Dress For Success

I didn't know the term "Dress for Success" applied to toddlers until today.

Ada's in her toddler bed now and didn't want to go down for a nap. I was late putting her down so part of that is my fault. After a bit of a struggle, I forced her to lay down while I changed her diaper. Then I just shut the door and let her cry it out until she was ready to nap. It didn't take long since she missed a nap yesterday and was up late this weekend.

Three hours later, she woke up and called for me to come get her. I delayed so I could finish what I was working on and went in about five minutes after her initial cry when she started knocking on the door to be released. As I opened the door, she ran away as she always does. Looking after her, I noticed her pillows and diapers and a blanket strewn across the floor with the diaper drawer hanging wide open. At first I thought she had moved her nap to the floor of her room and made a fort. I picked up the diapers, put them away and as I was shuffling around on my knees, I noticed my pants were suddenly wet. Hmmm... that's odd. Then I started to really look around and noticed a diaper on the floor that I had missed. It was wet to the touch. Then I looked at Ada and she wasn't wearing a diaper. That's funny, she had one on at the beginning of her nap.

As far as I can tell, she stood up after her nap, thew the pillows on the floor, took off her diaper, peed on the floor, and then danced around until I came to get her. Completely my fault for delaying her release, and even more so for not putting pants on her after I changed her for her nap. Turns out, that layer of pants can be a major delay tactic for children who want to remove their diaper. Pants can also cause accidents during potty training due to that same delay so be sure to dress for success.

Moral of the story: Always put your child to bed with pants on so they can't easily unhook their diapers and pee all over their rooms -- unless that's what you're going for.