Well, we do wear big girl panties during the day, but. . . . pull-ups at night. So far we are having fewer accidents during waking hours, but there are dry nights and the-entire-bed-is-soaked-you're-taking-a-bath nights. Praise God for the progress we have made so far, but we are down to a hand full of pull-ups, and so far I haven't been able to make myself buy any more (I HATE pull-ups!). You see, we tried the potty bootcamp with our daughter last September and she was going great after three days of training. I thought, "Wow, this really worked, we'll be in panties everywhere in no time!" Someone should've slapped me back to my senses. After two weeks of doing well, we went to the beach for a week-long vacation, the first vacation my husband and I had taken since we got married and had a three day honeymoon in Gatlinburg (yes, it was a little redneck, lol). So, I thought we'll try this great product called pull-ups. After all, they're training pants, and she could wear them so we wouldn't have to worry about accidents in the beach house we had rented or on the long car ride to and from the beach.
After a week in pull-ups at the beach, we were almost completely un-potty-trained : (
But I didn't give up. Besides, she was having so many accidents now that I couldn't bear the thought of taking them off of her. Fast forward to January and her two-year-old check-up, and I talked with her pediatrician about it (she happens to be a mother of four), and she said, "Pull-ups are only good for long car trips and night accident prevention. They are just a diaper that leaks."
She then suggested that I try her without them, and a friend of mine said that someone she knew had dealt with the same problem, and the only way they got past it was to let their child go naked, because they won't pee on themselves naked.
I pondered these things, and worried about our house which is mostly carpeted, but noticed that Shelby never peed on herself when I got her out of the bathtub at night even though she usually used the potty immediately afterwards.
Well, in February I decided to try letting her go bottomless, but I put long dresses on her, because we were afraid she'd grow up to be a nudist (yes, we're that crazy and conscientious), lol. And she did great. We had the occasional accident at first, especially when we were tired or extremely distracted, but she really got it.
However, and I think this is due to my excessive use of pull-ups, she still thought that if she had anything on at all, including the thinnest panties that she should be able to poop and especially pee in them :(
After a few months of wearing nothing on the bottom and no accidents when we went bottomless (we were still wearing pull-ups when we went out or to other people's homes), I had bought and thrown away enough pull-ups to last a life time, and hope to be rid of them forever soon. I just put panties on her (with the most absorbent easy to get down pants I could find), and resolved to not look back no matter how often we peed in the floor. (I am currently looking for a good carpet steamer).
Shelby has been in panties now everywhere during the day since before Mother's Day!!!! :D
However, our nights are still hit and miss, and as I stated above we are running low on pull-ups for night. I am very tempted to buy more, because, honestly I don't want to wake up every night and change the sheets and give her another bath. But, I'm afraid that as long as I allow her that dependance, she will never learn to go to the potty at night.
We are also having trouble going in time when we are around other kids or at places that she's enjoying too much (i.e. we've peed in our pants at the zoo, on the playground, outside at parties, outside at Vacation Bible School, in a children's museum, on playdates, etc.).
I am praying about it, and any insight you can give me on the topic will be greatly appreciated, preferably before we run out of pull-ups.
