Better-Than-Most training pants! Tutorial by Lorna

What little boy would not want these for training pants? The training pants in stores aren't that great, don't have a moisture barrier and are definitely not super heroes or Star-wars characters!

 

If you use disposable pull-ups, it's so similar to diapers, will they understand the difference? A lot of mom's say they won't, that they have to feel the moisture to understand the process. So I set out to make my own. I found some tutorials on pinterest that involved making the entire pants, from start to finish. They looked time intensive and pretty bulky. Some used PUL as an outside liner but good luck finding that in superheroes!

So I finally decided to make my own pattern and wing this. I started off by using regular boys underwear. Obviously if you are making them for girls, you might try and find the characters they like. There are so many different cool and fun character underwear for kids. I started out with a pack of 7 superheroes. 

 

I put a piece of paper inside the underwear and traced the leg openings onto the paper to create my pattern. I then cut my pattern so that it would go to the top of the front band and nearly to the back. I'm doing this for boys so the process might be slightly different for girls. 

So after making my pattern, I decided it would be best to have a layer of moisture barrier. I have cotton that has a barrier in it, the same one I used for little liners in my baby nest and originally bought for making changing pads that were washable. I have gobs of those since I bought the fabric and made them for twins. 

So I cut out one layer of cotton waterproof fabric and two layers of white flannel. The waterproof fabric is a bit heavy so I cut that piece a bit shorter than the flannel. 

  

Originally I cut the flannel wider in the back, as you can see from this picture but decided to make it as narrow as the rest of the piece and ended up cutting those off as you can see in the piece in the lower right corner. My waterproof fabric is about 2 inches shorter than the flannel. I then serged all  3 pieces together around the sides. If you don't have a serger, just stitch and then zigzag the pieces together.

I then placed the pieces inside the underwear, and pinned them, with the moisture barrier on the underwear fabric, leaving the flannel as the top layers. 

I then started zigzagging the edges to the underwear all the way around.

This is how they should look when you are done.

The waterproof barrier is fairly stiff so I didn't want it going all the way up the back but ending the flannel at the same point would most likely be uncomfortable for kids. So that is why it runs up higher on the back with just the soft flannel

Time to bring the first pile to the boys and start the next round...

Seriously!! How awesome are these?

I give mad props to mom's who make theirs from start to finish, but these were fairly simple and quick, relatively speaking. And most importantly, my little guys love them!