for the rest of their lives, but they won't feel damaging guilt over doing so. They don't harm anyone else, but, if they are lucky, may find an understanding partner with whom they can be intimate.
• Those that try to go overboard and indulge their TBism way too much tend to get caught by their families, which leads to a world of terrible suffering, and causes severe family tensions. This can have a positive resolution (where the family accepts their child as different), or a negative one (where the family rejects the black sheep). In any event, the conforontation is likely to be sudden, dramatic, and cause stong emotions on all sides. Positive results tend to lead to a teenbaby who is more self confident, does not feel shame for the TB things they do in private, and is thus more likely to be able to get on with their life. Negative results tend to lead to teenbabies who are much more stressed due to parental disapproval. Stress is often a trigger, in that more stress will increase the TB desires felt by the teen. As parental disapproval leads to stress, parental disapproval can cause a vicious cycle] which leads to depression, isolation, and a general downward spiral. In cases like these, the teenbaby needs to indulge their TB desires to feel happy, but is unable to do so due to the situation with their family. This creates more stress, leading to a greater desire to indulge their TB side. Eventually, this bottled up stress caused by their parents not accepting their emotional needs can lead to depression and possibly a mental breakdown.
• Teenbabies tend to form their own spaces, away from adult babies. This is probably because they feel more comfortable around others their own age, due to their unique issues, and the fact that paraphilic infantilism is often viewed as an 'adult' fetish or condition, which leads to the fact that even most adult fetish and AB communities reject teens as potential members. Part of this is the desire to keep adultbaby sites clean and free of accusations of sexualizing childhood. This is part of the wider problem of older people not wanting to acknowledge sexuality in teenagers because they find it difficult to deal with and embarassing, much like adult humans find displays of sexuality by animals to be embarassing. There is, however, a support network out there. There are some websites dedicated to teenbabies, (e.g www.ADISC.org). There are also sites designed to helping people understand infantilism (e.g. understanding.infantilism.org). Finally, there are a few pages dedicated to helping parents understand teenbabies (e.g. "When Kids Love Diapers"). These places aim to support the teenbabies, to help their parents understand and accept their need, and ultimately to help the teens grow up to confident and successful adults. Many teenbabies use material from such sites to prepare them for eventually coming out to their parents. Being a teenbaby is, for many teenbabies, like being gay, female, or married. It is such an integral, important part of their identity that they may feel people who know them without knowing about their TB side don't really know them at all. Due to this, teenbabies often want to tell their parents and/or friends, but don't dare to do so due to fear about their reactions. In particular, they fear that those people will out them to other people, laugh at them, or stop being their friend. They therefore create new friendships within the TB community over the internet, until they have built up the independence and courage to come out to their real life family and friends. Some with conservative parents or friends will never come out, and these teenbabies tend to gradually move away from their family and towards spaces like college/university, where their friends will be more open minded and willing to accept them for who they are.
• People who are different, like everyone else, have a basic psychological need to feel like those around them understand them and accept them for who they are. A teen who knows they are TB, just like a teen who knows they are gay, may feel uncomfortable at living a double life, where those around them are never aware of what really makes them happy. To a person who is different, this feels like you are living a lie, projecting a false image of who you are to other people around you. There is an old, true saying that you can never build self esteem while being dishonest about who you are, because your mind will subconsciously associate the positive attention you receive with the fake image, and not with your true self. This ultimately leads to the creation of an outwardly confident public persona which hides the insecure real self beneath it. Thankfully, most people of kink will figure this out sooner or later, and form safe spaces with their peers in which they can be themselves, feel validated by having others percieve their real self as valuable, and ultimately build up their self confidence.
• Teenbabies are often smarter than average, because they have to do a lot of thinking in order to manage their lives. This thinking helps develop their ability to plan. It has also been said that some teenbabies are that way because they grew up too fast, and want the freedom to behave like a kid in ways they missed out on. This has an odd double effect, in that they can seem to be very mature in their ordinary lives, but very immature when they feel safe enough to act babyish. The extent to which teenbabies get immaturity out of their system in TB mode, and are thus more mature when dealing with the rest of their lives, however, varies wildly from person to person.

The advantages of being a TB include :

• decreased risk of alcohol and drug abuse, due to already having something else (diapers) that enable the teen to enjoy themselves and release stress safely.
• decreased risk of teen pregnancy due to the fact that teenbabies are less likely to have unprotected conventional sex. This is for many reasons. For example, they may to prefer express their sexuality via diaper fetishism. They may avoid relationships with other teens they fancy because they are afraid of the other person finding out about their TB status. They may be an asexual TB who feels sufficiently satisfied by the emotional comfort that diapers provide, that they don't have a high sex drive.
• increased chance of emotional intimacy if the teen can find a suitable teen partner who they trust enough to let them into their TB world.

The disadvantages include :

• substantial chance of isolation from family members, due to fear of parents' reactions, and the effort requires to keep one's TB status secret.
• serious chance of breakdown of relationship with parents if the parents try to force the teen to give up TB behaviour, or "cure" them.
• urges increase under stress, and during times of great stress, the teen may make a mistake which leads to them being outed.
• others that the teen confides in may mistake their diaper fetishism or TB/AB status as a form of paedophilia. Of course this is incorrect, as the two have nothing to do with each other. Teenbabies (and adult babies) want to be treated like babies, or indulge in babyish behaviours. They don't, as a rule, have any special reaction to actual babies or children, except for sometimes wishing " I wish I could be treated like that ". Even though AB/TB/diaperfetishism have nothing to do with each other, the public may well associate the two, because there is more ignorance than social understanding with regards to how sexual fetishes work psychologically. In particular, people make the incorrect assumption that someone who has a fetish for wearing diapers also gets aroused when he sees other people (e.g. real children) in diapers. This is incorrect. Just as men who like women with blonde hair generally aren't aroused by minors with blonde hair, so diaper fetishists who like diapers and people their age wearing diapers generally aren't aroused by minors wearing them.
• the physical risk of diaper rash, which, though minor and easily treated with cremes and gels, can nevertheless be annoying for a short time.
• embarrassment and shame, because the teen is going against several powerful social conventions at once. Taboos broken include the less obvious prohibitions on mental regression and childish behaviour, feelings of dependence and wishing to be comforted, as well as more obvious social taboos like teens expressing their sexuality. Over time, teens who adjust well to finding out about these hidden aspects of their personality will adjust well, ceasing to feel shame or embarrassment, but remembering that their kink is not shared by the vast majority of people, and thus they should avoid offending others by being babyish in public. Teens who do not adjust well may end up denying their desires until the stress causes them to relapse and binge, at which point they may not be able to keep their activities secret. In the worst case, teens who fail to accept this part of themselves may deny that their desires exist for the rest of their lives, leading to a chronic depression of mood, depressed or inhibited sex drive, a feeling of having a "hole" inside them, and difficulty forming lasting relationships.

Overall, being a teenbaby can be a great way to relieve stress and enjoy oneself, but it does create dangers (such as that of parents finding out and overreacting) that can cause disaster. My hope is that in the future, when human sexuality is better understood and people realize that human sexual behaviour is actually very diverse, such things will be more accepted.

Disclaimer :

• The point of this article was to help educate the public about this very niche topic, so that hopefully the next time readers of this page hear about it, they will have a better understanding and be less prone to knee jerk reactions. I believe TBism to be harmless by itself, but I have seen many TBs live in misery for years due to the actions of ignorant parents and family.
• I don't pretend that everything here is entirely accurate, because, due to the lack of scientific investigation of this topic, we are forced to rely on personal experience and information gathered in the field.
• I am slightly biased, in that I am a former TB (now AB) myself, and I am a member of www.ADISC.org, read understanding.infantilism.org, and generally read around sites catering to young teen/adult babies and DL people. I'm also European, so there may be a slight bias there. Nevertheless, I do think I know what I'm talking about because I was a TB for 4 years, and I have done a lot of (albiet, amateur) research into it during that time.
• Please don't use this writeup as a way to try and spot TBs. Don't assume, for example, that a teen with a pacifier on a chain around their neck is a TB, any more than you would assume a teen wearing a dog collar is into BDSM. Just as a teen might have many reasons for wearing a collar (for example, they are a goth), there can be lots of different reasons for carrying a pacifier, such as quitting smoking or being a raver. If a teen does choose to tell you they are a TB, take it as an extreme compliment, for they are putting a huge amount of trust in you.