Are training pants worth buying, or just straight to knickers?

[curlyLJ]

Hi all

I've not really 'trained' my DD yet, but she has started to show signs she is ready and I have left her nappy-less on a few occasions whilst we have been having this warm weather and been out the garden. She will happily sit on loo/potty, sometimes producing something, sometimes sitting for ages and producing nothing! If I get her on the potty at fairly regular intervals (every 20 mins or so) she is OK, but has also had quite a few wee accidents and 2 poo accidents whilst having no nappy on.

I don't think she has quite got the connection between needing to go and getting to the potty - she realises pretty quickly when she has done something though and often tells me she has wee'd or poo'd her nappy though...

So, the reason for my post is to see whether it's worth trying some training pants or whether to just bite the bullet and put her in knickers?? Thing is I'm not in a position to be able to spend a week at home with her to concentrate on this, and we will be out and about too much over this coming 4-day w/e to try then.

Any ideas/experiences/word of wisdom to share please?

You haven't said what age your DD is, but if you have to get her to sit on the potty every 20 minutes, I would say she isn't ready. When you say she had no nappy on, was she wearing pants or nothing. When DS wore nothing, he could take himself to the potty when needed and didn't have accidents; when he was wearing pants, he had accidents.

By training pants, do you mean old-style training pants or pull ups. I thought training pants were useless as they held almost nothing, while pull ups are really just another type of nappy.

I had bright bots and bambino mio training pants for ds1, these are washable training pants that look like pants, but if they wee themselves they feel the wetness. They are a bit padded so will help stop accidents, but you need to change them straight away or they leak onto trousers. They are brilliant though as they will save you from having to wash loads of pissing pairs of trousers.

However DS2 refused to wear them and so went straight to pants. They both we potty trained at the same age 2.4 years and I just followed their lead. This was with wees (poos were another issue completely but they both had bowel problems). I found that potty trainig was relatively easy as they were ready/wanted to do it.

I wouldn't reccomend the disposible training pants though. Tried them with ds1 for trips out, but he just thought they were a nappy so wouldn't bother asking for the loo if he had one on.

Thanks for replies. Sorry should have said DD is 2.2

I don't have to sit her on the potty cecily but as I had no idea how often or when she might need to pee, I was just asking her to sit on it at regular intervals... twas when I didn't remind her that the accidents occured.

Yes by training pants I mean those washable ones where they kind of help contain accidents and give the child a chance to feel wet. Thought it might help DD make the connection before rather than after the event IYSWIM?

Never used training pants or pull ups with my children. Bare bum when at home and also lots of pairs cheap knickers. If you put them on toilet or potty too often they don't getused to the feeling of a full bladder

We went straight to pants, for our wee girl pants were part of the motivation!

Go straight to pants, and just keep reminding her, she'll soon get the idea of it and won't need a verbal prompt to go.

DD1 was potty trained during the summer holidays when she'd just turned 3. She wore training pants for a couple of weeks when she went back to pre-school in the September 'just in case'. As others have said, they won't hold the wee forever but long enough to change as soon as they're wet so that clothes don't get soaking straigh away. I also found that no pants was more sucessful during the first week or so as she still associated wearing pants with a nappy and just wee'd regardless. Knicker-less she was more inclined to go to the toilet.

Training pants just didn't work for us because they hardly contained anything so still had to wash as many wet trousers as if DS had been wearing pants. He also wasn't remotely bothered about being wet.