A parenting redo

Have you ever wanted a redo?  Like you did something as a parent or friend, or anyone, and look back and thought, "I wish I would have done that differently, "or "I wish I wouldn't have done that at all"?  Yep, I had one of those.  But I thought maybe I could tell you about it, to help or prevent you from doing the same.

It's about Pull-ups.  What a FUN topic.  When we potty trained Maya we Never used Pull-ups, that is during the day..... We wouldn't even let her babysitter put pullups on her, because we had heard that they often confuse children, that they are just a glorified diaper that you pull up, and that is exactly what they are.!

Potty training Maya was easy, she did it in a day and was great, except for the night.  She just couldn't hold it for 12 hours, and I couldn't blame her, she had just turned 2, and for a 2 year old to wake up and take themselves potty, yeah..... not gonna happen.  I talked to her Dr. about it and just said the only way I feel like she would stay dry at night is if I dehydrated her, and the Dr. agreed and said for her age it was totally normal not to be able to hold it all night, so we put her in pull-ups for the night only.

It seemed like Maya was SOAKED in pee every morning for a long time, not even close to being dry..... then we got Norah and well I didn't even want to think about Taking the pull-ups away, we had enough change and then Sarah came..... lots of excuses, right?

Then we potty trained Norah, and she was dry a lot more than Maya, but everytime we stayed some where else or traveled I would put her in a pull-up so she wouldn't pee on someone esles bed.  It ruined her.

The pullups trained Norah to pee herself, most likely right when she woke up in the morning.

And the pullups only prolonged Maya's wettness at night.

 Seriously Maya is 4.5 and we finally just got her in regular underwear at night.  Parenting Fail.  I know some children developmentally take longer to sleep through the night dry, but I really think the pullups made it way worse, oh and my laziness.

So in December we just took them totally away, no more pull-ups!!  They are so expensive and we had 2 kids in them!!

You know what we did for months after that? changed wet sheets every morning, a bunk bed sheet and Norah's bottom sheet! We had essentially trained the girls to pee their pants at night. It is not fun having a pee smelling room and washing and changing fitted sheets every day and re-making the 2 beds!

 

Brett and I finally started a routine where we would wake up the girls at night when we went to bed, around 10pm and set them on the potty.  They finally started waking up dry...... and suddenly Maya just got it!  She started going through the whole night dry!  She got a very special "Dry Date" with Daddy.

Breakfast at Mimi's and bowling and the brunswick zone

 Norah is still working on it, we wake her up around 9pm to potty and she is usually dry in the morning.  But sheesh, I feel like we should have done this a year ago!! And you know what it even less fun, waking up to a wet toddler bed the first day you are going to show your house to a stranger in the morning so you can sell it.  Oye, that was major decontamination.

So my advice, avoid pull ups if you can, especially for daytime potty training.  And if you have to use them at night, try to take them away sooner than later.

Please don't misunderstand me, if you have used pull-ups or are currently using them I am not saying you are a bad parent at all, every situation is very different!  I just know for our family it was a prolonged, expensive, unnecessary habit.