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Aimee Goldsmith, Pampers’ external relations manager, says: “Children tend to acquire daytime dryness first, and nighttime dryness is slower to be mastered (often between their third and fourth birthdays) however, as many as one in five five-year-old children still regularly wets the bed at night.

“Exactly when a parent decides to start the potty-training process is dependent on their child and is not something Pampers passes judgment on.”

So parents are not pushed to get their children dry, but what the child-centred approach tends to overlook is that, while disposables are convenient for parents, they’re practical for children too.

“The problem now is that disposable nappies are so good that children never feel wet, so they never feel ready to toilet-train. Relying on the nappy becomes a learnt behaviour. It is very convenient for children to have their own portable toilet on them at all times. It means that they don’t have to interrupt their play to ‘go’,” says June Rogers.

There is evidence to show that disposables do delay training. The childcare provider 1st Place uses only cloth nappies in its centres and has found that the children in its care are showing an interest in toilet training at a much earlier age as a result. Michelle Frost, an early educator at 1st Place, says: “We have children here as young as 20 months who are starting to potty-train, and there are a few that have just turned two who have been dry day and night for five months.

“The fact that we use real nappies, not disposables, has a big part to play in this. Our children become more aware earlier of what they are doing in their nappies, because they feel the sensation of wetness.”

Disposable nappy manufacturers are, however, trying to address the criticism that their nappies are too effective at keeping kids dry. Pampers developed its Feel’n Learn range on the recommendation of child psychologists that children need to feel wetness to train and develop an understanding about the cause and effect of their actions.

“Pampers Feel’n Learn is designed to absorb like a nappy, but has the added benefit of a wet sensation liner that helps the child to feel wet and then learn when he/she needs to go to the loo,” says Aimee Goldsmith.

There are those who believe that children should be aware of the cause and effect of their eliminations right from birth and it’s possible to hone these early instincts to ensure that your child never needs a nappy.

The Infant Elimination Method was developed after studies of mothers in societies where nappies are never used, such as parts of China. This method advocates that it’s possible to train babies from birth by learning to recognise and respond to the signals they give when they are about to go. There is a cult minority of parents, largely in North America, who have proved that this works.

When my first child, Ella, was born nearly three years ago, however, I found it hard enough trying to discover if she was hungry, tired or in pain. If I’d had to read her mind to see when she needed to “go” and rush each time I got a “sign” to undress her and hold her over a loo as well, she wouldn’t have been the only one to have gone potty.

I did, however, harbour a nagging guilt over the damage I was doing to the environment with the number of nappies I was throwing out every day. Nevertheless the shame wasn’t strong enough to make me switch to cloth. I didn’t have the time or stomach for that. I satisfied myself with believing the rumour that “real” nappies also harm the environment with the energy expended in cleaning them.

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