The 7 Day Trial

[Ruud26]

Hi, just thought I would post a little story I have started. Let me know if you like it and want to hear more. I don’t profess it to be a very original idea or anything particularly ground breaking.

Not good with grammar so please try and overlook mistakes.

………

Chapter 1 - The Survey

“Could you get me a pen please” my mum asked.

“Why, what is it?” Came my rather rude reply.

“Its just a survey. If we fill it in and send it back, they will send us some vouchers for free things,” she replied enthusiastically.

I thought her use of “things” was a little odd, but nevertheless free stuff is free stuff, so I went and got a pen.

“Thanks sweetie. Don’t go away, there is a section that you need to fill in.” My mother added as she took the pen from my hand.

I should have guessed given who it had come from, it was a bedwetting survey!

“I don’t want to fill in the stupid survey.” I whined, childishly.

“Don’t be silly. It’s just a few questions and then we get free stuff!” Was her, to the point, reply.

I sat there grumpily as she filled out some of the basic information like ‘How many children in the household’. ‘Age’, etc. the questions seemed mostly to be multiple choice with a few areas for additional comments.

I have no idea why, but she decided to read out every question before announcing her answers, which only served to heighten my embarrassment. I wondered if she knew at all how this made me feel sometimes:

Age of child? 12

Gender of child? Female

Do you limit drinks at bedtime? Often

Have you tried medication for bedwetting?
No

If no, was there a main reason?
Concern about side effects.

If yes, how much was the bedwetting improved?
N/A

Have you tried a wetness alarm?
Yes

If yes, did the alarm successfully stop or improve the bedwetting?
No.

I remember when we tried the alarm. It woke my mum up, but not me, I stayed completely asleep as I continued to wet the bed. After a week she gave up with it!

On average, how many nights a week does the child wet the bed?
Every night.

As she ticked that box I was initially almost angry, but before I announced my complaint, I thought about an average week and concluded that it was unfortunately likely to be fairly accurate. It was probably about 1 day in 10 that I was dry at best.

Does the child wear absorbent undergarments/nappies to manage the bedwetting? If yes, please answer the subsequent questions.
Yes.

Does the child wear a disposable nappy to bed?
No

Does the child wear a cloth nappy to bed?
No

Does the child wear a disposable pull-up or disposable pant to bed?
Yes.

Does the child wear a cloth training pant to bed?
No.

On average, would you consider your bedwetting child to be a (pick which answer most applies:
Moderate-heavy wetter.

If the child wakes up wet, how often has the product failed to contain the wetness?
40-60%.

Again I was initially a little surprised at how my mother answered this, as 60% sounded a lot. But also on further reflection, even though most of my pee had been absorbed by the pull-ups, it was common to have some wetness on my pyjamas and bedding. Significantly less than if I wasn’t wearing one, but enough to need my mum to change my bedding several times a week. It was bad enough still wetting the bed I was sure I was the only one at school, but it’s even worse when I have to wear the stupid pull-ups and then I still end up with a wet bed. I could tell my mum gets frustrated with me sometimes, but it’s not like it’s my fault. I can’t help it!

Looking down the list of questions still to answer I was somewhat hopeful that we could rattle through them quickly, but to my annoyance my mum decided she needed to take some time to consider all the options, before reaching her answer and then announcing the logic behind each entry.

The next section read:

In the following scenarios, identify what you consider to be the highest priority when using an absorbent product (1 being highest priority. 5 being lowest priority).

On a normal night whilst at home, I consider the following factors to be most important:

Value for money - I.e. The cost of the product when balanced against performance.
“These things are expensive and I am not made of money, so, 2”

Discretion - e.g. How easy it is be to be able to tell whether someone was wearing the product under normal night clothes.
“At home I really don’t think it matters it’s not like anyone apart from us will see. Low priority 4”

Design - e.g. The colour of the product, or whether design includes images or commercial, age appropriate tv or film characters.
“Pointless! You wear it to sleep, under pyjamas, so what does it matter what pictures it has on it. 5!”

Performance - I.e. The ability of the product to absorb any night-time accident without leaking.
“No brainier! The whole point is that it absorbs everything without leaking. I am sick of having to pay through the nose for pull-ups, only to have to change the bedding anyway. A definite 1!”

Ease of application - for example the ease in which the product can be independently put on and taken off.
"Its useful if you can put on yourself, but at the end of the day once its on, it stays on until morning, so for me I don’t think its a huge factor, 3.

Next scenario: When visiting friends, staying in a hotel or on holiday.

Value for money - I.e. The cost of the product when balanced against performance.
“Still 2”

Discretion - e.g. How easy or difficult it would be to be able to tell of someone was wearing the product under normal night clothes.
“Away from home I can see that this is a little more important, but if you put it on right before bed and take it off first thing in the morning, no one is likely to see, other than close family. 3.”

Design - e.g. The colour of the product, or whether design includes images or commercial, age appropriate tv or film characters.
“Still pointless! Still 5!”

Performance - I.e. The ability of the product to absorb any night-time accident without leaking.
“Not that I can make it higher, but when away from home, the last thing you want is to ruin someone else’s mattress or get a bill from the hotel. 1.”

Ease of application - for example the ease in which the product can be independently put on and taken off.
“Well I have already used 3 and it says I have I rank them in order of priority, so it will have to be a 4.”

“Ok your turn, they want the point of view of both the child and the parent” my mum announced.

“Do I have to?” I whined further, with little prospect of a favourable answer.

“Yes you do, look it says; The following questions should be answered by the child, if possible. So let’s go, it won’t take a minute.” Came her answer. I knew from past experiences that she wouldn’t change her mind, so I gave up and started to answer the questions.

First question. This time there only seemed to be 4 things to rank in order of priority.

On a normal night at home, I consider the following factors to be most important:

“Well I think I would want it to not show and not leak.” I announced.

“Does showing matter? When you are asleep no one can see. Isn’t not leaking more important. Why don’t we put that first.” My mother challenged.

“I guess! I wouldn’t want babyish patterns on them though, so make sure you don’t put that at the bottom” I replied.

“Ok well I am not sure how to answer that because the question is whether you would like there to be fun designs and it doesn’t talk about them being babyish, so I think it probably needs to be at the bottom if you don’t want them to be bright and colourful.” She suggested and I guessed that sort of made sense.

“Ok, fine” I answered wanting to get this over with.

Product cost/value for money.
3

The product is hidden discretely under night clothes.
2

The product has fun colours/designs.
4

The product is highly absorbent and does not leak.
1.

Next question.

When staying in a hotel or on holiday:

“Erm not sure.” I said? Slightly puzzled as to what to put.

“I am not sure this is much different than at home. Although when at home I can just wash sheets. However when in a hotel the hotel staff will find the wet bed and have to change and wash the bedding.” My mother reasoned.

“Okay. No leaks.” I suggested, which prompted her to add numbers to the boxes.

Product cost/value for money.
2

The product is hidden discretely under night clothes.
3

The product has fun colours/designs.
4

The product is highly absorbent and does not leak.
1.

“I want it being hidden to be number 2.” I challenged.

“I don’t see why these things are expensive and I think that cost should be higher.” Came my mother’s retort.

“It’s my part of the questions so you should put what I think” I argued, feeling I was in the right so should put up a fight.

“Ok fair enough.” She conceded and I felt happy for what seemed like a rare, if tiny, victory.

When the child is staying overnight with friends, or going on a school trip?

“I definitely want it to be hidden under clothes on this one. It would be horrible if all my school friends found out.” I argued.

“I can understand that. Its a tough one.”

“What do you mean?” I queried.

“Well I can understand that you would want it to be discrete. But a bit like the hotel, you also wouldn’t want leaks and a wet bed/pyjamas as that would be completely impossible to hide. The problem with pants that are really thin and discrete is that to be so thin they end up having to compromise on absorbency so they are much more likely to leak.” She argued again.

I didn’t really have much of an argument so I just shrugged and watched as she filled in the boxes.

So the scores ended up as:

Product cost/value for money.
3

The product is hidden discretely under night clothes.
2

The product has fun colours/designs.
4

The product is highly absorbent and does not leak.
1.

With survey completed I was allowed to disappear back to my room to think about less embarrassing things!

………

A little over a week later and my mum mentioned that we had got a reply from the company that the survey was from. Whoopee, was my immediate sarcastic thought. I don’t know why she thought I would be interested, but still she decided I needed to know what it said
So she read it out.

"Thank you for taking the time to fill in our survey, the information you provided was extremely useful in helping us to make sure any products that we create are suited to the people we make them for.

From the answers that you have provided we feel that a new product we plan to release may well suit your needs perfectly.

As part of our release media campaign we are looking for a number of families to take a 7 day free trial. When the trial is complete, as a thank you, we are offering a 50% voucher that can be used in any shops that stock our products and the voucher will be valid for a full year. There is no limit to how much you buy with the voucher, so it’s a great opportunity to make a huge saving on, for what is for so many children, one of lifes essentials.

All that we ask is that you complete a video blog review every day as part of the 7 day trial and let us know what you think of the product and how it’s working for you. It’s extremely easy to do using the special portal on our webpage and you can film the blog using any smartphone or tablet.

If you would like to take part and take advantage of this one time offer please complete the form enclosed and return it to us, freepost.

Yours sincerely
Allison Davies
Head of Product Strategy
Proctor and Gamble"

I watched as my mum started to fill in the form immediately.

“I don’t want to do a trial. Why are you filling in the form” I whined.

“Nonsense, why on earth would we not take an opportunity to save so much money.” She stated as she ignored my protest and carried on filling in the form.

I headed up to my room in a bit of a bad mood and wanted some time on my own. My sanctuary was broken about 5 minutes later when my mum burst into my room with a tape measure.

“What do you want, can you not knock when you come in!” I shouted.

“Erm. I don’t appreciate your tone young lady. I just need to take some measurements and I will leave you and your grumpy attitude alone”

To my annoyance she proceeded to take my waist measurement and then something she called the rise, which was where she put the tape measure between my legs and measured the distance from the front of the waistband on my shorts to the back. I had no idea why she needed the measurement and to be honest didn’t want to know. I just wanted her to get out of my room.

Thankfully that was the last I heard of her that day and I thought little more of the stupid trial for at least a week, maybe two.

………….

(Mum’s POV)

It took a while to hear anything further about the trial we had volunteered for. Until probably about 10 days later a package was delivered. It was a reasonable larger sized box, plain brown cardboard and with very little written on the side, but I wasn’t expecting any other packages so I guessed it was from Proctor and Gamble.

I took the box through to the lounge and opened it. Inside I found quite a collection of things. It was dominated by quite a large pack of what were quite clearly the new night pull-ups. The packaging was very similar I would say in style and colouring to Pampers Baby-Dry that I always used to buy when Amy was little. But there was more purple colour and less turquoise.

There was also no Pampers name or logo apparent on the pack, but the lettering was very similar and they were called Night-Dry Plus. There was also a picture of a girl looking happy and laying on her bed in pyjamas.

I turned the package over and on the back there was a computer generated picture of what looked like a nappy rather than a pullup and various features being highlighted. Again it was quite similar to what you see on these kinds of packs. There were arrows and call out bubbles highlighting an elasticated waistband, triple leak guards in the legs and a super absorbent core advertising 12 hours of dryness.

All of this was fairly normal apart from the fact that I wasn’t expecting it to be a nappy type product I was very much expecting it to be a pullup. I was not not sure how Amy would react to that.

I flipped the pack back over and the last thing I looked at was the part in the bottom right hand corner which said that there were 21 in the pack, this was a size XL2 and that they were for girls. I had already figured that there were probably girl and boy version when I saw the picture of the girl on the front.

I put the pack down and started to read some of the leaflets that were also included in the box.

"Thank you for agreeing to be part of our exciting launch campaign of the new Night-Dry Plus from Pampers.

We really think that you will find the new Night-Dry Plus will help ensure that your child has a leak free and good nights sleep, which is so important in these years when they are developing. We have had a lot of feedback from parents that they have been unable to find a reliable product at a reasonable price that keeps their child’s bed and pyjamas dry through the night. We believe the answer for all those parents is Night-Dry Plus from Pampers.

We have tried to keep the packaging style close to the rest of the range of Pampers products as we want the package to be easy to find on a supermarket shelf and we want parents to now that it’s a Pampers product so they can expect that unrivalled Pampers quality and reliability that parents have very much come to trust over the last 30 years.

You will notice though that there are no Pampers logos on the pack itself and this was deliberate. As the product is designed to cater for older children we wanted to dry and get them to understand that this isn’t a larger babies nappy and the negative stigma that this may bring. This is a product that is targeted at the millions of older children that still haven’t quite got to the point of reliable nighttime dryness.

You will also notice that the product is not another pull-up style nappy. We didn’t come to this decision lightly as we know that some older children will prefer the look and level of independence that a pull-up can bring. The decision came on the back of exhaustive testing which found that whilst pull-ups can work for some families, if the child is a moderate to heavy wetter, or has a tendency to move about in bed a lot, or sleeps more on their side or front then pull-ups often simply don’t work. The other issue with pull-ups is that the shape and level of elasticity in the waist/legs have to cater for a wide range of shapes and sizes of children, as they can’t be adjusted. This again means that for a lot of children pull-ups are not going to work well.

We think you will find that with the Night-Dry Plus you will be able to get a great snug fit that will stay secure no matter how much your child might move around in their sleep. On top of this the Night-Dry plus features our brand new patented quad core absorbency system. During testing this new absorbent core has been demonstrated to have nearly 2 1/2 times the absorbency of our already class leading nappies. The new quadruple layered interwoven design means that this amazing absorbency is achieved with only a moderate increase in the thickness of the pad.

The Night-Dry Plus comes in a range of sizes designed to fit girls and boys all the way up to approximately 15 years of age. It is currently intended that there will be a girl and boy version, which will allow for more targeted gender based designs and colouring, particularly in the smaller sizes. Based on feedback, the larger sizes will have simpler designs and colouring. Other than this there is no actual difference between the girl and boy products. Some other products have targeted zones of increased absorbency for boys and girls. However what we have found through testing was that for a nighttime product how the child sleeps is the more dominant factor which determines where maximum level of absorption needs to be. So as a result, in order to provide complete and unsurpassed security the Night-Dry Plus has our unique quad core absorbency system along the full length of the nappy.

We are so confident of the protection that our Night-Dry Plus products provide we will offer a guarantee to keep your child dry or we will provide a full refund."

Well that all sounded very good although I must admit I was still a little skeptical that all the claims would be proven in reality. We have tried loads of things and none have ever worked 100%.

The next leaflet was about the trial itself and was effectively a set of instructions.

"Thank you for agreeing to take part in the 7-day challenge trial. On successful completion of the trial we will send you your 50% off voucher which will be valid for a full 12 months from the date of first use. This voucher will entitle you to 50% off the purchase price of any Night-Dry Plus product. There is no limit to the number of packs that can be purchased and even our extra value bulk buy economy packs are included.

In order to complete the trial and claim your voucher a video blog entry is required for 7 days. More than 7 days can be submitted, but within the submitted entries there must be at least 7 days where the nappy was worn for the full night and the nappy was wet by morning.

During the trial we would like you and ideally the child to comment on the following areas of the product:

• fit
• comfort
• absorption
• security

Within the video entry it will be required to show the product being worn before going to sleep and again in the morning after the child wakes up. It is not necessary to show the face of the child or reveal the child’s identity at any stage.

On wet mornings once the nappy has been taken off, we would like the nappy to be weighed and this information recorded/provided. The weight will be useful information for our continued research and product improvement as it will allow us to measure the amount of liquid the nappy has absorbed during the night.

Once 7 days of entries have been entered and verified by our team your voucher will be dispatched immediately.

We may also contact you to request that some elements of your video entries be used on our website and YouTube channel. This will only happen with your full consent.

Once again we would like to thank you for your input. The feedback from real parents has always been an integral part of the the development of Pampers products to ensure that we continue to provide the products parents can trust."

I thought the weighing thing was a bit odd, but otherwise I suppose what they asked for was pretty fair. It’s a big discount they are giving and no limit on how much you can buy. I suppose they need to make sure they get something for it. I decided to follow through with it, as the saving was too good to miss for 7 days of minor hassle. The biggest issue would be how willing Amy would be. I probably need to make sure there is something in it for her. It was her birthday in a couple of months and I was going to get her an iPad mini. She didn’t know it yet but it could be the perfect thing to offer her to help make sure that she doesn’t kick up too much of a fuss. Plus if these Night-Dry are genuinely as good as they make out it could make all our lives less stressful until she finally gets over her night time problems

[billy]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

I like the concept, and would like to see it continue. I think Amy will throw a fit over tape on diapers. Good luck

[martijn]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

Love the story. looking foreward to reading more.

[tidit45]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

Keep it up! seems like you got a good story starting here!

[Bonsai]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

So, P&G does not care about the environmental friendliness of its products! You have omitted that on purpose in the survey, I guess…
I’m looking forward for more.

[Ruud26]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

Thanks for the comments, they spur me on to write more. I have made good progress on the next chapter. Hopefully I can finish it soon

[WriteAndLeft]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

I found that reading the whole survey was tedious. This was a case of where you could tell instead of show. I would, however, like to see where this goes.

[Victor97]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

Please keep up with it. It is an interesting idea.

[Ruud26]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

Day 1

(Mum’s POV)

The chat with Amy went better than I expected. I had expected her to whine and complain like a 2 year old, but as soon as the IPad was mentioned her demeanour was significantly more compliant.

I hadn’t told her everything straight away though. I did tell her the rules about the video entries which she wasn’t happy about at all, but I promised that no one would be able to tell it was her. I didn’t mention too many details about the nappies themselves. She might surprise me and act maturely about the whole thing I thought. If need be I planned to explain the logic behind the design that was detailed in the leaflets that provided. She should be old enough to understand, I reasoned, perhaps a little optimistically.

The evening of Day 1 was fast approaching and I started to think about what I needed to do for the video entry. I logged onto the website with the username and password provided and found that there was some video tutorials and a some examples of vlog entries to give you an idea of the kind of thing they wanted.

The first video I watched showed a boy probably around 7 or 8 wearing just a pyjama top and one of the Night-Dry nappies. She got the boy to turn all the way around so you could see how it fit and she also took a moment to point out how the elasticated waistband helped keep the nappy snug to his body without being too tight so that it would uncomfortable, as well as various other things. You couldn’t see the boys face so it was hard to know exactly how old he was or how happy he was to be partaking in the video.

I carried on watching the videos as I found them really useful to get ideas about what I needed to do to make sure the entry was valid and counted towards the 7 day total.

The website showed how you can make multiple short entries and link them all to each day. So you could do a little video in the evening and another in the morning. The software would then link them together and make one long video for that day/night. Very clever I thought.

After a while I started to feel confident enough to do my first video entry. I checked Amy was up in her room listening to her music so I could be alone when I did the first part. I felt self-conscious enough without there being an audience as well. Plus I wanted to be able to talk freely without worrying about what Amy would think.

I set my iPad up in the table in the downstairs study and set it up to connect wirelessly with the computer. Thankfully the website recognised my tablet and all I had to do was press record and talk. I was ready!

"Hello and welcome to the first entry of our 7 day trial of the new Night-Dry Plus.

My daughter has always struggled with bedwetting and even though she has recently turned 12 she still wets most nights. We have tried all sorts of things from lifting in the middle of the night, limiting drinks, wetness alarms, GP tests and visited the continence nurse. Nothing has worked and the conclusion we have come to make is that she just isn’t ready yet like a lot of other kids who wet the bed.

Managing the problem has become a major area of stress in our household. She normally wears nighttime pull-ups but to be honest I think she just wets too much as she often still has wet pyjamas and bedding despite wearing the pullup. I know this gets her down as much as I try to not let it show, having to strip beds and wash sheets several times a week can really become draining and frustrating. So when I heard there was a new product that might make helping to manage our little problem better I thought why not give it a try.

When the package first arrived I must admit I was a little surprised to see that they were actually more of a nappy than a pullup. I thought particularly with older children this might cause some problems as they might relate them to babies nappies. I don’t think Amy has ever really treated pull-ups as something other than another type of nappy so I am hoping this won’t prove to be a problem. When I read some of the information that was provided it was clear that the company have done a lot of research and they type of nappy they have come up with was based on a lot of testing. So I am hoping that they are right and we can have much less stress in our house going forwards."

I thought the video had gone quite well to that point, but I started to struggle to think of what to say next and I was cursing the fact that I didn’t have one of the nappies there to point a few things out.

“If I had one of the nappies here I could point a few things out, but I haven’t so I will probably stop there. Thanks”

I cursed myself for such a clumsy finish after what had been a confident start. I decided I needed to make up for it so decided to do another short clip straight away, once I had gotten one of the nappies to show.

"Hi I am back and this time I have something with me to show.

So as I was explaining if I open it out you can see that this is very much a nappy style product with wings that fold open and tapes that look like they are Velcro.

You can see it has elastication in the waist both in front and at the back and these wings seem pretty stretchy too. So I think this will all help to get a good fit which should help stop leaks.

Apparently the padding is a new type. I can’t remember exactly what it was called but it’s supposed to be much more absorbent than normal nappies or pull-ups. There isn’t much I can say about this at this stage other than the padding does feel quite tightly packed although still pretty soft to the touch and a little bit thicker I would say then the pull-ups she normally wears.

The instructions recommend that before you out the nappy on you should open it fully out and fluff the padding out a little to make it less stiff. The compression used to keep the pack as small as possible apparently means that nappies can get compressed."

I don’t know why but I decided to get as much of the information provided in he video. Maybe I thought it would make it look more professional or something.

"It also recommends that you fold the nappy over lengthways so as to form a channel down the middle which is supposed to help make sure any wetness gets absorbed by the padding. So I don’t know how much of a difference any of that will make but I will give it a go.

Anyway I have probably bored you enough now and will be back with another video at bedtime."

Ending the video I was actually really pleased with myself. I quite enjoyed talking to the camera! I started to think about how to do the video later. It definitely said I need to show her wearing it so I didn’t really want to film it in the study. After a little more research I learnt that it was possible to film the video normally on the tablet and then plug it in and upload it. Again very clever I thought.

Later that evening when it was time for Amy to go to bed I sent Her to have a wash and brush her teeth, while I went into her bedroom. I got everything I needed; pyjamas ready, a Night-Dry and the tablet to film with.

I don’t know if Amy had forgotten but she looked slightly startled to see me sat there on her bed with my tablet and one of the new Night-Dry’s.

“Come on let’s get this done quickly and then you can read a bit before you turn your light out.” I announced.

"Do I have to?

I don’t want to!

Why do you have to do a stupid video?" She whined.

“I told you why. We have to do a quick video every night and every morning otherwise we won’t get the voucher. So let’s get it done quickly and remember our deal. If you want that new iPad for your birthday then you need to help me with this.” I reminded her.

She didn’t really reply but just shuffled across the floor towards me with shoulders sloped low like she had been practicing the moody teenager look all day. I took that as a sign of consent so carried on.

“Right I need you to get undressed and lay on the bed so I can put it on.” I explained, wondering if she would react to that bit of information,

“Why can’t I put it onlike normal?” She enquired.

“Because these are different to your normal ones and they don’t go on like that.” I explained wondering how long this conversation might go on for.

“You never mentioned that!” She complained.

“I have now. Now come on and stop action like a baby and get on with it” I stated getting a tiny bit annoyed. I didn’t mean to make the baby reference and instantly thought I would regret it given my concern about what we were about to do. But she didn’t seem to pick up on it and I was pleased to see her start to get undressed.

I waited until she was completely undressed before getting up from the bed. I decided to keep the Night-Dry partially hidden on the bed next to me as I thought it would probably best to let her see it properly once it was safely on.

“Good girl now hop up on the bed and we will be done in a jiffy.” I said, hoping that the offer of speed would help her compliance.

She laid back on the bed and I opened up the Night-Dry. I didn’t need to fold it or ruffle the padding as it was the one I used for the video earlier.

“Lift your bum up off the bed for me” I asked politely.

“This is so embarassing!” I heard her mutter.

“Good girl” I praised as she put her feet up on the bed and lifted her bottom up off the duvet. As soon as it up I slid the night dry under and she sat back down. I noticed that she chose to just stare up at the ceiling through the process so far.

I then realised that I hadn’t slid it under far enough and to her absolute annoyance I had to ask her to lift up again. Happy that the waistband was suitably far enough up her back this time I let her sit back down again. I hoped I had got it right this time as I think a second re-adjustment would have tipped her over the edge!

I grabbed the two front wings and lifted them up through her legs. It has been a few years since I had put a disposable nappy on a child but even though she was much bigger now the process was no different. I pulled the front up so that it was nice and snug between her legs before flattening the front out across her lower tummy. The top of the waistband was just below her belly button which was perfect. I pulled the back wings out as far as they would go and undid the tape on the side to my right first. I noticed the tapes were quite wide and were initially a little difficult to open. When it did open it let go with quite a loud ripping sounded.

With my left hand I held the front wing down and round to her side while I stretched the tape and attached it across the front on what appeared to be a slightly ruffled tape landing zone. The tape landing zone had a subtle pattern of pink and purple swirls, nothing too childish which I thought was good. With that side done I repeated the action on the left side. I put my fingers in the waistband to check how tight it was and decided that it was if anything slightly loose and should try and tape adjust the tapes so they were slightly further across. Both tapes were a little stubborn to release, but I successfully reattached them this time a little further across, with only about a 1 1/2 to 2 inch gap, as they now weren’t far from meeting in the middle. There probably was plenty of growing room in this size I thought to myself.

“All done. Just need to do a quick video and then you can get your PJs on.” I announced as I stood back and admired my handiwork.

“Do we have to do the video?” Came a fresh batch of whining"

“For the millionth time yes! You don’t have to do anything, just stand up and let me see how it fits.” Came my slightly exasperated reply.

Reluctantly she did as she was told and shuffled off the bed. Once she was stood up I got the tablet ready. As I was opening the camera app I noticed that for the first time she was looking at what she was wearing. She tried to crane her neck round to look at her bottom. As she did so I took a moment to consider how they seemed to fit.

The cut and fit were very much like a normal toddler nappy. It actually seemed to fit her very well. The padding was quite thick and puffed out quite a bit, it was wide at top at the front but narrowed down into a V as it went between her legs. As the nappy was a normal hourglass shape the padding widened out again and provided full coverage over her bottom.

“Ok let’s get this video done and then you can read for a while”. I announced.

………

To be continued.

[Bonsai]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

I like a lot your obsessive level of detail about product “technical” features and pseudo-marketing bla-bla.
Please tell us more on why this new product will be beneficial for bedwetting girls and boys, for their parents and (most important) for the long-term revenue trend of the manufacturer!

[Ruud26]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

The next installment for those of you who are interested to read any more:

“What are you doing” my mum asked.

“Getting my pyjamas on” I answered grumpily.

“Well you can put your pyjama top on, but leave your bottoms off until I have done the video. They need to know you are wearing it otherwise they won’t pay up!” She announced.

This couldn’t get much worse I thought. Why the hell had I agreed to this!

“Can we get this over with already!” I pushed.

“Ok I am nearly ready. You don’t need to say anything if you don’t want I can do the talking.” She commented.

“There is no chance I am saying anything. Just make sure you don’t show my face, ok!” I said as I stood with my arms folded, feeling more embarrassed than I could possibly remember ever having been before.

My mum looked like she was ready as she approached holding the tablet out in front of her and pointing down towards my middle.

“Hi everyone it’s Kate here. And as you can see we are just about ready for bed. It’s probably fair to say she wasn’t quite expecting them to be a tape on style nappy. It wasn’t something I had mentioned before we got her ready for bed and I must admit I wasn’t sure how she would react. In the end it was fine and she did great.”

Oh my god I thought. Does she not know I am stood right here. I so wanted to just shout at her but I didn’t want to be heard on the video so I just had to stand there and listen.

“So whilst it’s been a while since I taped a nappy onto a child it really was very easy and whilst the tabs do seem extremely grippy, it is possible to reposition them so you can get a good fit. You can see the elasticated waistband front and back really does seem to help get a nice and snug fit around her tummy.” She continued.

As she talked about the elasticated waistband she reached up and put a couple of fingers into the front and pulled. I wasn’t expecting it so I almost stumbled forward. Then she grabbed my wrist and pulled it so that I spun around.

"As you can see there’s the elasticated section in the middle at the back.

While we are round the back you can see the nappy is really quite generous in size. The padding widens out at the back and extends all the way up towards the waistband. If I am honest it is a little bulkier than I was expecting, both in the front and over the bottom, but particularly over her bum.

Having said that if the absorbency is as impressive as the literature says then it’s probably a necessary compromise.

Erm … what else? You can see the nappy is plain white at the back with just the faint turquoise band here at the top and as you can see there is also an indication of the size, which is probably quite useful if you have more than one child that wets the bed and you might have children in different sizes."

She spun me back round again as I wished the ground would open up and swallow me alive.

"In the front it’s mainly white apart from across the tape landing area, which has this pretty pink and purple pattern. That’s quite a nice touch and not too childish, which I think is good.

As you can see the padding does puff out a little bit at the front and you might want to think about wearing some underwear over the top if you are worried about something being visible under pyjamas.

I personally don’t think this is an issue at all while at home as she only wears it when she is sleeping.

Anyway that’s probably about all I can think of. So it’s time to say goodnight and see how we get on tonight.

Bye". She pressed the stop button on the tablet screen and put it down.

“See that wasn’t so bad” she added.

“Are you kidding! That was so embarrassing. I don’t want to do this anymore.” I decided, trying to hold back a tear or two.

“Oh honey there is no need to get upset, you are doing great and I am really proud of you. Just think about that IPad you are earning yourself. It will all be over before you know it.” She answered, as she stride to calm me down.

The thought of the iPad helped but I still didn’t want to carry on.

“I don’t want to wear it anymore. I want to take it off and where what I normally wear” I said further.

“Don’t be silly, it’s all done now. Once you have your pjs on you will forget all about it” she offered.

“There is no way I will forget all about it. I can feel it every time I move. It’s not comfy.” I complained.

“How do you mean it’s not comfy. Does it hurt anywhere? Is it itching?” She asked.

“It’s not itchy… it’s just. I don’t know uncomfy.” I tried to explain but I didn’t know how to describe it.

“Well if you don’t tell me I can’t help” she said as she put her arm around me.

“I don’t know it just feels weird, like kinda tight, but all over.” I tried to explain again.

"It probably just takes a little bit of getting used to that’s all. There’s quite a bit more padding in there compared to the pull-ups your used to, so it’s probably just that.

Why don’t you get your bottoms on and jump into bed. It’s getting a little late but you can read for a little while if you like." She said as she handed me the rest of my pyjamas.

I was still feeling a little emotional and I could tell that I had started to feel a little drained. So in the end I decided to give up and took my pjs from her. I put them on quickly and was glad to cover up the offending garment. But I noticed to my disappointment that even though it was now covered up, there was a unmistakable bulge in the front which i just about managed to cover up by pulling my pj top down as far as it would go.

I jumped into bed and got my new book to read. It was hard to concentrate on the book initially. I could hear my mum emptying the dishwasher and putting the crockery away in the cupboards noisily. It was also hard not to think about the added padding around my middle. I found that if I kept my legs apart I couldn’t really feel the padding between my legs at all, so that’s what I did and tried to concentrate on my book.

It actually worked for a while and I found myself engrossed in the book as my mum came in and told me it was time for lights out.

“It’s time to go to sleep. Sleep well sweetie, see you in the morning. I will make pancakes” she said as she gave me a kiss on the forehead. I couldn’t remember the last time she did that, but it was quite nice. And I do love pancakes!

I rolled onto my front as my mum turned out the light and tried to get to sleep. I was really quite tired but I still wasn’t sure I was going to be able to sleep.

As I laid on my front I was surprised to find I was actually fairly comfortable. I had worn pull-ups to bed pretty much forever so I was very used to some extra padding in my pyjama bottoms. Whilst I could tell that I was wearing something different and that there was more padding than normal, I felt was little bit of a sensation I wasn’t expecting.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, but I felt somehow secure. That was the closest word I could find to describe it. I fell asleep feeling warm and secure.

…

“… Amy… time to get up…”

I slowly started to come to. It took me a few moments to even open my eyes I felt so tired. Why was she waking me up, was my first thought.

“Come on sleepyhead it’s nearly 10 o’clock! I know you don’t have school but still you are not going to start sleeping all morning.” My mum announced.

I must admit I was really surprised to hear it was 10am, I thought it must have been about 8am. I didn’t normally sleep long in the morning and I can’t remember the last time I slept until 10! I rolled over on my back, gave a big stretch and felt my stomach growl, a sure sign that I was definitively ready for breakfast.

As I looked up with one eye still shut, I saw my mum stood by my bed as she hovered over me.

“Come on you can’t stay under there all day. You must be hungry. Let’s get this done quickly and then you can have some breakfast.” She said, more as an instruction than a suggestion.

What was she going on about I thought.

“What… can I have crumpets for breakfast.” I asked, with my attention drawn to my rumbling tummy.

“Of course you can, I thought you wanted pancakes, but first we need to do a quick video.” She announced, holding up her tablet as a further clue, in case I was still clueless.

All of a sudden I felt my face flush slightly as it all came quickly back and I immediately became more awake. I now remembered very clearly the video I had to do before I went to bed and what was expected each morning. Why did I agree to this!!!

“I don’t want to do a video… please mum. I just want to have breakfast.” I pleaded.

“I am sorry sweetie but you know what we agreed and it won’t take long. The only time we won’t do a video in the morning is if you are still dry when you wake up.” She explained

My ears pricked up at that thought. Particularly as I realised that I didn’t feel wet so maybe I wouldn’t have to do a video a video after all.

I didn’t want to make it too obvious, but I tried squeezing my legs together to see if I could tell if I was wet or dry. I was really used to how my pull-ups felt wet and dry, so it was pretty easy for me to know straight away. But this felt different and whilst I remembered the new “night pants” felt different than my pull-ups I couldn’t remember exactly what it felt like and therefore whether it felt any different now than before I fell asleep.

As I squeezed my legs together I could feel some pretty firm padding resist my attempts to press my thighs tight together. But I still wasn’t sure, so I tried to discretely slip my hand down and inside my pyjama bottoms.

“Come on… up and at em!” My mum encouraged.

“I’m coming… I am just tired.” I replied. Trying to buy myself some more time.

My fingers had reached the top of the waistband, which seemed to stick out above my pj bottoms. I probed further and felt, at first a rough area that was pulled tight across my tummy, then the material seemed to change to something much smoother to the touch and the thickness of the material increased significantly as the padding bulged outwards. I hesitated initially and then tried to give the padding a squeeze. The thick padding was really quite firm, but it did give a little as my fingers and thumb pressed down. With a little sigh I realised that whilst I couldn’t be certain the way the padding felt was most likely due to the fact that the outer cover was stretched tight across saturated absorbent material. I knew from experience with my pull-ups that whatever they use inside these things seems to expand when it got wet. I expected these would be somewhat similar. It was bad enough having to have to do
a video at all. Now I have to show the world evidence of how I can’t stop myself from peeing myself in my sleep.

I felt my eyes moisten, but despite this my mum suddenly pulled my covers down.

“Come on Amy let’s get going. Let’s see how we did.” She stated as the covers were pulled down to my shins.

I realised I still had my hand down my pjs and quickly whipped it back out.

“Are you wet honey?” My mum asked sympathetically.

“I don’t know… I think so… maybe!” I said grumpily.

“Oh Amy, you don’t need to get upset I know you can’t help it.” She said as she sat next to me and gave me a big hug.

Her words and her embrace did help me feel a tiny bit better.

“Let’s get this done quickly and then is it pancakes, or crumpets, or both?” She said in an upbeat tone.

“Both!” I announced. I thought I deserved it with everything I was having to do. I even managed to let a little smile slip out, as the thought of my favourite breakfasts filled my head.

“Right up you get. You don’t have to do anything just stand there.” She stated, as she helped me to my feet.

I felt pretty embarrassed, but did as she asked and just stood there with my arms crossed as she picked her tablet back up and got the video app ready.

“Hmm I wonder if I can stand it up on the this table then I don’t have to hold it…Let me see.” She said as she inItially fumbled, but then managed to prop it up between two thick books, with the camera still pointing over towards where I was stood.

“That looks perfect. I will probably have to kneel down otherwise we will get your head in the video, which we don’t want.” She said, as much to herself as to me.

At least she remembered to make sure my face wasn’t in the video. It must have started recording at that point m, as my mum came over and knelt next to me.

"Hi everyone, it’s me again and last night was our first night my daughter has worn the Night Dry Plus from Pampers.

First thing I should say is it’s after 10am and I had to wake her up. Before you all think I am a bad parent, she normally never sleeps this long, but I figured she must have needed it and she was sleeping so peacefully and comfortably that I decided to let her sleep in.

Not surprisingly after such a long sleep I am pretty sure that, unless there has been a miracle, she has wet in the night. On first inspection her bed seems completely dry and let’s just check… yep her pyjamas are completely dry too, so that’s a good start. When she wears normal pull-ups she almost always leaks out of the top and both the bottom of her pyjama top and the waistband of her bottoms are normally really quite wet. There would also often be a reasonably sized wet patch on the sheet on her mattress. But I can’t see anything like that this morning, so all looks good."

I didn’t like her, unless there has been a miracle, comment. It might well be true but she didn’t have to say it like that. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t want my voice to be on the video so I just had to bite my tongue and hope that she hurried up and finished the video quickly.

"In the last video I mentioned that you might want to try putting some underwear on over the nappy, if you are a little worried about discretion. But to be honest if your child tends to wear this type of pyjamas then I think it’s going to be pretty difficult to hide, even with underwear holding things in a little tighter.

If I get Amy to spin around I think you will see what I mean." She continued.

I started to get more annoyed. I was sure this wasn’t necessary and only served to increase my embarrassment. But I had little option but to do as she asked and hoped that my compliance would lead to a quicker conclusion of the stupid video.

"So I am sure you can see what I mean. Plus if I lift up her top a little, you can see the waistband comes up quite high too, which is probably a good thing to help stop leaks, but it means the nappy will pretty much always be visible above the top of her pyjama bottoms.

I suspect if you really are worried about discretion, then a nightie might be the way to go. I will see what she has in her pyjama draw and do another video with her wearing a nightie so you can see the difference.

Hopefully Amy won’t mind, but let’s get these pjs down so we can see how the nappy held up." She stated before quickly whipping my pyjama bottoms down to my ankles, without even asking.

"It might be a little hard for you to see, but I can tell she is definitely wet.

Oh… that’s something I hadn’t noticed before there is a band of blue’ish colour star and moon shapes down the middle of the front. Not sure they need to be there but it’s quite cute nonetheless." She explained to the camera.

I looked down to see what she was referring to and could see that there was indeed a row of little stars and crescent moon shapes.

My mum continued with her narration as she prodded and squeezed the swollen and slightly discoloured padding of my night pants. I still couldn’t bring myself to think of it as a nappy. I hated that word, it sounded so babyish. Even the American word, diaper, sounded a little bit better. So I tended to still try to refer to them as night pants.

"I must say I am really quite impressed. It will be interesting to see how much this thing weighs, but it looks like she has wet this thing pretty well and it has soaked it all up. You can tell that the front of the nappy is completely saturated, but if I run my finger across her tummy… yes… her skin is bone dry, so it’s kept it all in which is great.

Let’s have a quick look round the back. Spin round for me Amy please.

That’s interesting, the back of the nappy is pretty much completely dry, with the exception of a little bit at the bottom here." She announced, as I felt her squeeze the padding under my bum and between my legs.

"Amy has always been a tummy sleeper so the front of her nappies have always born the brunt of her floods. Oh and I have just noticed there doesn’t seem to be any of the little moon or star shapes at the back here.

Anyway overall my first impressions are that I really very impressed. I am sure that if she had been wearing one of her normal pull-ups then I would be washing both pyjamas and bedding this morning. So whilst it’s early days it’s a big thumbs up from me." She concluded, rather cheesily, before she got up and went to stop the video recording.

"Great well done sweetie, see that wasn’t so bad. Before you know it a week will have flown by and we won’t need to do this anymore.

So let’s get you cleaned up and get those pancakes going. Do you want to have a go at flipping them?" My mother asked as she gave me a hug.

[Robehouse]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

Love reading the mother’s narration and the daughters humiliation. Keep the story going.

[Ally]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

This certainly has promise to be an interesting tale. It is so far, and I’ll be continuing to watch it.

One thing to help readability in the longer narrative in the videos (or anywhere else it appears): The convention for a single speaker’s dialog that continues from one paragraph to another is to leave off the closing quote at the end, but add the opening quote at the start of each paragraph. As it stands now, I found myself having to recheck that the mother was still speaking a few times.

[stagecoach]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

i love this story , quite interesting to find out how far it will go

[Ruud26]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

I turned into a pretty uneventful day that day. I had planned on meeting my best friend and spend some time at her house, maybe even staying for dinner, but they were looking for a new house so her mum and dad made her go look at some potential new houses, which she hated doing.

When she first told me she was probably going to end up moving I felt a quite upset. It wasn’t clear how far she would be moving, they had spent ages trying to sell their house, but they now had someone who sounded like they were going to buy it. So ever since that happened they seem to spend all their time looking for houses.

I hoped she didn’t move far. I hoped even more that she didn’t move school. I didn’t think I could have coped with that. We had known each other since we were little and she was the only person who still knew about my night problems. Having said that it wasn’t really something we ever talked about, thank god. She didn’t ask and I so I didn’t have to tell. Which I really was grateful for.

In some respects it affected us both. She often asked me to come round and sleepover, but I would always refuse and she would get frustrated at the excuses I would always make. She tried to make me feel better and say that she didn’t mind about my “issues”, but I still couldn’t bring myself to go through with it. It upset me, but the thought of having a nighttime accident at someone else’s house was too much to bear. I couldn’t imagine that level of embarrassment, having to go and tell her mum what had happened. Even if I managed to get away with wearing pull-ups discretely somehow, I expect they would leak and I would end up stood there with a soaking wet pull-up and a wet bed and pyjamas. I am sure in that scenario I would hope to die on the spot. So I felt there was just no way it would happen.

Fortunately she had learned to not bring up the subject of sleepovers very often as she could tell I got upset by it. I didn’t want to get upset, but it often made me feel that life was so unfair. Why me??? What did I do wrong to be cursed like this? It was at these times that I often felt really alone. I know I probably wasn’t, well at least my mum told me I wasn’t, but it felt like I was the only person in the world with this nighttime curse.

Anyway I don’t know why I started to think about it. Perhaps it was because the thought of losing my friend felt like one step too far, on top of everything else.

For most of the day I decided to do some homework. Well when I say decided, it was more like coerced into doing it by my mother. Whilst she had a point that it had to be done at some stage, my natural tendency was always to delay it as far as possible. So of course I fought against doing it, but in the end her perseverance was unwavering and I ended up giving in.

When I was done, I wouldn’t admit it publicly, but I did feel a level of relief and satisfaction that it was done and I didn’t need to worry about it any more. Having finished it I was was free to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening watching a bit of tv, but mostly I spent my time chatting with friends on whatsapp and watching YouTube videos. I always found it amazing what I ended up watching on YouTube. I would start in one place watching a video on fashion tips or hair tips, for example, and by the end I would be watching prank videos or funny animal videos. How i ended up there was always quite random as I just clicked on various “related” videos.

It was at the end of a particularly long spell surfing YouTube videos that I was interrupted by my mum. As I looked up I was initially distracted by the kindness she had shown by bringing me a lovely cup of hot chocolate before she headed back out of the room. I couldn’t remember the last time she had brought me a cup of hot chocolate on an evening. It brought a smile to my face, as chocolate was a big weakness of mine, in any form, so nice cup of hot chocolate was most welcome.

I picked up the cup and tried to drink a little, only to find it far too hot to drink, as I almost burnt a layer of skin from my lips. As I set the cup back down on my bedside table I saw my mother return. My contentedness took rather a big nose dive at that point, as I saw one of the pampers in her hand, knowing full well it was shortly destined to be hugging my body snugly, ready to do its thirsty work.

I sat there silently and picked my cup back up, having thought that perhaps the need to finish my drink might provide some level of delay to the inevitable. So I sat there struggling to hold the still super hot mug as I watched her place the still folded, white rectangular shaped night pant on the bed by my feet.

“I thought we could try a nightie tonight” she announced. But I chose not to reply, as I had nothing really to say about it. I knew the trying of the nightie was sure to feature in her latest video entry.

She picked a pink nightie out on my drawer and laid it on the bed. It was my favourite one actually, it had a big picture of Bob from the minions on it. Despicable me was one of my favourite films.

“Once you have finished your hot chocolate it’s time to get ready for bed.” She stated further.

Again I didn’t reply. I did start to wonder why she had given me the hot chocolate, it had never really happened before, as I was always in a strict no drinks after 6pm rule. Maybe it was because she felt I deserved a treat. Either way I wasn’t going to complain.

I took my time drinking my drink and just sat and watch her bring her tablet in and set it up on the side table again.

"Come on, chop chop, finish your drink and then we can get this video done and you can read a bit in bed if you like.

I looked down in my cup and saw there was only a tiny bit left. It was the only thing that stood between having to do another stupid video. I had stared to get the impression that she liked doing the videos, the way she talked endlessly to the camera. It wasn’t necessary I was sure.

“Shall I do my teeth?” I enquired having sipped the last of the hot chocolate. Doing my teeth seemed like another good stalking tactic.

“It ok you can do that once you have got your nightie on.” She answered, as she picked up my night pants and unfolded it.

I reluctantly started to get undressed, as I figured I might as well just get it over with. Not surprisingly it didn’t take very long and there nothing left to do but lay down on my bed and wait for my mum to do her work.

“I think I am starting to get the hang of this” she quipped as she attached the second tape, seemingly having decided she got it right first time this time.

I sat up, grabbed my nightie and couldn’t help but look down at my crotch. The tapes must have been gripping very tightly as the waistband was pulled extremely taut across my tummy. Whilst the waistband and tape landing area were pulled tight and flat across my middle, just below that the generous padding ballooned outwards.

Having seen enough I refocused on pulling my nightie on over my head and standing up, in the now customary position to do the video.

[Bonsai]

Re: The 7 Day Trial

This keeps being good. I like how you make Amy appear a bit on the dumb side, a little stubborn and emotional but always giving into mommy’s coaxing.
Aside from the chocolate treat, I especially liked how yesterday mom came in to get Amy ready for the night after she went to brush her teeth and instead tonight mom made sure to diaper her before that.