Monday, May 22, 2006

Pee-Pee Catcher

Merry and I had an interesting conversation last night. Merry was upset, she had been lying in her bed thinking about the fact that she was wearing a diaper and the more she thought about it the angrier she got. Merry wears pull-ups to bed, just in case there is an accident and "diapers are for babies" and "I am not a Baby!"

Heidi was working on the computer so it was up to me to respond to yelling for Mommy that was coming from Merry's room. When I arrived at the scene Merry was sitting on her bed sobbing. I picked her up and hugged her, when she got done insisting that she wanted Mommy she confided in me that she was not a baby.

I asked her what she meant and she informed me that babies wear diapers, little girls wear pull-ups and the fact that she was wearing a diaper made her a baby. She also expressed some disappointment in her parents for allowing her supply of pull-ups to run out.

Armed with this information I plodded forward asking Merry why she needed a pull-up. She told me that she needed the pull-up when she has pee pee accidents at night. I said the pull-up is really just a pee pee catcher. I told her that the diaper was a pee pee catcher with tabs. Together we worked out that diapers and pull-ups are essentially the same piece of equipment, a pee pee catcher. Merry liked pee pee trap better, so we went with that.

Meredith is four years old, she has been potty trained for over a year now, except at night. Is it time for Heidi and I to suck it up and let her wet the bed at night? The only reason I believe she still wears the pull-ups to bed is because I don't want to deal with the mess. I put the onus on Merry, which is not fair, she is four. I tell her when she wakes up with a dry pull-up two nights in a row we will let her sleep in her underpants. She doesn't mind peeing in the pull-up, when she wakes up she takes it off and puts it in the trash. It's easy.

Here we have an instance where a person learns from blogging. Writing it down and reading it a few times gives me the opportunity to step back and see what is really happening and work to make the change that needs to be made. I do not think we are going to buy Merry any more pull-ups. I am not sure how to proceed or the steps that should be taken, but I don't think Meredith needs to wear a pee-pee trap to bed every night.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've had the same conversation with The Voice many times. I can't wait to see how this goes for you guys; this's way better than reading some how to book. This is real.

By the way, glad to see your syndication feed working.

1:43 PM EDT  
Blogger Julie said...

You can buy crib-sized water proof pads at Babies R Us (and probably elsewhere) to put across where she sleeps - that will keep you from changing sheets at night.

However, don't feel too bad that she's still in pull-ups. My son wore them til he was 5 - and SOAKED through them every night. At his 5-yr checkup the pediatrician said it was time to buy a bedwetting alarm - we went with the potty pager (quiet, less scary) www.pottypager.com. Problem solved in about a month.

My 3.5 yr old still wears pull-ups. Stays dry about half the time. I'm wondering if I should wait it out or use the potty pager for her. I'll probably wait til her 4 yr check up and ask the ped.

5:16 PM EDT  

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