Struggling to transition to underwear

[Anonymous]

We have made great progress on potty training my 3 year old daughter, but are struggling with a final hurdle. She is quite anxious to change and we used pull ups and she has done really well. The problem is we had some accidents when she moved into underwear and she got really upset by the wet sensation.

In pull ups she is now good at going when she needs to, but when she is in underwear she gets worried, goes and sits on the toilet when she doesn't need to and it's leading to frequent accidents. We have transitioned twice now and these accidents have occured both times and upset her. We have gone back to pull ups and have immediately had four accident free days out of five (one accident travelling).

What do we do here? Do we just keep pull ups as she is fine treating them as underwear and then transition in a few months time when hopefully she is less worked up about accidents or do we persist with underwear?

[Anonymous]

Isn’t it a good thing that she doesn’t like the wet sensation? This should encourage her to use the bathroom more frequently.

[Anonymous]

Toss the pull ups for daytime. Nighttime only.

It’s great she isn’t comfortable with wet underwear. That’s the point. Make the change now.

[Anonymous]

Another vote to just switch it.

There is an option to put the underwear on underneath the pull ups. I did this for my oldest (who would just pee in the pull up) as a safeguard when we were traveling and might not be able to get him to the bathroom quickly.

[Anonymous]

Pull-ups no longer an option during the day.
Switch to underwear and explain it’s permanent.

[Anonymous]

Underpants under the pull-up. Wet sensation deters accidents but the pull-up will give security.

[Anonymous]

Op here, thank you for all the replies. To be clear she is not using the pull ups for accidents, she treats these properly like underwear. She is able to and does use the toilet nearly all the time when wearing them. The issue comes with underwear and the wet sensation means she tries to go too frequently and has those accidents as she pushes when she's not ready and wets a little afterwards. It's a spiral that gets worse and more and more accidents happen and she becomes more and more tired and upset.

I'm not sure how underwear under a pull up helps. She is potty trained in pull ups and when bottomless but just not in pants. This didn't happen with my older daughter who was much more relaxed

[Anonymous]

When you say she's potty trained in pull ups do you mean she no longer has any accidents? Accidents should feel uncomfortable and not like a diaper. If she's not having accidents then why need pull ups still?

We use underwear at day and overnight diaper at night as my kid is no where close to dry overnight and when I gave a pull up she woke 5x to pee the first night and 2nd night I told her she didn't have to and she treated it like a diaper so figured diapers made more sense for sleep

[Anonymous]

Maybe a weird question, but how many days in a row did you try underwear before switching back to pullups? Sometimes these things just take a little while to click for kids.

[Anonymous]

Oh, I remember the days when DCUM was all about potty training and not politics and top colleges!

[Anonymous]

I tried to keep pull-ups off entirely during the day except if we were doing something like going on an airplane. Just quit them, go through the transition and she will adjust. I always made sure accidents weren't treated as something to get super upset over (it depends in the type of kid you have but my kid will get upset).

[Anonymous]

Take her shopping for underwear with patterns she likes.
Did this for my son and he really did NOT want to soil the bespoke undies he picked out.

[Anonymous]

Can you set a timer when she wears underwear to help her time bathroom breaks better? Somewhere she can see it, like the oven or microwave, to help her see that it’s not time to try to potty yet? Try it when she’ll be home a few days in a row (like Friday evening to Monday morning), and then hopefully by Sunday afternoon she’s more comfortable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you say she's potty trained in pull ups do you mean she no longer has any accidents? Accidents should feel uncomfortable and not like a diaper. If she's not having accidents then why need pull ups still?

We use underwear at day and overnight diaper at night as my kid is no where close to dry overnight and when I gave a pull up she woke 5x to pee the first night and 2nd night I told her she didn't have to and she treated it like a diaper so figured diapers made more sense for sleep

Yep she is accident free in pull ups, I don't know why she panics when she goes to pants. She says she needs to go and then doesn't and then 30 mins later she has peed in her underwear. I cannot figure out why. We have tried a watch to give her timings but she pleads to go

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take her shopping for underwear with patterns she likes.
Did this for my son and he really did NOT want to soil the bespoke undies he picked out.

We have got her favourite undies, she really likes them.