My daughter always seems to need new pajamas. Growth spurts, weather changes, what have you, I'm constantly searching for pjs for my (almost) 4-year-old.
I was on a few websites (they rhyme with "slap" and "bold wavy") and saw all of those adorable footie pjs. You know, the all-in-one kind, with the zipper up the front, little feet on the bottom. Don't get a much cuter sight than your little one in footie pjs padding out of her room on Saturday mornings, huh?
I spied one with cats on it. Kiddo loves cats. It was yellow. Kiddo's favorite color is yellow. And the cats had princess crowns.
Yellow princess kitty pjs. She would LOVE these pajamas. I would have to buy seven pairs so she could wear them every night. And they offered it up to size 5.
But I didn't buy them.
Damn that potty training (imagine me waving my fist in the air to get the full effect).
I didn't purchase these pjs, these pjs that would bring my child such joy and happiness, because I didn't want to screw up her ability to pee at night. Am I crazy? Wait before you answer that.
Among my 939,533 fears of parenting, potty training was way high on the list of things I had anxiety about ... I had witnessed friends potty-training their kids. For some, it was easy; others battled through it for years.
Luckily, my daughter did pretty well with it (knock wood, turn around three times, hopping on one leg that it continues). We started with a "cold turkey" weekend when she wore big girl panties the whole time. We stayed home most of it and set the microwave timer every 20 minutes, so she knew when to go sit on the potty and try. Once she got the hang of it, we did a sticker chart and candy-present bribe method (yup, bribes, people) to get through the first months of it.
Now she's going on her own, wiping, doing her business by herself. The nighttime is still a little tough. She's dry most mornings, which is great. But sometimes, she wakes up to go in the middle of the night. And that's where footie pjs would become a problem.
Those footie pjs have two strikes against them -- first, the zipper element. I can barely pull down my underwear when I'm half asleep and I'm 38. Imagine her, eyes still kinda closed, little fingers fumbling on the zipper. That's an accident waiting to happen -- literally.
Second, she'd have to get almost all of the way undressed to go. Maybe her feet would still be in the footie part, but the rest of her? Naked kiddo peeing. In the wintertime, that's not so fun for anyone.
Out of my fear of not wanting to flush all of her potty training success down the toilet (couldn't resist the pun), I only buy her two-piece pjs. And yes, I thought I was crazy to be this hard core about it (and let's face it, I am a wee bit, but who isn't?). But then I Googleuthed around, and there are other mothers out there with these same footie pj fears. More than likely, this is a larger issue when you have a daughter, but it's one thing I never thought of going into this whole potty training thing.
I'm now searching for yellow princess kitty nightgowns.
Does your potty-trained toddler still wear footie pjs?
Image via Manish Bansal/Flickr
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Comments 31
I can't get my daughter to wear pjs! I have tried forever but she always takes them off at some point during the night. I don't even bother anymore really. So, I have a ton of pjs from age 2 - 5 (she only just turned 4 but wears a 6) that are new and worn maybe once!
My son wore them sometimes, yes, he didn't have a hard time with the potty training because of them.
I was worried about them too. I kept having her wear other jammies and then one night she threw an all out fit about footie jammies. I said screw it, having to change her later is better than the 2 hours of screaming. But she did fine with them and wears them all the time now! In fact it is harder to get her to get dressed when she wears footie jammies, she gets up goes potty and zips them right back up and refuses to take them off!
My kids don't like footie pj's. They are like me and have VERY hot feet. However I can't stand onesies when potty training. It takes time to unsnap and little ones can't do it themselves. Yeah, I could just tuck the onesie in without snapping, but I don't like the look of a onesie hanging out the back of the pants. Then there is the fear that they won't know to pull the onesie out of the way and it will hang down in the toilet. Yuck!
We got rid of the footies about that time.
You also have to get rid of overalls. They're so cute, but also an irritation for potty training. I heard a MDO teacher once get really irritated at a parent who sent her PT child to school in Overalls.
I'm a mother to a ten month old, so I haven't faced the trial and tribulations of potty training yet (but I can't wait for the days of no more diapers!), so this is something I had never thought about. I always see the big boy footies and think "oh how cute! I can't wait to see Jack running around in a pair of those!" but now I see why that would be a terrible idea. Thanks for this post. I'll keep it in mind when the day I'm teaching him about the big boy potty does finally come.
My son is 2.5 and is potty trained and doesnt get up at night to pee, so we still wear footie pjs and i just have to help him in the morning. I love them too much to give them up until he is grown out of them!
Ugh, no. As soon as he started wanting to go during the night, we switched to the 2-piece pjs. Carter's makes some fleecey 2 piece sets that are nice and warm during the winter. That way, his top stays WARM when he's doing his thing at night.