Toilet Training, Potty Learning,Transitioning from Diapers
Helping your child transition from using a diaper to using the toilet is a natural progression in a child's life. There are many, many philosophies and ideas about how and when to go about helping your child transition from diapers to eliminating in a toilet.
There are a couple of threads of commonality woven throughout today's common philosophies:
The process of helping your child to learn how to eliminate in the toilet needs to be a positive experience; your child should never be pressured into using the toilet
A parent's job is to observe their child's behavioural cues to determine if there are any consistent cues related to when the child wets or has a poop in their diaper
A parent must provide opportunities to try and use the potty/toilet at appropriate times
A child is often more successful with learning to use the potty when he becomes aware of the association of peeing and becoming wet.
Training pants are one essential piece of "equipment" that you'll need to assist your child in this transition. Training pants signal a change from "what babies wear" to "what big kids wear" and also give parents and children easier access/ability to get clothing/underwear off to quickly use the potty.
There are a variety of training pants available, so why go cloth?
There are THREE great reasons to consider cloth training pants:
Financial Cost - in today's uncertain economic climate, families are looking for creative ways to save money. To keep your toddler in 4 disposable training pants per day from 30-36 months (every child's path will be different, some may start or finish earlier or need a longer period of time in pull ups), you are looking at about .43 each (mid range price) x 4 per day x 180 days = $310 . To put your child in Cloth Training Pants for the same period of time (6 pairs is quite adequate), you are looking at about $78.
Environmental Cost - 720 Disposable Training Pants in the landfill vs. ZERO Cloth Training Pants in the landfill.
Helping your Child to Learn - Cloth Training Pants are cotton on the inside so when a pee occurs, your child will FEEL wet, thereby helping him to make the connection of the feeling of needing to pee, the action of peeing and the feeling of being wet. Training pants offer absorbency and protection by combining a natural cotton interior with a waterproof/breathable outer layer. Cloth Training Pants will hold in an accident and help both you and your child learn about patterns of elimination and what it feels like to go pee. Cloth Training Pants are not designed to replace a super absorbent disposable diaper (that uses chemical gel beast to increase absorbency) but intended to be used as a tool in active toilet training. Disposable Training Pants have recently introduced "wet strips" inside the diapers to try to emulate the properties we just discussed. Using Cloth Training pants is a far more effective tool for this goal.
