Ditching Diapers - Potty Training Problems, Trends and Suggestions

While researching potty training, and the elimination of disposable diapers from a child's life, the author has come across several recent trends. The most disturbing trend is that children have gone from being potty-trained at around 18 months on average in the 1960s, to taking, on average, 30 months today.  It appears that this is expanding.  Three years ago, Pampers introduced Size 7 diapers to the marketplace (something that no other manufacturer has followed), but a recent review of the Pampers.com website found that Pampers is now calling some of their largest diapers (disposable training pants and disposable underwear) "Size 8".  Another alarming recent article, purportedly from the U.K. discussed how children were remaining in diapers until school age.  It went on to say, school teachers were changing children in Kindergarten.  This article blamed time constraints on the family, and that many day care workers were putting children into diapers while at their day care center for "convenience" reasons, which effectively undermined any of the potty-training efforts the parents had done.  I question the validity of this article (especially about children going to elementary school without being potty-trained), so there is no mention of a link to it, but its ramifications, as I prepare to bring triplets into this world, are profound.  Even if this article is not true, some of the issues, especially day cares undermining the consistency efforts of parents with potty training are probably issues that many parents of children in today's busy world will face.

The average baby in the United States uses 3,500 diapers per year (roughly 9 diaper changes per day).  This is an average, and because of normal diaper changes, sizes, etc. the average baby uses many more diapers their first year, then their second and so forth.  However, if a child stays in diapers for just one extra year, that is at least an extra $1168 per child (based on the average prices of size 5, 6 and 7 diapers at $0.40 / diaper).  As the future parent of triplets, this means that my costs, per year, escalate to well over $3000.   Therefore, the economic incentives alone are well worth investing time and thoughts on the subject, even though my family is unborn.

There are many factors that point to why our children are remaining in diapers longer.   Some blame parents for lack of consistency and time.  Others say day cares and other help we have to reach out for to make ends meet undermine our potty-training efforts by putting children back in diapers for their own convenience.  Others blame physicians who recommend letting the child "choose" when to ditch diapers. 

The culprit probably lies somewhere within and as a combination of most of these suggestions.  However, one of the most obvious factors that others are not discussing is that of children using disposable training pants that look, feel and protect like a diaper.  An example, as a child, the author's brother was eight years younger than he was, and he still remembers his brother going through potty training.   At the time, training pants were entirely cloth, and resembled very thick underwear, and accidents were obvious, messy for everyone and created clear discomfort for the child.  After several accidents, the author's brother was potty-trained quickly, but the clean-up and the extra work surrounding using underwear as training pants put a strain on the mother, and the potty-training process started and stopped repeatedly for several months.  Soon after the author's brother was potty-trained, Huggies introduced Pull-Ups. 

Pull-Ups provided a great advantage for the parent, and for the child.  They still looked, felt-like and resembled underwear, but they contained accidents much better, resulting in less time.  This was also when diapers were generally a solid color, were plastic-backed, had tapes on them (instead of Velcro).  Pull-ups on the other hand felt like cloth, had cartoon characters on them, and the child pulled them up, instead of the parent putting the child in them.  Soon after though, diapers changed and they started making them with a cloth-like cover, Velcro tapes, and featured cartoonish designs.  The problem with this, in the author's opinion, is that these improvements in the diaper removed the advantage for the child - that of wearing "big boy" pants.  The only real difference between diapers and disposable training pants (as far as the author can tell) is that the child pulls them up, even though they look, feel and protect like a diaper.  Another problem with this was the release of "convertible style" diapers which are no longer available for sale.  These diapers were pulled up (supposedly by the parent), and this left little distinction, if any, between the supposedly special training pant, and the diaper.  The diaper companies soon stopped making these diapers, but for them to put this type of diaper into the marketplace, knowing that they are identical to pull-ups in almost every aspect seems like flawed logic.  Are they deliberately trying to keep our children in diapers longer?   Probably, its good business, they sell more products, but fully fleshing this argument removes the blameworthiness from the parent, and puts it on an intangible corporation, something that should not be encouraged.   Even if they are doing this deliberately, it is up to the parent to take matters into their own hands.  If these products did not sell, the company would stop making them, if we keep buying them, then they have every incentive to keep producing it.  

The point with this diatribe is essentially that if you are going to try and get your child to use the potty, introducing pants to wear instead of diapers, that look, feel and do the same job as diapers – are just diapers to the child and the child sees no difference.  If you are motivating your child to get out of diapers, why then would you put them in something that is nearly identical?  

The convenience of disposable underwear is a huge bonus, but the problem still exists for the child – they are still wearing diapers, even though they are being told they are not.  Unfortunately, this might be a large contributing factor to why children have such difficulties with potty training now.   Couple this with the frantic schedule everyone leads, which diminishes the time available to be consistent with a child, and it is easy to see why it might take longer to potty train a kid. 

As for the author's children, well, unless something changes, we will try to put them in cloth, traditional training pants.  There will be messes, but putting them back in diapers, regardless of how many times we tell them they are not "diapers" does not seem like it will achieve the desired results.  A key problem with this exists though, and if day care workers are undermining potty training efforts with pull-ups, then how will they act when a child has an accident in underwear?  At least we would have a chance with a pull-up though.  Unfortunately, I do not have the answers at this point, but I know what I will try to do in the future.  We have two years before we jump off this bridge, but with triplets, my personal goal is to eliminate diapers, and the massive expense that goes along with this as soon as possible.   Maybe we will just take a week off from work and try one of those potty-training boot camps, but from what I know, potty-training is a long, difficult process, where consistency is the paramount key.  Switching from diapers, and maintaining a diaper-free existence for the child should achieve success…   I hope.