are training pants important for potty-learning (2 1/2 year old)?

[indigosky]

Are training pants important/valuable for helping a 2 1/2 year old learn to use the potty? She's been mostly cloth diapered. We have not done any EC with her. We don't have a backyard, and the kitchen is the only room in our house where it's "safe" to have accidents (hardwood floors and rugs everywhere else), so the idea of spending days diaperless isn't as easy as it is in some households.

I'm finding myself reluctant to spend money on cloth training pants since they're expensive (as the original cloth dipes were!). But I'm not excited about disposable ones, either -- and my guess is that they keep kids feeling so dry that they're not as useful.

But I'd love potty-learning to go easily and quickly, so if training pants will help, I'll get some.

Thoughts?

[~Amy~]

We went straight to underwear during the day when we started PTing. We are currently using Pull Ups at night. I feel the same way you do...we CD'd as well & I wasn't excited about investing in cloth training pants. I was hope that we wouldn't need them at night soon after PTing so just bought a couple packs of the PUs, but that's looking like it will not be the case, so I think I will be looking for cloth ones soon.

[pbjmama]

We went straight to underwear and had about 20 accidents the first day until it clicked and went very smoothly after that. Not accident free but not very many. Cleaning pee of our hard wood was not a big deal, as long as it is done immediately. How about a cloth diaper with a prefold against the skin so it feels wet?

[samstress]

we also went straight from cloth diapers to underwear when dd was almost two. luckily, the few accidents she did have were in easy to clean places.

[Juvysen]

same here... or nakey butt. Be prepared for puddles, though...

[curiouscanadian]

As pps have said, I think it pretty much comes down to what you're comfortable with. If you don't use trainers, you'll have to deal with puddles. Puddles on some sort of hard flooring aren't a big deal, but carpet's another story. If you don't want puddles, go with the trainers.

I went through the same dilemma (even, how many do I get?) and ended up gettting a couple of little beetles. Expensive, yes, which is why I only got a couple, but they're pretty darned absorbant (but still feel wet) so I forsee eventually being able to use them for naps/overnights as DS gets more reliable.

I also got some undies, but DS only wears those if he's recently gone potty and we're in the main (laminate floored) area of the house so it's easy clean up if/when. Oh, and I also eventually picked up some cheap Gerber trainers but I swear some days that his undies/pants combo hold more than those things!

Good luck!

[redpajama]

I really like the Gerber training pants--they're relatively cheap, they catch most of an accident (they'll still need a change of pants if they all-out pee in them, but they shouldn't leave a puddle on the floor), and they can continue to wear them after they've finished "learning." I dye mine all sorts of lovely colors and my 3.5-year-old is still wearing them now, nearly 2 years after she potty-trained.
Also, they come in size 18 months, which most undies don't. I potty-trained my kids pretty early, and the smallest undies I could find most places were size 2/3 and they were HUGE on them--especially the girl-styles, I guess because the boys at least have that big, thick elastic band at the top.

[mamadelbosque]

They weren't helpful for us. DS1 finally potty trained when I just let him run around our house naked for a couple weeks - he wouldn't pee wherever he was (mostly), he'd hold it till you took him to the potty. But if he had undies or anything on at all he'd pee in them like they were a diaper. After 2 or 3 wks naked we were able to put pants on him (but *NOT* underwear) and he was potty trained that way for months... I just started putting underwear on him like last week... and he's blessedly NOT peeing in them! YAY! (and so yes, for months we went in public w/ just pants and no undies on. )

[Juvysen]

We used Imse Vimse training pants (mostly because they were hand-me-downs) with a wool cover for night with my DD for a long time, then we started just pottying her when we went to bed (around 11), and she started staying dry all night. Now we still potty her when we go to bed, but she wakes up if she has to go, too, and she wears regular underwear all the time.

If you have a kid who still poops in the diaper every time, you might consider getting some trainers that have some snaps on the side, still, because trying to get underwear off with a poo in it is... messy, at best. I have some fitteds that I sorta use as trainers w/Ds1 when necessary, but he spends a lot of his time at home in just underwear or nakey butt.

[verde]

Only at night. For daytime DD was naked for awhile. It was a hot summer and she's a nudist anyway. I showed her the potty and she got the idea right away. When it cooled down a bit she wore a dress with no panties for the rest of the summer. She peed on the skirt twice and then figured it out.

She wore a pullup at night for a year. The following summer I started the process of nighttime training. We made sure she peed before she went to bed and that really helped. We also talked about no pullup for awhile before we actually went naked at night. She had two accidents and that was it. Then she would wake up and ask for help to the potty.

All in all a smooth process. I feel lucky.

[jkn]

We actually did use disposable pullups at night for a while. But went straight from cloth to undies with ds. We're in the middle of nighttime training now. I wouldn't say the training pants were really necessary - we could have used cloth at night up until now just as easily. Although I do think it helped DS a bit to wear something different. The whole 'big kid' thing. I say don't spend the money on training pants unless for some reason it seems necessary....

[healthy momma]

I place a doubler (from cloth diapering days) between two inexpensive Gerber training pants. When my DS (2 yrs) pees it will definitely go right through one pair of undies and puddle on the floor. The above setup takes care of it and was inexpensive.

[lunarlady]

We did the PU, and I think it set our training back by several months. I would NOT use those agian. We have a few pairs of the Gerber training pants, and those were my favorite. They catch enough that the floor/couch/chair isn't soaked with an accident, but DD still gets that "wet my pants" uncomfortable feeling. And they are cheep. We still use those at night to help contain the occasional accident.

[LindsC]

We just went straight to regular underwear during the day. We still use a cloth diaper at night because he isn't quite there yet, but that is fine with us.

[Pumpkin_Pie]

I used the Gerber training underwear with DS too. They really were great for his very frequent accidents when he first started wanting to wear underwear at 2. He was sort of off and on with wanting to wear them for about a year, and then a month before he turned three, he asked for underwear again and has had almost no accidents. I then ditched the Gerber undies and bought him "real" ones.

I agree that naked time is absolutely key if you can do it. DS trained nearly 100% almost immediately if he was naked. There were only maybe a half dozen accidents that I can remember, and all of them except for one very messy poop were on the hardwood or tile in my kitchen. As long as you clean them up right away, it really is no big deal.

Good luck!!

[tinaroseb]

We used the Gerber underwear too. DS was 2.5 when he potty trained. It took 3 days of taking him potty every half hour and then he got it! He had a lot of accidents the first day, some the second day, and 2 the third day. The Gerbers were nice because they're fairly inexpensive and very easy to clean.

I had made some thicker training pants for him (Ditto Daddys) for when we were traveling and/or out of the house. Those were nice because they look like shorts but have the extra soaker to help protect when he had accidents. Good luck mama!

[Aufilia]

We tried the expensive, waterproof cloth-diaper-like training pants, and DD just treated them like diapers. We switched to the Gerber trainers and had success. We only used disposable pull-ups at night, and only after she was day-trained. They ARE expensive. DD only used them for a couple months before she night-trained herself (she was 2.5).

[lexmas]

We did EC, but by the time DS got around to potty training (10 days short of 3!), we were not doing it so much! We used trainers off and on for the first 2.5 years of his life. But then back to diapers, and he potty trained spontaneously (I have a very stubborn child, so it had to be all about him wanting to do it. In fact, if he asked for underwear, we would let him but we told him if he peed in them he would have to go back in a diaper. And then he did. So really, he had one or two times that he peed in his pants, and then he was potty trained. But, since EC is really just gradual potty training from birth, and I have DD in diapers all the time, we just take them off for her to use the potty, I would say, no, you don't need training pants. Oh, and for the record, after a day or two of wanting underwear, DS requested "just pants" for a few months and skipped underwear compltely. So training pants would have been the biggest waste of money here, considering that!

[Llyra]

We never used training pants. (Except pocket trainers at night). With water-tight trainers, my kids always just treated them like diapers, so there was no point. With thinner trainers, they didn't contain any better really than ordinary undies, so again, there was no point. We went straight to regular cotton undies when they were ready, and dealt patiently with the inevitable accidents. Or sometimes not so patiently !

[blizzard_babe]

Originally Posted by mamadelbosque

They weren't helpful for us. DS1 finally potty trained when I just let him run around our house naked for a couple weeks - he wouldn't pee wherever he was (mostly), he'd hold it till you took him to the potty. But if he had undies or anything on at all he'd pee in them like they were a diaper. After 2 or 3 wks naked we were able to put pants on him (but *NOT* underwear) and he was potty trained that way for months... I just started putting underwear on him like last week... and he's blessedly NOT peeing in them! YAY! (and so yes, for months we went in public w/ just pants and no undies on. )

This is how DS is. We're TRYING the underwear thing, but he does much better nekkid.