To pull up or not to pull up??

Juanita - posted on 04/05/2009

we avoided pull ups and only use them now when we know we have to go out for a long time and have no guarantees of finding a bathroom (long walk, etc.). we also only started using them for those situations after we were sure that our son was on his way to being fully trained peeing and pooping reliably, most days with no accidents (unless it was our fault), perhaps 1 or 2 leaks a day.

It was definitely frustrating to clean up the messes, but we learned we had to be super diligent with taking our son to the potty at regular intervals to reinforce the habit of going. He went through 3 main phases: 1) wouldn't indicate he had to go, but went whenever we took him. 2) would announce he peed right after peeing, but not before. 3) starting to let us know he needs to go, will DEFINITELY tell us if he really doesn't need to go.

the discomfort is kind of the point of going straight to undies. we all have discomfort in life. i'm sure your son will be able to deal with it. :o)

Sherry - posted on 04/04/2009

i totally agree with gabrielle. Pull ups are Big kid DIAPERS. They do not like to be wet and if you clean up the mess first and then the child they woull have been uncomfortablef or a little while and will not like it. Going potty is much faster and wasier that changing all of their clothes and cleaning up a mess. And yeas once they are ready it only takes a few days to figure out, I also wnet ot the extreme of telling her after she had it figured out that if she peed in her new princess undies that I was going to throw them out......Of course that would be to expensive and crazy but she thought I did a few times and was so upset that she will not pee hee pants ant all now, she even wakes up from naps and 4;30 am to go pee. Start to finish was about two weekd. I do not give her pull ups for anything other than sleep. Good luck.

Gabrielle - posted on 04/03/2009

We just went from diapers to undies. We did get some cotton "training underwear" that are just thicker, to try to avoid escaping mess. But pull-ups are still diapers, which will pull the uncomfortableness of an accident away from your son. You want accidents to feel yucky, so he doesn't want to repeat them. Also, pull-ups are very expensive. Underwear can just be washed and re-used. Start on a weekend (a long one, if you can), be prepared to soak and wash a lot (maybe have some stain remover or OxyClean on hand), and be persistent. It really only took us about one good weekend to get my DD almost completely trained.