7-15-10 Bye-Bye Pull-Ups

So, a couple of weeks ago I took one of those colossal parental leaps. I let my three-year-old wear his underwear to bed instead of a pull-up. Conrad has been potty-trained for a year now (which still makes me break into the happy dance!), but the nighttime pull-ups have been my security blanket; afterall, I'm the one that has to wash soiled pajamas and bedding. Since Conrad was still waking up with a we pull-up about 40% of the time, I honestly had no intention of giving up the fabulously absorbant , "pants" any time soon. However, my husband had other ideas. . . and on this particular day, he declared that "we" were done using pull-ups. In a moment of weakness, all I said was, "If we're going to do it, we may as well start tonight." Easy to say at 2:00 in the afternoon.



By the time bedtime rolled around, I wanted to layer Conrad's bed with extra towels and was wondering if it was too much to put plastic down. I didn't do this because I didn't want my son to sense my fear: more laundry on top of the already overflowing hampers. Plus, he had been asking for a while if he could wear unerwear to bed and doing his best to convince me that he wouldn't wet the bed. So, we did it. No water cup at bedtime any more and I tucked my preschooler into his inadequately waterproofed bed and hoped for the best.



It worked! Can you believe it? It worked for weeks. I would love to delve into the psychological implications of him regularly wetting during the night when he was wearing a pull-up and then not at all once he started wearing underwear. Actually, let's be honest. . . I don't need to know why it worked out that way I'm just glad it did. Well, it did until the other night.



I got a little too comfortable and was basking in the reality of only buying two sizes of diapers and not having the additional cost of pull-ups and without thinking, I let Conrad take a water cup with him to bed. Since we have three kids three and under, nighttime at our house is sometimes eventful. This was the case one night last week. Caden woke up in the middle of the night and apparently while I was feeding him, Conrad went and crawled into our bed. When I saw him there, I decided I would be more comfortable if I went and slept in his bed instead of squeezing onto my side. I was completely unsuspecting when I slipped into his bed just wanting to get back to sleep and felt moisture soaking through my clothes. I launched myself out of the twin bed and marched down to my room to wake my husband to tell him that I was right. "We" should not be done with pull-ups! When I saw my pillow, I lost my enthusiam and, again, just wanted to get back to sleep. I pushed Conrad over a few inches and as my head hit the pillow - it was deja vous: wet clothes. He had peed AGAIN in my bed. At that point, I was awake -- wide awake and went straight to the shower.

And so began my day while it was still dark.