There seemed to be some parents who were quite against what I did to my daughter, so I thought I would make a post explaining things. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, go to the second page of this forum, and look at the post by Frustrated Mom.
When my daughter was 8 years old she started having a lot of accidents. She was peeing and messing her pants on a daily basis. At first it was just once a day, then it was twice, then before you know it, she was going in her pants everytime she had to go. I took her to 2 different doctors, all said nothing was medically wrong with her. I took her to a psychologist, whom I knew very well and had a very good reputation, and he said for all there is, she's a perfectly normal girl, and he has no idea why she's doing this. So, I was getting sick and tired of changing my daughters clothes and buying new underwear. So, I decided, she was going back into diapers.
You may be surprised, but an eight year old girl fits very nicely into Size 6 Huggies. Now, I wasn't going to treat her any differently than when she was a baby. I had almost hoped that this would get her to stop having accidents. Unfortunetly it didn't. But, like I said, I never treated her different than when she was a baby, she was in diapers after all.
If she needed to be changed in the mall, I'd bring her to the bathrooms and change her on the changing tables, if I didn't feel like making the hike back to the bathroms, I'd change her on a bench in the middle of the mall. There's been plenty of times in a store like Walmart, or CVS, I've changed her right on the floor of the store.
She stayed in Huggies until she was 12, thats when they started getting too small and would leak, I switched her to depends. At 13 the changings were getting a little too messy and I had to start shaving a "special spot."
So yes, I was still changing her diapers the same way as I did when she was 8 when she was 14 years old, right out in the open or on a changing table. Why? Well, it got to be habbit. Neither of us really cared after a while. It just become an everyday habbit.
When she was about 14 and a half, she decided one night out of the blue, she had had it with diapers. So the next day I went out and bought a couple packages of Pull Ups training pants, and for the next two weeks we tried very hard to get her potty trained. She was quite frustrated at first, but eventually everything was pretty much fine and dandy.
She does still have an occasion accident, maybe a wee or two a month, and she does poop herself still, but on a very rare occasion. So just incase, she wears protective underwear.
http://www.bedwettingstore.com/briefs.htm
That right there, it's very discreet and works great for small, occasional accidents.
So that's the story with my daughter. I know a lot of people on this message board disagree with me, and think what I did was wrong. But she was my daughter, and she's a very natural 16 year old right now. No different from any others.
You don't have to justify yourself to ignorant people who refuse to look at the whole picture before makingsuch harsh judgements and assumptions. You did what you as a mother felt was right and your daughter was fine with it. I don't understand why people are going so hysterical over a bit of plastic. As long as it hasn't hurt your daughter's overall wellbeing, and it looks like it hasn't, you're fine and you've done well. Best wishes!
Jackie, I'm pleased to see you sought medical help for your daughter. If I was in that situation I'd probably be worried that my daughter would give the Doctor a demonstration of her problem in the surgery!!
I'm amazed you were able to change your daughter on the floor in the middle of stores like Walmart. Didn't members of staff ever try to stop you?
