New diapers help parents with preschools' deadline | The Arizona Daily Star ?
New diapers help parents with preschools' deadline
By Sarah Ellison
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
For millions of toddlers, August is crunch time.
Because of strict no-diaper rules at many preschools, toilet training must end.
In Overland Park, Kan., Kerri Heller has until Sept. 2 to toilet-train her 3-year-old son, Jack. Heller started training in earnest earlier this month, and says she has barely left the house since.
On a Monday, she bought an egg timer and set it to ring every 30 minutes to remind Jack to use the toilet. Tuesday, her husband got a neighbor to call and impersonate Mike Sweeney, first baseman for the Kansas City Royals, and encourage Jack to keep potty training and be a "good little slugger." Wednesday, Jamie Walker, relief pitcher for the Detroit Tigers (aka Lance Harshbarger, her husband's office colleague), gave similar encouragement. Sammy Sosa (Heller's father) called Thursday.
Jack, a big baseball fan, has bobble-head dolls of two of the players sitting on the sink in the bathroom facing the toilet, as if observing his progress. "You lose all your inhibitions with this process," says Heller, who rewards Jack for good performance with M&M's and an occasional trip to Chuck E. Cheese's. "The clock is ticking and it's really stressful."
Deadlines dent diaper business
The no-diaper deadline for preschools is a big business issue for the $6.5 billion U.S. diaper industry, driving away good customers every year. It's "the biggest force at work in toilet training," says Thomas J. Falk, chief executive of Kimberly-Clark Corp. It makes Huggies, the No. 1 brand in the U.S.
Preschools often discourage diapers because of burdensome health regulations and legal concerns. Those schools that do change diapers often require two adults to be present during diaper changing, to prevent child abuse and forestall lawsuits.
The Weekday Nursery School in New Rochelle, N.Y., strongly encourages all 3-year-olds to be trained. It takes about 12 minutes for a teacher to change a child's diaper, says director Sara Arnon. That's if the teacher complies with state health regulations such as placing fresh disposable paper on the changing table (like at a doctor's office), using latex gloves and double-bagging dirty diapers. For a 2 1/2-hour morning preschool, that means a lot of teachers' time would be spent changing diapers, she says.
Besides, the school found out years ago that changing older children when some of their classmates are already toilet-trained doesn't work. "It didn't last two months," said Arnon. "The other children called the untrained children 'babies.' "
Advanced trainers hit market
Preschool enrollment is rising as more mothers head to work, and finding the right school is an ever more competitive enterprise. Heller lined up a year-and-a-half ago at 6 a.m. to get Jack into a "pre-preschool" program to help him get into the preschool he's about to attend.
The preschool deadline is one reason that Procter & Gamble Co., the No. 2 U.S. diaper maker, has developed a new product. It aims to smooth the way for potty training by essentially reversing years of diaper engineering. Instead of instantly absorbing liquid, the diaper holds a small amount of liquid next to a toddler's skin for two minutes or so before drying out.
The P&G product, called Pampers Feel 'n Learn Advanced Trainers, started arriving in U.S. stores in June. The goal is to establish enough discomfort that a toddler notices when he or she has an accident. P&G says feeling the wetness will help toddlers recognize that they should have gone to the bathroom. Of course, the same result could be achieved using regular underwear, but with the Feel 'n Learn diaper there's no mess for parents to clean up.
Age of training slowly rising
The idea isn't new: A Japanese company has sold a diaper with a similar concept in Japan for years, and P&G itself tried it in the mid-1990s as part of an unsuccessful diaper line for older toddlers.
Babies used to graduate from diapers at a younger age in the U.S., and still do in some parts of Europe and Asia. People there tend not to make such a big deal of the process, says Kimberly-Clark's Falk. "Some European cultures don't have a word for toilet training," he says. In rural China, most babies wear underpants with a split in them and quickly learn how to use the toilet.
But American parents have grown more tolerant since the parenting philosophy of Bos-ton pediatrician T. Berry Bra-zelton swept the country in the 1960s. Brazelton urged parents to adopt a "child-centered" approach to toilet training rather than imposing a schedule.