Effervescent Pull-Ups in the Future?
Now, I know they've come out with the Pull-Ups that contain a sorbitol patch that makes your child's skin feel cool when she's wet. I think that mimics what the process would be if your child wore cloth trainers, but I'm not so sure how I feel about effervescent bubbles.
I've never been a supporter of Pull-Ups. To me, they're not much more than a clothing/furniture protector. (Although I think they're great at night, since night training occurs so much later for most children.) I've seen very few children that were helped along on their potty training journey by them, and rather have seen plenty of children who were hindered by the product. It's interesting to me that now, Kimberly-Clark is finally figuring that out and sort of admitting that their original product wasn't all that and a bag of chips.
In the patent description they even say:
"...a child's ability to recognize when urination occurs may be hampered by the improved performance of disposable absorbent undergarments which quickly draw and retain urine away from the wearer's skin after an insult occurs. Many believe that a child must feel the sensation of wetness on the skin after urination in order to facilitate awareness of this bodily function and promote timely use of the toilet so as to avoid the uncomfortable feeling which otherwise follows."
So, yes, the cold feeling of the Pull-Ups with Cool Alert is a step in the right direction. I'm not such a fan of the effervescence idea. But the bottom line for me is this: If your child doesn't already know when she is peeing or pooping, then potty training should wait. If you start before then, you're just wasting your money on training pants that are hard to get on and off (especially in winter) and you're pushing your child to do something before she's ready. It shouldn't take bubbles or chemicals to tell your child when she's going. That's a connection she has to make with her mind -- recognizing the internal urges.
What do you think? Would you use these bubbling training pants if they were available? Have you tried the Cool Alert Pull-Ups with any success?
Comments
I agree with Stephanie — it seems that some toddlers are pushed into potty training. I have two boys and both were potty trained “late” by conventional wisdom (3 to 3 1/2 years old). But both of them just decided one day it was time, and there were no tantrums and no accidents (even at night!) — they were done with diapers. It was on their terms, and it was stress-free for all of us.
As a preschool teacher for 2 year olds for years and now a parent of a 2 year old I have potty trained many children. Anytime the parents of my students would say that they wanted to potty train and asked for my help/advise I would ALWAYS tell them to stay away from Pull-ups for all the reasons mentioned in the article. I would also tell them that if the child was truly ready that the training would happen very quickly, usually with me sending the child home on a Friday and coming back on Monday completely trained with very few accidents. With all this in mind, I know my daughter is not ready to start training and when she is, she will never wear a Pull-up. Now, if I can just get my Mom, who claims that my twin sister and I were potty trained as soon as we could walk (physically impossible!), to realize that my daughter isn’t ready and she isn’t late in training!
What an awful concept! Leave it to Kimberly-Clark to try and suck more money out of parents already empty pockets with a ridiculous and SCARY potty training tool. How unnatural! I say enough polluting the earth with throwaways. Training pants or cloth diapers are all kids need to get the message. They will potty train when they are physiologically able, with some good coaching by a tuned-in parent!
Why all the fancy cool strips and bubble just let your child feel wet!
My daughter was dry just before her first birthday,i never used pull ups and because i waited till she was ready,we never had any accidents and she only took a week,night time did take a little longer.
I have tried all the pull ups including the cool alert. My daughter is 29 months. She could care less if she is cold or wet. Even putting her in training pants where she gets real wet. She gets mad when we try and take the wet underwear off her. I always heard switching from pull ups to diapers was confusing for a child so we only use pull ups now. However I really believe it’s been a waste of money and hasn’t done us much good. She will go to the potty if I remember to remind her constantly and tell her sit on the potty. We are usually so busy during the day it is a difficult task. I hoped she’d be potty trained before returning to preschool in the fall. I’m starting to realize she will be trained when she’s ready!!!!
Pull ups with bubbles??? Sounds like a fun thing to me. The child (or my son at least) would probably pee all the time to feel bubbles on his butt. How weird is this?? I never used Huggies stuff anyway because it was too expensive and wouldn’t fit snug around my son. He leaked through all the time. Luvs and Pampers worked best for us.
they can just keep the chemicals away from my little ones hiney. I think effervescent trainers would scare her and could be tramatic for any child to have fizzing happen when they get wet.
We have been using Pull-ups on my 3 1/2 y.o. granddaughter for about a year now. We have tried all the “wetness” strips, etc. that Huggies came up with but to no avail. We haved tried just panties all day and she had several accidents. I now realize that we started before she was ready because all our other kids trained early. When we are out in the stores, however, she always goes in the potty because she likes to check out the bathrooms everywhere we go. She is frequently dry when she wakes up. I guess she will use the potty when she’s ready and not before! I don’t think effervescent bubbles would help with training…they would make her want to pee in her pants more to make the bubbles happen!
I have used the Cool Alert pull ups at night and it has helped my four year old with his night time potty training. I have to agree that your child has to be ready for the potty, bubbles or coolness will not move them forward if they are not ready.
I have a 26 month old daughter and I started training her about 2 months ago because I am pregnant and due in Sept. I want to get her trained before the new baby gets here, so that it will be one less thing that I have to worry about.
The only thing is that sometimes I have to remind her to go, if she is busy playing, watching a movie, ect. Most of the time she will let me know that she has to go, unless it is a #2, then she tells me after. During the day I will put her in regular underware, and at night, during naps, or rides in the car, she is in the training pants.
I recently purchased the Cool Alert training pants to try. I feel that they are helping. The other night she actually woke up in the middle of the night and told me that she had to go. BIG thing for me!!
Now, the bubbles thing I think is a little over-board…I now that I wouldn’t want some stuff used to help treat heartburn and clean dentures next to MY daughter’s tushy. I think that they better stick to the wetness strip and cool alert stuff…
How silly my little girl is 21 mths and we started putting her in knickers only round the house and when she wets herself she doesnt care if shes wet so hows a few bubbles going to help?!
Ok…My son was 3 years and 8 months before he was fully trained. It wouldn’t have mattered if they had put skin eating acid in his pants….he wouldn’t have trained sooner. A pull up is nothing but a glorified diaper (with a higher price tag I might add). My middle daughter was trained at 2 1/2 years. My youngest daughter at 13 months. I never even told my daughters about the potty…they just did it on their own. I guess God had mercy on me after the hard time I had with my son! What I want to know is if you are learning that you get bubbles when you pee….what happens when the bubbles are gone…or is there next product one for elementary children? What a wasteful way to suck money from lazy parents. I am not an environmentalist by ANY stretch of the imagination…but I do think this world would be benefited from a few less plastic stinkbombs tossed in the trash. For heaven’s sake…didn’t your mama teach what the washing machine was for? I can’t believe the (for lack of a better word) laziness of some parents. Save yourself some money, the environment some land, and your poor baby’s butt from the plastic sauna now featuring a cooling bubble action…please…
Ha! No way! Bubble britches?
You have got to be kidding! Of course, think about it – anything that will add time to the training process is good good good in the eyes of the training-pants company. More time in diapers or pull-ups = more money for them.
Of course, too many complaints could hurt them, too, so they will throw paretns the occasional bone by way of a cool strip or some such.
Little ones train when they are ready. Push them before that, they can easily be traumatized. Making their pee suddenly go all fizzy, would, I think, either freak them out (the ones who already have potty issues) or be too much fun (the ones without potty issues) and thus delay the whole thing, anyway. Plus, if it were too scary or uncomfortable, it could lead to much bigger issues such as holding urine or feces, which can lead to illness.
My former little one, now a teenager, was trained at 3. He went to daycare for 4 hours a day and really wanted to ride the little bicycles they had. His teacher, Miss Georgia, told him he could ride them just as soon as he was out of diapers, as they kept the diapered kids off the bikes for some reason; maybe to kee p those in diapers closer to the building or for sanitary reasons – something. Anyway, he was diaper-free within about 3 days. I guess he was just ready.
The babies will train at the right time – the right time for them. Until then, damn the fizzies, damn the cold strips, just leave them alone.
Paula
My son is 2 1/2 now and I definitely started the potty training process too early. I was putting him in pull-ups brand pull-ups,but 15$ for 29 pair was a little too over the top for me. I switched to the generic kind for a while but my son was getting them wet all the time!!! I kept thinking to myself ” I know he didn’t get wet this often when he was in a diaper.” Then I saw him staring down at his pull-up one day. I was happy because I thought he was feeling that he had to go and was going to tell me he had to use the potty. I was wrong. about 2 seconds later the little green planets on the fron of the pull up started to fade and only after that did my son tell me he had to go potty. Little kids love cause and effect experiments, whether it is throwing their spoon to watch you pick it up or peeing in their pull up to watch the little green men disappear. I have since wisened up and now we are almost finished with potty training because pull ups are gone and there is nothing exciting about peeing in underwear with plastic protectors over them. I guess the long and short of my story is this;if my had a glorious effervescent feeling each time he peed not only would he pee every time he could,he would be sticking his hands down there to really see what it was like. P.S- we tried the cool alert pull-ups too and a scary gel substance was all over his privates and was impossibe to remove with just wipes. That can’t be good fo your kid or the environment.
I’m about to try the Cool Alert pull ups. Very few people on this string actually tried them before criticizing the product. I find pull-ups convenient, and find the ability to keep my furniture and rugs clean of feces a big plus.
Hopefully they’ll work.
After one accident my daughers skin seemed to burn. I have emailed the company but have not received a response as of now. So I suggest to every mother Do NOT use this product.
I don’t think the point of it is for the child to know if they are peeing or not. They do know that. the point is to make it uncomfortable for them. Because children who are put in cloth diapers potty train faster because they do not like the wetness feeling.
And yes why not just put them in underwear then? That works for stay at home moms who can be there but what about working mothers? where the daycare provider says they stay in diapers till they are 100% potty trained? and you want to put them in something that they feel the wetness? rather than a comfortable diaper that sucks all the moister away from the skin so when the child is older they consider it just a portable potty attached to their behinds? My daughter loves her diapers so much that when i put her in underwear when she feels she has to go she demands for a diaper. thats why they have come out with these diapers that have bubbles or cool sensations etc…
Hi I have a son who is 2 years and 2 months. We are potty training right now and I actually want to try the cool alerts pull ups. I’ve used the learning designs ones and your right, it is basically a diaper. The only added benefit is that they can be pulled up and down easily. This is convenient, especially when we’re out. I saw a few posts on here that said it was impossible to train a child when they start walking but it really isn’t. You just have to have the right child. LOL! My mom had me completely potty trained by the time my sister was born because she didn’t want 2 kids in diapers. We are 19 months apart. Also my friend has successfully potty trained all 3 of her kids before 14 months. I don’t know how in the world she did it but she did. It really depends on the child and their ability to grasp the concept.