January 18, 2010

An Open Letter to Huggies Pull-Ups

To whom it may concern:

We use your product and love the construction of it; after all, Pull-Ups is "The only brand with easy open sides." The purpose of these? "There for moms, just in case!" Right. As if accidents are the exception... I like this feature just in case my child rips off his Pull-Up and it is still clean; I can then reattach the sides and save myself from wasting 25 cents. Besides, it looks more comfortable. I mean, if you're going to sleep with your own urine right next to your skin, you may as well be comfortable.

The other features you offer such as Learning Designs and Cool Alert show an effort to improve the potty training experience but they fall flat. The Designs are not visible unless you first take off the child's pants (This part is no problem for the child.) and then said child bends over and tugs the Pull-Up into a position where he can see if the Learning Designs are still there. It's just simpler to feel or smell whether the Pull-Up has been filled. And Cool Alert? Really? Can it be cool inside a Pull-Up next to the skin of the child who has just peed? I kind of doubt it. My child has never commented on feeling the chill but neither have I tested this myself nor will I. I'm putting the Cool Alert in the irrelevant idea section.

My main concern is the characters you put on your Pull-Ups. Yes, they are very cute. However, you have a practice of selling two characters in the same package. Yes, they are related: Princesses and Cinderella, Lightning McQueen and Mater. Here lies the problem. Kids don't need this choice! My son roots through the package searching for Mater because "Queen wakes me up". Mater is his Pull-Up of choice since you, in your creativity, have pushed choosing a pattern upon young children. Perhaps if you would teach Lightning McQueen to let sleeping boys sleep, this problem could be averted. I propose you create an all Mater package; this way the choice can be made in the store instead of ALL OVER THE BATHROOM FLOOR. *ahem*

On another note, I see on your website that you have a potty dance video. That's great! Children love music and dancing. *watches video now* Uh... Never mind. We don't have time to be dancing on the way to the potty!

Anyway... thanks for those Easy Open sides. They ARE your saving grace.

Sincerely,
A mom with way too many Lightning McQueen Pull-Ups who is contemplating altering McQueen with a big black permanent marker to look like the funny, buck-toothed Mater.

9 comments:

Jules AF said...

hahahaha how funny.

Shell said...

I can just imagine drawing over the Lightning ones!

I found pull-ups completely useless when it came to pottytraining. We just used them b/c they were easier than a diaper after a certain age.

Sarah and the Gentlemen said...

Yes, I think pull-ups are too much like diapers in that the child is content to use it instead of going to the bathroom. Going straight to underwear has worked best for us.

Right now night time is when we use pull-ups which just magnifies the whole McQueen/Mater situation. I'm so glad my boys provide unending comic relief.

Froggylady said...

I wish my husband had been aware of the easy tear sides at Christmas at his grandmothers when our daughter left him a "present". I agree about the characters and the cooling effect. To me, that'd just be refreshing like a little bidet.

Laura said...

Oh my gosh this is so funny!! And so right! I hate the two choices thing, seriously it is not a pretty site over here when we only have "blue Dora" left and all the "pink Dora" is gone. ugh. :)

Stopped by and wanted to say hi...your boys are adorable! :)

Rita Loca said...

This is all foreign to me...my babies all used cloth. I feel old.

Anonymous said...

Haha! I loved that movie!

My nephew is all potty trained, but he's 5. He uses pull-ups occasionally because he sleeps all through the night like a log, so he has accidents when he doesn't wake up to go to the bathroom. But my niece is going to be a hoot. Right now she uses the potty bucket for a hat. Yep, a hat. She drags her potty chair out into the living room, sits on it and watches cartoons with her brother and then, when bored, grabs the bucket and *pop* it goes right on the head.

Kids crack me up with their excuses. I wish I could use that excuse. I can't sleep because Lightening McQueen is SO loud down there! hahaha!

Lori said...

Oh I remember those days well. We didn't want to give the kids choices either. If they liked it we wanted to stick to it...

Thanks for sharing my SITS day with me!

Marie said...

Just popping in. Loved this post! So glad Jack never really cared which character was on his pull ups. I so hope we are done with those. We're on to big boy pants and he's a solid once a day poop in the pants accident maker. Got any tips?