I definitely agree with what Mac is doing by putting the pull up over the cloth, she has to do what she has to do to protect her furniture and her sanity lol.

I have a child who would NOT eat real food at all. She was so far behind the other children in my care, and I brought it up as gently as I could with the mother (who is already high-strung and high-maintenance) time and time again. She kept bringing me solid table foods, and her daughter would just "hold" the food in her mouth, and I couldn't always tell she still had something still in there. She just was not ready to chew solid food yet. She was (and still is) tiny for her age and would only swallow baby food for me, and even then not always.

I kept letting this 22-year old-first time mother tell me, a 36-year old veteran with four kids and countless dck's under my belt, that she was right and that we needed to just keep giving her this food until she "caught on". Well, one day this child was holding food in her mouth and I didn't see it (quite a large chunk, I have no idea where she was holding it!) and I put another piece in her mouth. She choked and I had to perform the heimlich maneuver on this tiny little girl. That evening, I told her father that I didn't care what they did at home, this child was showing me no signs of being ready to chew solid table food, and that I was not ever going to perform another lifesaving technique on a child when it was completely avoidable. I told him he could either bring me puree'd baby food that I knew she would swallow and not choke to death on, or he could find another person to keep his child. Period. I told him that this child was several months behind the other kids, she did not self-feed at all or eat solid food that required any kind of manipulation or chewing (at 18 months) and that my advice was that he get her to a specialist who could tell him what to do. BUT, even if he did not, I was not going to feed her another morsel of food that required chewing until I saw evidence that she was going to chew her food up and swallow it.

The mother called me that night and was very upset with me, but I held my ground. I told her that if she feeds her daughter that food and she chokes, it's an accident. If I feed her that food and she chokes, it's a liability. End of the story. I told her that I trust my instincts both as a mother and as a person who cares for children 10-12 hours every day, and that my instincts told me her daughter was not ready for solid table food, and until I saw evidence to the contrary, her daughter would be eating puree for me and nothing else.

Fast forward a few months. She eats table food, chews it and swallows it, and although she is still behind the other kids, she seemed to catch on quite well, as soon as she was ready. She still holds food, and she still needs to be reminded to chew, and to swallow, but she is doing much better, on her own timetable.

My point is that we do this for a living, and many of us have been doing it for a very long time. Don't let a parent dismiss your experience, or your instincts. If you are comfortable offering an alternative to your policy, then do so, but don't let her come into your home and tell you her son is completely ready to potty train in cloth underwear if he hasn't even shown signs that he knows what the potty is for or how to use it!

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