And to think that my child does not wet bed at night

Since I got into the business of making waterproof cloth potty training pants, I have been contacted by many parents for their children who still wet bed at night by 4, 5, 6, even 7 years old. I have been thinking about bed wetting drama in my family.

The three youngest of five of us had bed wetting issue. If my big brother and my oldest sister had the issue remains untold to me till today.

I had bed wetting problem until graduation of elementary school, that is, 12 years old. Usually on the nights I wetted bed, it started with a dream of me running to find a restroom, then I heard the sound of water fountain and would wake up at that moment, found I could not reverse or control the "water fountain" flowing and only let it control me and empty itself all out. I have to admit it was not comfortable at all to sleep on wet and hot (our bed is made of clay and is heated under) sheet. So I would roll to another place of the bed. By then my mother would already know that I wetted bed, she would take off my quilt, spank me very hard on my buttocks and say she spanked me so hard that her palm was hurting. I could also hear my father talking to my mother from the other side of our bed that my mother forgive me and not spank me. What was I doing and thinking at that moment? - pretending I was in sound asleep, neither knew I had wetted bed nor knew my mother spanked me for it. I thought I was clever and that my mother didn't know I was pretending. In my heart and mind, I have no bitter feeling for my mother spanking me, I actually felt released that it was over and soon fell asleep again. It was my mother who would have to wash the beddings (by hand, no electricity, no washing machine). Sorry and thank you, mommy.

Side story, yes, we slept in one wide bed, as wide as the whole room with my parents on two ends and we children in the between. How come there were five of us, or four of us later, technically? We haven't a clue.

My sister who is just older than me had bed wetting problem until later than 12, maybe 15 I think. However she would wake up right in the middle of it and try to make the rest of it into our night potty. It seldom worked. One time it was obviously she did not make it to our potty but our dad's hat instead which fell off the wall to the floor. She was so embarrassed by such an unfortunate accident that she would be in immediate tears when it was brought up. This had been used by me and other siblings to win whenever we felt we were going to lose a fight with her. Hey, siblings can actually be mean to each other.

My sister who is older than my older sister had occasional bedwetting till college. My parents had sought alternative medicine for her with no apparent effect. When she was in college, she hung out her beddings after an accident to dry (no washer or dryer in college dorm at that time) and they were stolen. I haven't heard my sister had bed wetting accident after that. Maybe it was stolen away by a thief!

So when I told my sister who had the longest bed wetting problem that my daughter was potty trained, she rushed her question : does she wet bed at night?

Nope. Not once. She wears underwear at night by 22 month, not one accident at night.
And to think that my child does not wet bed at night, what a blessing.

My Baby's Potty Training Story

Start from when? I can't keep up with the world. This is a parenting story written a long time ago. Would you mind I turn it in here? I bet you haven't read it yet.

I haven't thought of teaching my kid to go potty before I found for some time that diapers were dry after nap and in the morning, too, sometimes. Then I realized my kid was physically ready to learn toileting skill.

"No more diapers for me" was introduced at the very beginning and was taken with pride. My kid started to like wearing underwear all the time. Can you imagine how much mess in our lives since then? Urine has been on my kid's long pants, socks, shoes, floor, carpet, furniture, matresses, car, and even high chair and car seat. So I bought training pants from known manufactures. Some needs plastic cover, some leaks, some is hard to pull down by a child, if not impossible. After all the mess and non-functioning training pants I bought, my child finally started to tell me "I need to pee". But occasionally accidents occured, which I do not like. Since my kid had started to tell me "I need to pee", I reasoned I could use disposable pull ups to avoid messy urine.

At first, when accidents occured wearing disposable pull ups, my kid would feel her long pants and floor. Since they were dry, I could tell my kid was relieved to resume activity without any frustration or upsetting. After 2 weeks in disposable pull ups, my child stopped telling "I need to pee", was comfortably using disposable pull up as wearable potty and would protest to my prompting to go potty. Fortunately, that's not the end of story.

I got a problem and I got to find a solution - make my own potty training pants. I started with searches for waterproof fabrics and water absorbing materials, measuring my kid's leg and waist sizes and taking apart my kid's disposable pull up and studying it (I like how well it fits my kid, but I dislike the fact that it does not train. To my expereience, they are the same as disposable diapers as far as potty training is concerned.). After several trials, one of a kind cloth potty training pants were born for my daughter.

The good news is my daughter would wear them. The perfect news is they are completely waterproof. As long as my daughter was wearing them, not one spot of urine outside the pants had been seen.

I was so pround of my work. I was so happy that I could do my job in time of accidents - reprimand my kid for not going potty with a smile. Such findings of my handmade waterproof pants also made me think why there are only malfunction training pants in market, especially leaking or too tight for the child to pull down and up? It came to me that my daughter's waterproof training pants were individually fitted. You know what? I may be able to offer my individually fitted waterproof training pants to other parents. After working, reworking, reworking, and still reworking on the overall pattern, I am offering them to any parents who want functioning waterproof cloth potty training pants to help themselves parenting and their kids learn without mess and stress.

And if you want to challenge my work and challenge yourself with product development, I am offering the pattern and tutorial for DIY soon. To tell the truth, I wish there had been another parent, not me, developed the same pants, and all I had to do is to pay. It's a lot work to be a SAHM. Who wants to get into the business of business?