Pull ups.....go back 20 years.....

[Janeymoo50]

...or more. Why are so many 3 and 4 year olds in pull ups? I get that there are children with SN, before you all start with my child is this, my child has that. There was a thread recently about bedtime, all kids wore nappies of sorts, until the age of 9, every response said it was normal to have kids in nappies at 6 and over, what the feck is it!!!

[cannotlogin]

am I the only one thinking that 20 isn't that long really....and that 20 years ago the disposable nappy industry was in full swing and people didn't have their children in cloth as a default? Back in the 70s cloth was normal, but not in the 90s.

[SatsukiKusakabe]

About the night hormone thing - my ds was dry at night months before he was dry in the day, which sort of proves it happens when it happens. He didn't potty train until 3.5, and still struggled with it in some respects after.

The other thing is, you might not always know if a child is NT at 2/3/4 years old, sometimes things are not picked up until later and then it all ties into the bigger picture.

I got a lot of comments from my parents and inlaws expressing surprise about about my ds still being in nappies at 3. I was 'trained' early. I remember a lot of humiliating public wetting incidents in the year before I started school though, and a couple at school. So people's memories differ, and if you're the one with wet pants, it stays pretty vivid.

[memyselfandaye]

Because my almost 5yr old has chronic constipation and has had since birth, which developed into an absolute fear of trying to poo on the toilet.

Even though he takes medication to make him go easily and without pain he still won't go on the toilet, weeing in the toilet is no problem, but the other is just not happening, I have tried everything from pleading to bribery, but I still have to put a pull up on him to get him to poo.

He wears underpants to school, but he manages to hang on until he gets home even though hes in pain and ends up leaking shit into his pants.

Smart arses with their thinly veiled digs and superior parenting skills make me feel like the worlds worst mother and like I'm failing him.

[Doublebubblebubble]

Nope. In my opinion pull-ups are a WASTE. OF. TIME and money for that matter. All they do is encourage the child to pee... There is no awkward feeling because they just feel like what they were used to in the first place. Wearing knickers and underpants help children to realise the difference... The only thing I bought was lots of knickers, and 3 mattress protectors so that if (she did have accidents of course she did) she had an accident she could just get a new pair of knickers on and straight back to bed. I REFUSED to put my DD in pull ups and she was fully toilet trained (got her self up in the night to go to the toilet) 3 months before she was 3. My mother was born in Singapore so was potty trained at a year old (dirty nappies + that heat = no no) I was out of nappies at 2.5. Getting children out of nappies requires patience and it seems that a lot of parents just don't have it anymore. My bf DD (my goddaughter) is 9 and is still in nappies - when she comes to mine for sleepovers I wont allow the pull-up dgodd sleeps fine and dry over night - she goes back home and the next night she'll have an accident and mum puts her straight back in the pull up.. I dont know what to say to my bf about it as I feel like I'm berating her I know how hard it is being a parent but she's got to do something and she's just accepting/ed that its perfectly normal.. Its sad. I definitely wont be buying pull-ups for ds (although I understand that training boys is more difficult/different.

[bruffin]

Back in the 70s my bf family all wet the bed into their mid teens. The used bed alarms but it was a huge problem for the family. Having to wash 4 sets of sheets every day is not lazy parenting.

My ds is 20 and dd 18 and most children were out of nappies by 3 during the day but it was considered normal back the not to worry too much about bed wetting until 7. Ds was dry at night before he was dry during the day and we never had a wet but dd was 4 before she wss dry at night even though she was dry at 2.4 during the day.

[RJnomore1]

I've got a 16 year old and an 11 year old - I used terry lined rubber pants to potty train them. They knew they'd peed but it kept it in similar to a pull up.

The early years staff I work with always mention this huge increase in late potty training as an area of concern for them because it diminishes the children's independence.

[toomuchtooold]

I remember one of my friends with slightly older kids than mine talking about this. "When we were kids and you pissed yourself in school that was it, next twelve years you were the one who pissed themselves in primary 1. Now it's like 'oh you've got the school spare trousers on this week? I had them last week!'"

I think it's brilliant that there's less stigma and less pressure around it than there used to be.


YY to the night dryness thing as well - I have twins, they trained in the day at 2y6m, one of them was dry in the night soon after, the other still not at nearly 4. They're your perfect control group - I did nothing with one that I didn't do with the other, and yet there's more than a year's difference (so far) between one and the other becoming nighttime dry.

[ZaZathecat]

As I said in my post Double I never used pull-ups on my daughter, just changed the sheets/mattress protector (almost) every night. She wet the bed regularly until she was 10.

Don't blame the parenting.

[RJnomore1]

I should say dd2 took a while to be dry at night.

[ArmfulOfRoses]

double have you read any of the previous responses?
If I was that little girls mother I would refuse to let her stay at yours and it is pure luck she hasn't wet the bed at yours.

[DrDreReturns]

My daughter is 6 and still has accidents at night - about once a week. As pp have said she can't help it, it's a developmental thing. My son wasn't reliably dry over night until he was 7.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say OP, there is no relationship between dryness at night and wearing nappies imo.

[CheesyWeez]

I minded a child who was 2.5 and "didn't need nappies anymore". She wet her trousers EVERY day. Her mum is my friend and I respected her approach, no more nappies. But for months it was a pain. So no nappies, asking her often, potty close etc, but she didn't get it. I would take her wet trews off and go to fetch clean ones and she would put the wet ones back on. If she couldn't understand that cold wet trews are unpleasant how could I expect her to stay dry? At 3 years old suddenly she "got" it.
Staying in nappies after about 3 or 4 - I think kids used to just wet the bed and now they don't have to (nappies are cheaper and better).
My poor friend's son wet the bed until 10yo. It was years ago so - it meant loads of washing! He needed an undersheet that rings a buzzer when it gets wet. It helped his brain make the connection (need a wee = wake up)!!

[Peppapigallowsmetoshower]

I think, as others have said, that there is a huge difference between day and night.

My son turns two very soon. He's potty training. He gets it, he is ready but I'm afraid to say it on MN as I'm worried I'll get slated and a catalogue of 'leave it for six months comments' if he ever has an accident. Day time he doesn't wear nappies and we're doing fine. He asks if he needs a poo every single time and for 90% of wees.

One of my main reasons to try was that he is dry in the morning, every morning and from naps. BUT I still put pull ups on at night, if he's asleep he has no control and I know it would be unpleasant for him if he ever had an accident. He actually twice has woken and called out that he needed a wee in the night. If I didn't get to his cot in time I'd hate for him to wet his bed.

I think there's a huge shift in parenting schools of thought. My mum and (very strongly) MIL think his training is late but is considered amongst my peers as really early. It totally stressed me out so in the end I was led by him completely, when he was ready and showing that he wanted to do it.

I think next to bf/ff, this is a hugely contentious issue. Why not we all care for our individual children as best we can. Wean them when they're ready, potty train when they're ready, put them to school when they are ready, work/sahp. No one is hurting anyone, right?

[SatsukiKusakabe]

My dd by the way is in pull ups because at 2 she is tall and she has been standing up for changes since she could walk. She already tells me when she needs a wee and uses the potty.

I have not worked hard on that. I worked hard with ds from the age of 2. She just knows earlier than my ds did and can do it.

[SatsukiKusakabe]

peppapig I think being led by him is exactly the right way to do it.

As I said my 2 year old has been practically training herself for the last few months and will be in pants in the next few weeks. My ds showed no inclination, so I gave him nudges at 2.5, 2.8, 3, 3.2, 3.5. He only got it at the last one. No one can really have an opinion on what your particular child's needs are, I don't think.

If a child was struggling to get it at 22 months of course you'd say back off a bit there's plenty of time. But equally if they're finding their way with it then all yve got to do is give them the opportunity.

[Chippednailvarnish]

I have never met a 5 or 6 year old in nappies.

I do however remember in reception the storytime carpet at school stinking of piss because kids kept wetting themselves.

[RookieMonster]

My sn ds was in pull ups until age 10. I got rubbish advice from the enuresis clinic and tried all sorts before ignoring everything they said and just started waking him at midnight to go to the toilet. Eventually he developed a strong enough habit/association so he could wake himself when necessary. 18 months later and he only has rare accidents if he forgets to use the toilet last thing, or is stressed, or has had too much to drink (like at a party etc) that night.

Contrast that experience to my 2.4 yo dd. I read about elimination communication long before I had her, and decided to have a go when she was about 3 months old. It worked amazingly well and she was out of nappies in the day from 19 months, and dry at night from 21 months. She's reliably clean but still can't always make it to the toilet with 100% dry knickers. I've found that little accidents can precede illness or be a sign of stress, so it's actually a good indicator of other issues going on in her little life.

I see toilet learning as a slow progression to independence rather than a two week event. We don't expect a baby to wean straight onto a steak dinner, and we don't expect a six month old to immediately start walking; full toilet independence requires a lot of skills that are just not possible for many children from a young age. I would not say my toddler is toilet trained at all, even though she is out of nappies. She is too young for much of the process, though she has conscious control over her sphincter muscles.

[RhodaBull]

I'm not usually a lentil weaving sort of person, but I do worry about the disposable nappy mountain. Mountain? More like the Alps, Himalayas and Pyrenees combined. And I read that one of the fastest-selling products in China is... disposable nappies. The manufacturers are going ker-ching! as the Chinese discover these marvellous creations.

Adverts for well-known brands stress the "comfort" aspect, that a child does not know they are wet. Bad idea. I agree with others that there is probably no faster way for a toddler to embrace the potty than to know the feeling of a smelly/wet nappy slapping round them.

Also agree that lots of people can't seem to be bothered. Niece and nephew wouldn't potty train their dd because they both worked full time and it was a faff when they got home. She was 6 before they would go out with her without a nappy on. Preposterous!

Of course children occasionally have accidents - I did, mine did; but SN/problems aside, it is unreasonable for a child to be wearing a nappy beyond the age of 3 in the daytime.

[fredericofoofoo]

Going back 20 years - my DD was potty trained at 2 ish during the day and wore pull ups at night until she was about 3.5. As soon as she had a couple of weeks of being dry in the morning then I stopped using them. I think they are a great invention and would recommend them.

Going back 40 years, my DBro wet the bed until he was about 9/10 and it was a pain for my DM so why not use a product that makes life easier?

[BankWadger]

20 30 years ago as a school aged child I'm sure I would have been in pulls ups at night had they been available. Definitely no special needs just 1 little part of my internal plumbing hadn't matured enough yet.

[Schwabischeweihnachtskanne]

www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-hodges-md/potty-training_b_1424826.html

Potty training before the age of 2 is often linked by urologists to childhood UTIs, constipation, and continuing to have accidents and bedwetting for longer. Children who start very early are often not reliably 100% dry til later than children who do it all at once in a couple of days when slightly older.

[Catphrase]

I remember the 80's and plastic sheets. So it just turned your bed into a pissy swimming pool

[ReallyTired]

Infant toilet training is harmless, provided it's done with love. Lots of countries around the world use elimination communication. It doesn't speed up toilet training, but it does take the strain off the laundry burden. People faced with hand washing nappies find it less work to out their lo on a potty after meal and nap times.

[Micah]

Pull ups are less humiliating for them than nappies

Says who? Why are either humiliating? There's not much difference, just one has fastenings, the other doesn't. Pull ups are a marketing ploy exploiting parents who are embarrassed their children are "behind", they can convince themselves and the child they are "out of nappies", and they are being more pro-active than leaving the child in nappies.

I never used pull-ups. Couldn't afford them. Mine were in nappies at night until 7. Neither one felt humiliated in any way, because I didn't humiliate them, nothing to do with pull-ups. A simple explanation that their bodies weren't ready, and that 1/5 late training children equated to 6 children in their class needing night nappies, and they thought it was normal, not something shameful and embarrassing they needed to cover with pull ups.

[HappyAsASandboy]

I was a child in the '80s.

I wet myself daily and I wet the bed most nights too. My mum would bring a plastic sheet on sleepovers and ask the other mum to put it on the bed.

I really really wanted to not wet myself and not wet the bed. I was not being lazy or ignoring it when I needed the loo. When I needed the loo in the day, often I go zero warning and wouldn't make it to the loo, though sometimes I would have plenty of warning and it would all be fine. At night I had no idea until I would wake up wet.

My kids were dry in the day at 3 years old. My DD then started wetting herself almost daily when she started school. She tells me she doesn't know when she needs to go to the loo until it's too late. DS took a little longer to get the hang of it at the start but never has accidents now.

Both my DD and DS are still soaking pull ups at night now they are 5 years old. We use Pampers size 6 and they are full every morning and sometimes leak too. I have plastic sheets on their beds, but rarely have to wash sheets because they're wet.

So basically, my DD is doing exactly what I did. I am doing a whole lot less washing than my mum did because I use pull ups on my kids.

So I think they're a brilliant invention that saves washing for the parent and embarrassment for the child. I don't think it will delay being dry at night; both of my kids want to be dry and are aiming for three dry mornings in a row so that we can try again without pull ups. They'll get it as soon as they're able.