How a swimsuit saved my sanity

We've been having this....um...problem with Emma.

You see, she rather likes tearing off her pull-up while she is in her crib. And she does not at all seem to mind that she ends up falling to sleep in very, VERY wet sheets....or worse. We thought after a few times of sleeping in her own pee that she would figure out that it's not a very pleasant thing to do and stop tearing off her pull-up.

She didn't.

We moved on to always putting her in a onesie when we put her to bed. That worked for a while, until she decided that no silly little onesie was going to defeat her. So with her onesie still on, she pulled off her pull-up and pulled it through her pant leg. Thinking it was a fluke, I continued putting her in a onesie at naptime and bedtime. And it was a fluke, because the next time she figured out how to unbutton her onesie. I guess she thought pulling it out through the leg hole was just too much work so she better find an alternative. At least she's a good problem solver...

After the onesie, I decided I would try putting her in a pull-up, covered by a pair of vinyl training pants, and then the onesie on top of that. I thought the snugness from an extra layer would make it harder to take off the onesie. I was wrong.

I finally called my mom, who usually is my go-to gal when I am having an unusually hard time with the kids. She's quite resourceful...and she sews. I figured she could come up with something that would make it near impossible for Emma to take off that pull-up. She suggested bib overalls put on backwards so that she couldn't reach the buckles, but that sounded kind of uncomfortable to sleep in.

And that's when I came up with what I consider to be one of my best ideas of all time...a swimsuit! And you know what? It works perfectly. I put the pull-up on, then the swimsuit, and then a shirt and pants or PJs. She hasn't figured out...yet...how to pull off her t-shirt so I know she can't get the swimsuit off, and for some reason since it doesn't have buttons, she hasn't tried to pull the pull-up off through the leghole...yet.

As I was explaining the arrangement to the babysitter a few weeks ago, she said "Hey, whatever works." And isn't that what parenting is all about?

I thought so!