To be shocked at my friend putting a nappy on her 4 year old to avoid a break in their journey?

[notanothernamechange]

OK so name changed as don't want the mum in question to recognise me...

Was recently really shocked when a friend of mine put a nappy on her 4 year old ds because 'we have a long journey and don't want to stop so if you need to go to the toilet you can just go in your nappy'

This is not a boy who has only been recently potty trained and might have an accident - he has been using the toilet for a couple of years now. I would understand if it was to avoid an accident but for convenience alone I thought it a bit unfair.

AIBU to find this really humiliating and degrading for her poor ds? Who really didn't want to have the nappy on? I was totally shocked I have to admit but then my oldest is only just 2 and I am in denial about potty training so maybe this is normal?

If the child is dry at night then there was no need for the nappy and since the little chap didn't want one on I think it was a bit mean.

My ds1 is 4.5 and still needs a nappy at night, we use pull ups. He was potty trained at about 3 and a few months and has been fine since then but always needs a nappy at night as he wees a lot and doesn't wake up. In the morning he will wake and use the toilet but not during the night.

i took dd on an 8 hour car journey when she was 2 and not dry at night and didn't feel the need to put anapy on her.

i am enjoying this new aspect of parenting to judge discuss

I would think daytime and nighttime journeys are different though. If a child is trained in the day and still in nappies at night then yes I would put them in a nappy if it was a nighttime journey I hoped they would sleep on. I did this with DS who was a full year between day and night training. Would get him into his pjs at grandparents and just lift into bed at home. DD was only a few weeks between the two so not much of an issue.

As long as we do the motherinferior system both our children can go longer than either DH or I.

When my 5yr old needs to go he has to be at a toilet quickly or an accident happens.

On long journeys I put pull ups on him to avoid this, but only to avoid upsetting him coz he will get upset if he wets himself. He hates going in them and if he does he wouldn't sit in them so we'd still stop to change him when we could.

yes my four year old has a stronger bladder then me. It's me who needs the toilet stops on car journeys!

HE WONT BE DOIGN IT WHEN HE IS 10 WILL HE

why is it any of your business?

DS(3) doesn't wear nappies anymore, yet if we were on a really long journey I probably would put one on him.
Too many times we haven't and have had 'I need a wee' quite soon after a tolet stop and had NOWHERE to pull over, so he wet himself.
He isn't dry by night yet either so wouldn't want to risk him falling asleep.
As for him not wanting to, he is 3, he doesn't want to wear nappies at night, but when he doesn;t he wets the ebd, he doesn;t want to go to bed at 7:30, but he does, he doesn't want to do allsorts of things, but as I am the boss, I decide what is best and IMO a dry child with a nappy on is better than one who has wet themselves and needs to be changed, has a wet car seat and smells.

It is none of our business at all DCCod.

We are here to judge.

Have you crossed that road yet, or are you on a blackberry, dancing about the Pelicon button in indecision?

well said victorian squalor

i fakring wiated you knwo and felt stupid doing it

Eh cod, at what point did you go over to the never judging side?

I am the queen of smug here though because I got a 2.2 yo from Yorkshire to France and back without a single nappy or accident. Did have a poo in a potty on the Bayeaux ring road at rush hour, mind you.

WAs that you or your 2 year old, bozza?

Well that would be classified information wouldn't it? Actually though she used a potty quite a bit on that hol because she was rather unimpressed with some of the French toilets.

yabu
can't see the problem myself. I would do thishappily with my ds if it meant no stops. nothing worse than you are sitting in traffic and they want the toilet. and tough luck if he says no. ia m the parent and he is only 16 so the child.

presumably if she felt for a second that her son found it "humiliating and degrading" then she wouldnt do it.

get your judgy pants off.

I thnk a child soaked in their own urine covered clothes and car seat is much more degrading than being in a nappy that was made for this purpose, much less comfortable too.

and put the pull ups on

2shoes, surely an empty bottle is all that is needed for a 16yo?

but what if they miss. dry nites go up to about age 15.

I think it sends a really weird message actually.

Like, its ok to sometimes knowingly wet yourself

And mummy cares less about your comfort than her convenience "....we don't want to stop...."

there's nowt as queer as folk

as a foreigner, however, i've noticed an extremely shocking lack of public loos in this country. i don't know if it's the same in England, but more times than not i've just had to find a friendly bush around here - luckily i spent a lot of time in the backwoods in my past life so it doesn't gross me out at all.

Mazzy, I wouldnever suggest to DS that he 'knowingly wets himself'. I would still expect him to tell me when he wanted the toilet and if we could stop, I mean I've been stuck on long stretches of motorway when the need has arisen and I'd much prefer him to have an accident in a nappy then us pull over both illegally and unsafely and get ourselves killed.
The nappy is a precaution, not a way of telling them not to care.

I quite agree Expat- also I love the civilised provision of drinking fountains all over the US and Canada. I think that local authorities just shut them at the slightest provocation here, citing expense, vandalism and drugs problems. Just seems too easy to shut them.