Best Potty Training Pants for Girls

It's finally time. Your baby girl is starting to use the potty, but of course accidents are still expected. You need potty training pants! But which kind should you use? Here are several different kinds of potty training pants for girls.

Gerber Cloth Training Pants are basically just underwear with a few extra layers of padding. They're available in pretty patterns for girls, like pink flowers and hearts. If your child is using the potty most of the time during the day, these are perfect, but if she's wetting her pants several times a day, they probably won't be enough. They don't absorb all liquid - you'll still get puddles on the floor (although you can get waterproof pants to put over them). These potty training pants also are not enough protection for nighttime.

Gerber cloth training pants are available at many stores, including Target and Walmart, as well as online from Amazon.com.

Gerber All In One Waterproof Trainers are vinyl on the outside and cotton on the inside, with a polyester core. They are available in pink and white patterns for girls. However, in my experience, they have almost no absorbency - less than the all-cotton training pants. Urine leaked out the legs rather than being absorbed. These training pants are sometimes available in stores like Target, but are less widely available than the all-cotton training pants. You can also find them on Amazon.com.

One Step Ahead offers cloth potty training pants (pink for girls) in both daytime and nighttime versions. Children often need training pants at night well after they're fully trained during the day, and that's why we got the One Step Ahead training pants. They do have excellent absorbency and did not leak, but our daughter found them uncomfortable; the elastic was irritating to her skin.

Huggies Pull-Ups are probably the most well known disposable training pants. We've used the Learning Designs version, with the pattern that disappears when the training pants are wet. They perform exactly as advertised, and the girls' versions have Disney Princesses on them (always a favorite). The Pull-Ups are high-quality, easy to use, and widely available in grocery and drug stores. However, they are expensive, and they do create more waste than cloth training pants. Some children also do not bother potty training while wearing disposables, because they can wet themselves and keep on playing.

Pampers Easy-Ups for girls feature Dora the Explorer, and have a Feel 'n Learn liner that is supposed to allow your child to feel the wetness. Based on my experience, these are comparable to the Pull-Ups; both were easy to use and absorbent. The drawbacks are the same as well, and both Pampers and Huggies are comparable in price and availability.

What are we using now? A combination of all-cotton Gerber potty training pants during the day, and store-brand disposables at night (or sometimes when out and about). The store-brand potty training pants aren't nearly as nice as the Huggies or Pampers, but they're about half the price.