This is a very controversial issue and I thought I would weigh in with my two cents on the matter. As I mentioned in my other share post titled "How to discuss Bedwetting or Enuresis With a Child," I have a friend who has an 11 year old daughter who wets the bed. She had taken her to pediatricians and several urologists to no avail. She had tried medicines, alarms, and other methods to get her to stop but was unsuccessful.
My friend had put her daughter back in "Goodnites," but her daughter is a very heavy wetter and leaked right through them. Finally she had to put her back in diapers.
She uses both disposable tape tab diapers and pin-on cloth diapers covered with plastic pants for the child. They are much more effective at protecting both the child and the bedding. Here's the rub-it's a constant battle to get her to put them on at night-at least it was.
After giving her a letter persuading her on the merits of wearing diapers to bed and telling her that I still have to wear pin-on cloth diapers and plastic pants to bed she slowly but surely got used to the idea, although she's still not completely comfortable with wearing them.
She grudgingly puts them on at night. Her mother used to wear pin-on cloth diapers and plastic pants to bed until she was a young adult--I believe she stopped wetting the bed after she graduated from college.
Despite the fact that she knew her mother had to wear plastic pants and diapers to bed, and that I still wear diapers and plastic pants to bed, she is still somewhat reluctant to wear them. Both her mother and myself told her that the diapers and plastic pants made us feel much more comfortable and secure.
We both hoped that by discussing some of our experiences with wearing diapers and plastic pants to bed and that they would make her feel more comfortable and secure it would motivate her more to wear them to bed. She feels better about wearing them to a certain extent,but again she grudgingly puts them on.
This brings me to the main point of this post. Should a parent force their child to wear diapers and plastic pants to bed if all other methods fail and if pull-ups or "Goodnites" don't offer the child effective protection?
The consensus seems to be that it should be up to the individual child. That if you give the child the option of wearing the diapers and plastic pants it makes the child feel better about the situation and makes them feel more in control of the situation. I tend to agree with this in theory but in practice I don't think that it's a good idea.
Part of me thinks that children should not be forced into diapers and plastic pants, but then another part of me thinks that ultimately the child should defer to the judgement of the adult. In certain situations a parent has to make decisions which are good for the children but that the children don't like.
