My son will be 2 very soon. He sits on the potty regularly but has only peed in it twice and never had a BM. He still goes to hide for that but tells me either right before or right after that he has. The last few nights and sometimes even during the day, he's been trying to take his diaper off at bedtime. Of course I don't want to let him take it off right before he goes to bed but I also don't want to get upset with him. I just firmly say no, that he can't do that until he uses the potty but I don't even think he fully understands what I'm saying. I think it either bothers him or it's just him wanting to be in control. Has anyone encountered this? What do you do? I want to encourage him to be independent but also don't want him waking up at night wet and freaking out and having to change sheets in the middle of the night. So I would love any advice on the matter. Thanks.
Thanks for all the great advice. I will definitely try the diaper on backwards and the cotton training pants and/or pull-ups. I am not able to let him run around naked now though because I am too pregnant to get down on the carpet to clean pee and poop all the time now and am too tired as well! I have tried it before and he just doesn't mind peeing all over himself. It's also getting pretty cold so it's not really practical until summer and by then I hope he will be at least somewhat potty trained. I can't not let him drink an hour before bed because he always asks for water and he also asks for water during the night, but I might actually try putting him in cotton training pants for night time and using a waterproof pad to see how he does. Maybe wetting himself at night will be just what he needs to get potty training on track. He is the kind of boy that things that don't work for others work for him and things that work for others don't usually work for him. Very strange! He rarely has a BM at night (only when he's sick or something) so I hope not to have him smearing poop all over himself and his bedroom (especially since he's not in a crib anymore but rather on a twin mattress on the floor so he has access to everything!). I really don't think I can handle something like that very well especially since my husband is away a lot and I'm very pregnant. But I will try pretty much all the advice given to me here and let you know how it works out. Thanks again to everyone. If you think of anything else...
Sorry I was kind of late. Have you tried pull ups? That way you can convince him that they are underpants and big boys wear these.
Try pull-ups. They'll feel more like underwear and maybe he won't want to take them off. You could even put a real pair of underpants over them.
With each of my five kids, their trying to take off the diaper was an indication of their desire for the next step in potty training. If they were going to pull it off, they were going right on the potty to go. No more drinks before bed and putting him on the toilette before bed will help in his success. How about trying some pull ups for the "big boy" to wear?
Our sons potty trained really quick especially when daddy called them in to stand with him at the potty and aimed into the toilette. Your son may be expressing his attempt at diaper independence. If you can get him fully potty trained before his sibling arrives, it will be less diaper changing for you and more cost effective.
I think he is ready for the full potty training. At night you can put one of those absorbent mattress covers on his bed over his sheet. With those you don't have to do anything special just lay it on top of the sheet it comes in a square I want to say in different sizes. Also if he pees on hisself a couple times and then showing him where the potty is might have him understand. Don't give him anything to drink an hour before bedtime and make sure he goes potty in that hour. With the BM thing if he does go on himself a couple times then so be it it happens just direct him to the right place. Just like us adults we have to have accidents a couple times to get it right.
When my children started taking there diapers off, I put them on backwards. Don't laugh it worked.
hugs
A.
My daughter started her diaper removal phase long before she displayed any knowledge of the potty.
She will take off her diaper if she doesn't have clothing over it so, I put her to bed in one-piece footy pajamas. When she first started the phase, if she was in two-piece pajamas, she took off her pants and then ripped off the diaper. Fortunately that phase has passed.
I am not in favor of pull-ups, but perhaps you could put him in them and call them "night time underwear" and when he gets good at using the potty, buy him "big boy underwear"?
A few of my suggestions if you don't want him taking them off is to either tape them on with large pieces of packing tape or turning the diapers backwards. They are harder to take off that way. BUT he might just be ready to train. You could put cloth training pants on. What I would suggest is to watch how much he goes to the bathroom at night and if it's not much i would put cloth training pants on him at night. They do make Cloth bed liners at sears or JC penny's that feel just like sheets.
The backward diapering work for us. It could be just that he likes the reaction he gets, ready to potty train or just that he likes the feeling of naked. We left the girls naked and they were fully potty trained by 27& & 26 months.(day and night) As for the peeing the crib put a shet ddown the mattress cover over it and anothe sheet. Makes night bed stripping easy. I didn't have 2 mattress covers so I washed it over night.
I have the same problem with my 2yr. She will unzip her PJs and undo her diaper so I started to put big girl underwear over her diaper. She still tries to take it off but it still stays on enough to not get everything wet. Good Luck:):)
Anita T beat me to it. Put the diapers on backwards. It works.
Y.,
My daughter started to pull off her diaper around that time just because she could. She was potty training and in pull-ups during the day, and would take off her pull-ups at night or nap then pee in her bed - my personal favorite was when she and her sister took off the pull-up and painted themselves and their bedroom with poop soon after we moved them into toddler beds. Until this stopped, we put her in zipper pajamas and pinned the zipper. Run the safety pin through the fabric, then through the notch in the zip, then through the fabric again. IT WORKS. After about 6 mos of this, she just lost interest in that game. According to our pediatrician, she is ready to stop wearing pull-ups at night when she stops wetting at night altogether. Apparently, this will magically happen one night...I am waiting patiently. :o)
S.
Sorry this is late but we have been going through this with our son off and on since he was 2. he is now 3 1/2. On the advice of our Pediatrician and several medical experts on the Net - we use duct tape. We stick a piece from diaper tape to diaper tape across the front of his diaper. IT WORKS GREAT !! I had several messy bed incidents and he just was not understanding that the diaper coming off was resulting in his bed being a yucky mess. That was SO gross!! When his wily little fingers figured out how to get the tape off the front - we added a piece that goes around the back so the duct tape ends stick onto each other. Of course you have to make sure it's only on the diaper and not skin and make sure you are using a piece large enough so there's breathing room. This worked like a charm for us !!!
