Help with naked to underwear transition

[treehugz]

Anybody else have trouble with this transition? My 28mo dd has been using the potty nearly 100% during the day when nakey bottom at home... for about a month. So this past weekend, I thought I'd get her some panties. Well, for the most part she just pees in them. It's not easy for her to get them off and on, but most of the time she doesn't even try or let me know that she needs to go or even go towards the potty. And even when she's nakey bottom now she's having accidents . We've tried to be really gentle with the whole process... and she seems to do best when she has a lot of information about something new, a lot of time to think about it for a while, and then it still seems like it has to be her idea. Any ideas how to deal with this regression other than just wait??? Do I put away the panties for a while unless she asks for them? Do I keep her in them and just clean up accidents til she gets it?

[butterfly_mommy]

We have done underwear from the beginning however DS still has trouble getting them up and down so I told him that if he feels he needs to pee or poo that he should yell "I need to pee/poo" and I will come and help him. This has worked well. Also having a lot of underwear handy

I have read that some kids have a hard time with underwear as it makes their bodies thing they have a diaper on.

[nolonger]

I am there too and thinking that it would be easier if ds was a girl so I could just put him in skirts or dresses without the underwear.

[ellairiesmom]

Probably not going to the most popular suggestions here...but this worked for us...

1) after a couple weeks of naked (& potty success), we went to Target & she was allowed to pick out her own panties. she picked all of them...Tinkerbell & fairies, Dora, Minnie Mouse, Elmo & Princess & the Frog. we have never encouraged any of the character stuff (especially Disney) but she has cousins & we have a lot of friends with kids so she gets the exposure. turns out it was really great to have all the extras because the 1st week wearing panties, she had a lot of accidents. 2nd week, almost no pee accidents but she wasn't pooping on the potty at all.

2) this is where stickers came in handy...we used an old party favor tiny spiral notepad which became her "sticker book". i told her when she did poop on the potty, she got a sticker. after a few reminders, it worked.

she has had a handful of accidents but has done really, really well. and like some other big transitions we have had, what worked for her was her having some "control" in picking out special things to go along with the transition. (eg: her own room/bed-she got to pick out sheets)

she wanted to sleep naked but with a baby to deal with at night, i just couldn't deal with nighttime potty stuff, washing sheets etc. i found Dora & Disney Princess pull ups & she loves wearing them to bed now. the compromise was she didn't have to wear pjs.

she has even woken up on her own in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom & got back in her own bed. we only knew about it because in the morning, there was pee in her little baby bjorn potty.

[Theoretica]

I'm interested in these responses also! My 26mo DD has been diaper free all day at home for months, but as soon as her beloved panties are worn she'll pee in them. She doesn't like it, asks for help changing right away, the whole nine yards-but still pees in them. Naked, however, she's at 100% success for pee and poop. Go figure.

[meemee]

I call this transition time.

esp for kids under 3 years old.

this is my conjecture but i found it true with my dd. she would do naked and then uw. and she would forget she had uw and thought she had pullups on. she would be shocked to see pee dribble down her legs.

so i think for some kids they need the transition time and once they catch on things will be ok.

[Theoretica]

Well, we've never done pullups-and she HATES diapers, so I wonder why they pee in their underwear when they have the control to get to the potty?

We don't make an issue of it, I mean she's barely 2 and this was entirely her idea, so it's no biggie really. I'd just like to finish the transition if at all possible

[mamadelbosque]

DS1 is 3 and frequently goes w/o undies - just pants/shorts. That way he rarely has accidents. W/ undies its way more often (though its gotten less as time goes on), but mostly I just don't bother w/ them and thereby largely avoid accidents

[physmom]

We saw this with DD too. Honestly, it just took some time adjusting (and occasionally asking if she has to go but not too often because then she gets annoyed). Ironically, now we're currently in cloth diapers (but without inserts) but that's purely because her underwear were driving her CRAZY and she was scratching her butt to death. Now she isn't scratching anymore. I just need to find little kid underwear that feels like the lining in cloth diapers!

[fancyoats]

dd did the same thing of peeing into her underwear even though she was having good success when naked. so we did pants without underwear before we started with the underwear.

[JBaxter]

We went commando for a month or so ( ok a couple months) just looser fitting shorts with no undies

[tbone_kneegrabber]

Originally Posted by noordinaryspider

I am there too and thinking that it would be easier if ds was a girl so I could just put him in skirts or dresses without the underwear.

That what we do with ds. At home he is often just in a dress or a skirt and no underwear, he's very successful that way. He also enjoys pants with nothing, or only underwear and no other clothes.

And we just take him to the bathroom A LOT. I have found that he can be quite successful, but doesn't always remember to ASK to go to the bathroom, if I take him (not ask if he needs to go, but say "time to go potty") he has fewer accidents.

[Drummer's Wife]

I've got the same thing going on with my youngest. Thanks for all the suggestions.

He starts preschool in august and I don't think they'd let me send him pant-less

[mamadelbosque]

No, but they might be OK w/ him going w/o undies!!

[hakeber]

I ha this issue with DS. I did something a little weird to get him used to the undies...

I put a panty liner in it, so he could feel the wet, but it wouldn't make his whole trousers wet. It bought him just enough time to tell me he needed to go pee and then we would run to the potty and he'd finish the job.

Took him about a week to transition from that to nothing...but FTR, I still had to be the pro-active one reminding him to go to the toilet, taking him every hour or two, just in case, especially at the playground where it was often too fun to remember.

I had to religiously pack an extra pair in my purse until he was 4 just in case, and there are still accidents now and then. He still has a rubber sheet under his bed sheets to protect the mattress at night for the once in a while whoopsies.

[LuminosaJane]

Thanks for the ideas, mamas. I'm just starting to wonder about wearing undies more as dd's been 100% for a bit with a naked bottom. Getting rug burn tho, so undies might be nice.

[Theoretica]

We tried pants with no undies today and she did great! That seems to be a step in the right direction

[treehugz]

Yay, thanks ladies! These are some great ideas! So we tried to get dd to TELL ME when she needs to go so I can help pull the panties down, but that didn't work ... I think she's just really going to have to wait till she can do it all own her own. I also tried putting her in loose shorts, but she just goes in those too, without even trying to pull them down. Today we tried going nakey bottom again and she's gotten back in the potty habit, so I'm thinking we'll try nakey bottom another week or so and then try the panties again. It's such a pain to keep any consistency though since we're out and about some nearly every day and not at home all the time... I think it would probably mortify her and set her back if she had an accident in public, so she's in pull-ups when we go anywhere. Any other ideas?

[treehugz]

Oh, and we've tried reminders, suggestions, and trying at regular intervals, but these have been unsuccessful too... I think she either feels too pressured or needs it to be her idea.

Originally Posted by noordinaryspider

I am there too and thinking that it would be easier if ds was a girl so I could just put him in skirts or dresses without the underwear.

hehe... maybe you could make him some training kilts. that would be darling.