Cloth Diaper Advice – Mailbox Mondays 8/15/11 – Cloth Training Pants
Do you have a question for me? Every week (on Monday!) I answer questions readers have asked, and ask my other readers to weigh in too.
Questions don’t have to be cloth diaper related, just email maria at change-diapers.com with “Mailbox Mondays” in the subject, or fill out my contact form for readers, which you will always be able to find on my Contact Page.
Stacie says:
I love your mailbox Mondays. I have learned so much!! Thanks for doing it!
My question for you is my daughter has just turned 1, but I am of course thinking ahead to the next year of my cloth diapering journey. I know I don’t want to use paper training diapers when she starts potty learning, but when it comes to kinds of cloth training diapers I am lost. There are quite a few kinds and they are kind of expensive! I’d love to know what kinds are great training diapers to buy, how many one should have when starting potty learning and what the difference is (if any??) in the kinds of cloth training pants.
Thanks so much!!
Stacie
Hi Stacie! I’m glad you like Mailbox Mondays! Your question is pretty timely since the “personal” post I have planned for this week is about potty training! As I will explain in that post, we used disposable pull-ups for our daughter, but they are really just diapers that pull up and down. They worked just fine for us during that period when she was just starting to use the potty and didn’t have the control quite yet. It made it much easier to constantly “try” to go potty without having to take diapers on and off. Once she was having very few accidents, we just switched her to undies & saved the pull-ups for night time.
I really look at cloth training pants the same way. There are cloth training pants that have a sewn in layer, and others that have a pocket to adjust absorbency. The common theme seems to be that they are side snapping (easy off in case of accidents), though there are some that are basically padded undies (like Blueberry trainers, which are OMG so cute!) Something like the Blueberry trainers would be great for kids who are just about ready for undies, but are still having small accidents.
Cloth training pants also usually (but not always) have cotton, or other “feel wet” inners, vs the stay dry inners of diapers.
So far, we have only tried the Bumbledoo Training Pants, Kissaluvs Training Pants and Snap-EZ Training Pants, but there are lots more out there.
My son is rather petite, so we can really get away with using any number of side-snapping diapers as pull ups. However, cloth training pants usually come in larger sizes, to fit kids who may have grown out of one-size diapers. In fact, some of the pocket trainers could be used as pocket diapers for bigger kids until they are ready to use the potty! I really like training pants that have a thin sewn in layer, as well as a pocket to stuff, since they can take you all the way from the diaper days to the not quite ready for underwear stage!
So for me, I’m not going to run out and buy a bunch of trainers, but if you need bigger sizes and/or you don’t have many side snapping/easy up and down diapers, you may want a few (especially if most of your diapers have stay-dry inners.)
When my son is potty trained during the day, I will still want to have maybe three trainers on hand for night time use, until he stays consistently dry at night. Having a pull up at night makes it much easier to do quick trips to the potty and get back to bed, and of course, I want him to feel wet if he has an accident! We’re definitely not there yet though!
As you’ll see in my post this week, my “potty training methods” are a little different than some, and I know I’ve been all over the place here, so I’m going to ask everyone else!
Do you have a favorite cloth training pant? How many did you find you needed?
Maria wants to live in a world where cloth diapers are the norm and moms can make parenting choices without judgement. When she’s not chasing her 18, 14 and 11-year old kids around, you might find her checking out the latest gadgets, organizing something (again) or exercising in the fresh air. 
THANK YOU!!! This was very helpful and so were the comments!!! It’s funny I was so overwhelmed when I first started figuring out the whole Cloth Diapering world, and now here I am I feel I am back to square one trying to figure out what I want/need to do when it comes to potty learning!! LOL!! But your answer helped a lot, so thank you!! I am pretty sure Addie won’t be PLing anytime soon, she’s only 13 months but I do want to be a bit prepared LOL! Especially since I don’t have any side snapping diapers at all and all of the ones I do have are pockets…I need something that she will feel wet in LOL!
You never know, she might surprise you! 😀
[…] I said in the Mailbox Mondays post this week, my approach is different than most. When I got into the cloth diapering “world,” I […]
I have a “SuperUndies” trainer and a “Snap EZ “AIO trainer and both were too big for my son when we started potty training at about 27 months old. So, truthfully, my son skipped the trainers and we went straight to underwear. BUT, that being said I think it’s great to have a couple of trainers on hand for when you need to take a shopping trip, etc. and aren’t comfortable enough to go in just underwear! Also, like Maria said, it’s good to have a few for night time. TotWraps makes some nice looking trainers! And I also love the idea of the Blueberry trainers because they are more like thick undies. They give you a little security but are a very nice stepping stone to real underwear, I imagine! good luck!
I have some Blueberry trainers that I use sometimes, but sometimes I also use 1 flat folded (maybe add a very small doubler too) and placed in a snug cover. It barely absorbs 1 pee so he definitely feels wet. He needs help taking either off to use the potty, so the pull-on-and-off feature isn’t that important for us at this point.
Looking forward to your potty training post. We were doing great until all the summer visitors and travel. I want to use the last of the warm months to finish potty training (at least I would like my son daytime, at-home trained before the baby comes in November!).