DS just potty trained, do I put him back in nappies for 6 hour car journey?

[bohemianbint]

This is probably a no brainer - he'd have us stopping every 4 minutes on the hard shoulder otherwise, but will it confuse him if we put him back in nappies for the day? Am still getting my head around how it all works practically speaking...

When we are going to be on the motorway for a long time, I put a nappy on DS and explain that as we can't stop straightaway on the motorway, its for 'just in case'. We schedule stops every hour or so, and go to the loo at the services.

thank you - that sounds very sensible! Will try that and hope for the best. We're at a wedding tomorrow, so fingers crossed he stays dry for that!

You could always put something on the car seat (care mat or towel) and take several changes of clothes if you want to avoid giving mixed messages by putting him back in nappies.

Or a pull-up? You could call them "travel pants" and explain they are only used for weeing in in dire emergencies?

I would avoid using a nappy if you can as it will give him mixed messages about the whole potty training thing and may well find you are back to square one (this happened to a friend of mine). Think you need to take a deep breath and go with pants - he might surprise you

We used pull-ups on the long drive from Devon to Newcastle. They never 'went' in them but I think it gave us all peace of mind.

I'd use training pants rather than nappies. We also have a mat for the car seat.

I would put him in a pull up for 'just in case', so you can all relax a bit more on the journey. This is what we've done for plane flights and long car journeys, and never had any problems with confusing them.

thanks - will not use nappy then. think a flying visit to tesco for pull ups might be in order!

I'd say it's fine to put a nappy on him but only if he has finished potty training and knows that it's there "just in case"

Stopping on the hard shoulder is dangerous and illegal if only for toileting, so your only other choice is to put down a towel or something.

I put my two youngest in nappies for a journey of this length but they know they should only use it if they can't make it to the next rest stop.

My DS has been trained in the last 3 months and will never wear a nappy in the day. Even if he is wearing one, he asks for the potty and won't go in the nappy.

What I do is to put a disposable changing mat under him in his carseat (they are very thin). I find that he has actually never wet it. I put the potty by my DS in the car so he knows it's there. If he couldn't make it, I'd just let him wet the mat (and his trousers) and then put dry clothes on him.

Although it does depend on your particular child - my child would actually rather wet himself than use a nappy!! If yours is happy to use a nappy, I'd just put it on him.

I was searching the archives with the same question earlier!! I was thinking about starting training DD (2.1) tomorrow but we're going away for Xmas a week on Mon and it's a 5 hour journey. I think I'm going to go for it and see how quickly she picks it up. I'll keep an eye on this thread though