Trying a weekend without diapers

[SarahBear]

We usually order diapers online because it's cheaper that way. Well, we missed an order and rather than running out to buy more, I'm going to try underwear this weekend! It's also a three day weekend, so we have an extra day too before the work week starts. We do still have enough for nap time and bedtime though. So it's nearly 11:00 a.m. and Leo is in a diaper for nap time, but he was in the same underwear all morning (woke up at 7:00). I'm somewhat surprised, but given that he hasn't pooped (he doesn't generally indicate potty need for poop until after he's already pooped), it's not all that surprising. I've also been somewhat pro-active in having him use the potty at reasonable intervals to minimize the chances of accidents. We'll see what happens in the afternoon and in the next couple days. My plan isn't so much to have him potty trained, but I'll take it if it happens. At the very least, I figure it's just good potty practice for him. What sort of luck have any of you had in similar circumstances?

 

[AnneD]

I didn't go that route when potty training (used cloth so never ran out), but I've heard of people who had success by telling their children that they'd run out of nappies and it was time to start wearing underwear. I think their children may have been older than Leo, but I'm not sure. Good luck!

 

[sequeena]

Good luck! We just stopped getting pull ups from the incontinence service as honestly I just didn't want to have 10 weeks worth of pull ups in my house. We told Thomas the pull ups were gone and he has to wear pants. He pees before bed, pees if he wakes and needs a drink and pees in the morning. Only one accident as he was mid night terror. He's now completely dry day and night!

 

[SarahBear]

I didn't go that route when potty training (used cloth so never ran out), but I've heard of people who had success by telling their children that they'd run out of nappies and it was time to start wearing underwear. I think their children may have been older than Leo, but I'm not sure. Good luck!

Yeah, Leo's too young for that approach, but I did tell him we were out and that he'd have to use the potty, just in case he understood it on any level.

 

[SarahBear]

So I expected him to pee in his underwear (which he has once so far), but the surprise of the day: He actually pooped in the potty! It really came down to me just putting him on at the right time, but even so, he usually doesn't poop on the potty.

 

[CaptainMummy]

With all 3 of my girls, we just went straight to pants one day and that was that. Hannah was about 4 months older than Leo, but she would definitely have understood at his age what i was telling her. She has had one accident on the first day, and she dribbled once at nursery (they asked her to try to pull her trousers down and she struggled) and that is it! She has made it an absolute breeze. She has only been out of nappies for less than 4 weeks, and I tool away the night time nappies after a week and she hasn't wet the bed once.
If he is ready, the 3 days should be plenty long enough for him to get it, and if not, no biggie! Good luck!

 

[george83]

My 22 month old thinks he's ready for potty training and keeps taking his nappy off and going to use the potty (and actually uses it) but whenever i let him keep his nappy off after about 10 minutes he's been on the floor, hopefully you have more luck!!

 

[SarahBear]

He peed a ton after getting up from his nap. We went through all his underwear plus one. When I dug them out this morning, I could only find 5 pairs. As he wet them, I just rinsed them off and tossed them in the dryer. The last time he peed though, he did get to the potty in time. Just a little while ago, he was having his duplo people go potty. So, even if he didn't get much in the potty, his play seems to indicate that he's processing through things.

 

[SarahBear]

Well, just like yesterday, there was a mix of:

1. Peeing in the right place due to being asked to before he had a chance to have an accident.
2. Peeing/pooping in pants and immediately notifying us.
3. Peeing in a diaper at nap time.

The poop almost made it though. I can't remember if he requested the potty in time to use it today. I chose to do this when he wasn't exactly "on a roll" with potty use. Anyway, we also have tomorrow and if I were a stay at home parent, I'd consider keeping it going longer just to see what happens, but we need to travel on Tuesday and I'm not the stay-at-home parent, so tomorrow the experiment will be over. I think I may try it again periodically until summer. In the summer time, I'm going to actually try to potty train him since I get nearly 2 and a half months off work at that time. If that doesn't work, I'll go the "you're a big kid and we're not buying more diapers" rout in December when I get a couple weeks off work around Christmas.

Oh, and also like yesterday, he was having dolls use the potty. This time it was baby dolls on the real potty and toilet. That's a definite sign he's thinking about and processing through it more than usual.

 

[SarahBear]

Well it's a bit past 9:30 in the morning of the third diaper free day. He may not be anywhere near potty trained, but I've seen a lot of progress. If I could stay home with him for a week or thee, I'd stick with this since it's surprisingly not even that much extra work. It's probably on par with cloth diapering. The progress I've seen:

1. More body function awareness
2. Obvious processing of the concept (evidenced by role playing with dolls)
3. Increase in potty words (he is starting to say "bee" for "pee.")
4. He has pooped in the potty two days in a row. Yes he has had poop accidents as well, but before this, pooping in the potty was incredibly rare.

When first thinking about continuing, I was thinking that maybe we could just have all weekends be diaper free. Then I was thinking why not just have him out of diapers in the evenings when I'm home as well? I think what I'll do is just not use diapers with him at home (except for sleep time). My husband probably won't be ready to jump on board until Leo starts being more consistent with his potty use, but I think that if the the diaper free time is consistent, it will still have an effect, even if more slowly than it would with dropping diapers cold-turkey. If it starts getting frustrating, too messy, or if he regresses too much, I might just go back to diapers. In the meantime, my goal is to keep the progress he's made and make slow and steady progress. I wasn't originally planning on trying to potty train until summer, but he seems capable of making good progress now, so I'm sticking to it.

 

[SarahBear]

Well we're on to the next weekend and over the course of the week, he continued to show improvement. He communicated about potty needs and was more likely to poop in the toilet or potty. Today (Saturday), I had him out of diapers pretty much the whole day. The one exception was that he napped in a diaper and was in it for a while after the nap. He did pee in it a bit, but finished in the potty. Other than that, everything was in the potty or toilet, including his poop! Tomorrow will be diaper free as well. It's awesome to see that he's been so successful with it.

 

[kellyc1987]

That's great, seems like Leo had really taken to it!

I tried lucas without a nappy for literally 15 minutes last night and kept asking him if he needed to wee/poo (he said no) and he pee'd all over the floor! Don't think I'll be trying it again for a while

 

[SarahBear]

That's great, seems like Leo had really taken to it!

I tried lucas without a nappy for literally 15 minutes last night and kept asking him if he needed to wee/poo (he said no) and he pee'd all over the floor! Don't think I'll be trying it again for a while

I don't constantly ask. Neither of my kids took well to reminders.

 

[SarahBear]

Yay, even more progress! When I came home from work, I found that Leo did not have a diaper on. That means that he's been good enough about the potty during the day that my husband felt comfortable leaving a diaper off of him. And guess what. When I was with him this evening, he even pooped in the potty! He's also had fewer night time changes. The night before last, he requested the toilet in the middle of the night and last night he didn't go at all. This kid is going to be potty trained in no time and night time diapers are going to be a thing of the past as well. I'm going to buy underwear on Friday (The nearest place to get underwear is an hour away and I won't be going there until Friday). And if there's a regression later, so be it. In the meantime, I'm just happy for the progress he's made.