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Toddlers: 24 Months+
returnhomegnome
member
potty training + 5hr car trip = diapers? advice PLEASE! (clicky poll)
returnhomegnome
member
We've been prepping for potty training for months, and just did the "three day" method over the weekend (which is totally not three days, but it has some good strategy). We're on day 5 of no diapers and peeing in the potty, and LO is doing ok. She was totally ready to start, and I'm sure with patience and time potty training will sink in well.
Except: this weekend (friday afternoon, return monday afternoon) we're supposed to go away and it's a 5 hour car trip. I have to say, we don't relish the idea of trying to stop every hour and a half to make her pee in the potty, and at this point I'm not confident she is CAPABLE yet of making that a success. Sure, accidents are ineviatable when learning, but I don't want to set her up for failure either.
I'm VERY tempted to make a special exception this one time and put her in diapers JUST for the trip and blitz the drive with as few stops as we can.
Advice please!! Will I be un-do-ing all the hard work of the past week? or is it just way too soon to expect she can do a car trip withOUT diapers?
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Re: potty training + 5hr car trip = diapers? advice PLEASE! (clicky poll)
I have to say I agree with this. We did the 3 day method with my DS and it worked wonderfully. One of the things we made sure to do was to make sure we could stay home for at least a week and then only have small, quick trips for the next few weeks. We did not take him on a long trip for a few months.
If you have to take a long trip so soon I would just put her in diapers. In my mind pull ups are the same as diapers just more expensive. Kids know they can pee in them so they I would bet that they see them as just fancier diapers too. I would explain to her that she is only wearing diapers for the car trip and she can expect to take the diaper off when you get there. Good luck!
We just did had a trip last week which was 10 hours (to and from). We chose to go with Pull-Ups. That way if she needed to go and told us, no problem we pulled over. But if she had an "accident" it was no biggie.
It worked out well and she didn't go in Pull Up at all.
If you are in such a rush to PT a barely 2 yo, why can't you just stop once every hour on a 5 hour trip or drive overnight? She's still in diapers or a pull up overnight anyway?
Or don't push it and let her wear diapers for another month or two until you don't have to do a road trip.
Shortly after PTing my older daughter we had a 13 hour drive and I put her back in pull ups for the drive. Given that without stopping that frequently it was a looooong drive, we couldn't make the trip with more frequent stops. And there were many stretches of road without rest stops. I wasn't comfortable pulling over for that (afraid of safety issues with her peeing on the side of the road). She used pull ups as needed in the car (mostly did fine, but used the pull up once each way) and never regressed otherwise. Best decision I made rather than stressing all of us out for that long a drive!
ETA: By shortly I mean a month after. We followed her signs and did the 3 day method when she was particularly receptive, at 2y 10m having tried without success earlier. I considered putting it off until after the trip but she was particularly interested and I didn't want to miss that window. It worked out beautifully for us.
I don't have a potty trained kid yet, so take this for what it's worth, but I would avoid putting her in diapers.
It's only a five hour drive. Stopping every hour (I'd stop more frequently than every hour and a half) won't really add that much more time. I think it'd be worth it in the long run. If you put a travel potty in the car, you can just pull into a rest stop, pop the kid out of the carseat, let her potty, then be back on the road in under 15 minutes. That should add no more than an hour to your trip.
Or, I think PP's suggestion of doing it at night is a great one. If she's already in pull ups at night, then she won't regress by wearing them in the car.
Depending on your child and her personality, I don't think this is the big deal that people are making it out to be. I had no problem putting Riley in diapers during long road trips, or even just trips around town running errands (when she would NOT use public bathrooms because she was scared of them). She never regressed, and it was never a big deal. I even fully plan to put both of them in a diaper for our 15+ hour trip home when we go visit for Christmas (we drive most of it overnight, and through HUGE areas of MiddleofNowhere, Texas). She's been PT'ed since March/April (daytime, still wears diapers at night).
I can see it maybe causing issues depending on the child, but overall one roadtrip shouldn't be a big deal. Chances are, if a few hours in the car cause her to regress, she's not ready to PT anyway. ::shrugs::
DD #1 passed away in January 2011 at 14 days old due to congenital heart disease
DD#2 lost in January 2012 at 23 weeks due to anhydramnios caused by a placental abruption
I voted no diapers, but then I saw her age. How good is good? My kids were all potty trained from the day they started, and accidents were a rarity. DD2 was pt'ed at 20 months, and we went on a trip the next week (10 hours). I only put her in diapers when I knew she'd be taking a long nap. Same thing we DS and DD1, though they were a bit older (2.5). I think we took decently long trips with both of them shortly after they were potty trained, and we would have stopped every hour and a half to go to the bathroom anyway.
It really depends on her success right now, though.
I know, right??! LOL. Can you believe this was the BEST weekend between now and Christmas to PT? I'd already put it off because I was not ready, even though she clearly was.
So we did our trip: we chose to diaper and didn't stop (couple of factors changed, because that was not our plan to begin with, but that is where we ended up). She used the diaper in the car and had no problem giving it up as soon as we were at our new location. Totally seamless! No accidents after the car trip! She made it look easy. She's been totally rocking the potty training, in general. She was just so ready, she practically did it herself. Glad I caught up in time, because we are DONE with diapers now! Woohooooo!