DE9317680U1 - Children's training pants - Google Patents

Description

Children's tracksuit pants

The invention relates to pants according to the preamble of claim 1 for training small children after the diaper phase.

Children up to 24 months of age are given diaper packs or pants. Between 18 and 30 months of age, however, diaper packs or pants are no longer used regularly to collect excretions, as the child must already be trained to go to the toilet. The disadvantage of this phase of the child's development is that the great need for movement that comes with their age is inhibited by diaper packs or conventional diaper pants, and leaks and the release of excretions are usually unavoidable. Furthermore, the presence of diaper packs or pants has a negative effect on the training effect that is to be achieved - "becoming clean" - as the child is used to putting its excretions in the diaper pack or pants. A piece of clothing that is clearly distinguishable for the child can help the child to understand that it should go to the toilet in the future. This distinguishability can be achieved in particular by a shape that differs from the previous diaper pack or pants and by different wearing properties.

It is therefore known to use a piece of clothing, so-called children's training pants, to improve the above-mentioned training effect. These pants differ significantly in shape and wearing properties from diaper packs or pants. Closed pants with an absorbent insert are used. This gives the child the impression that they no longer have to

The child no longer wears a diaper pack or pants and has to go to the toilet. The absorbent insert is only intended for the case when the child has not yet reached the training goal. Since this item of clothing is sold as a one-piece, closed pair of pants and is also put on as such, the wearing properties are significantly improved or changed compared to a diaper pack or pants.

However, such trousers have some disadvantages: If the trousers contain excretions, taking them off is very inconvenient and must be done with great care so as not to soil other items of clothing.

An improved pair of children's training pants is known from the European patent application EP 0 421 549 A1, which can be opened along the hips at the side opening areas to make it easier to take them off. This opening area is described in more detail below. The children's training pants consist of a front and a back part, with both parts being connected to each other via the crotch and glued or welded to each other at the hip edges with the respective inner surface of the front and back parts. When the child wears the pants, the opening area extends from the child's hips downwards and protrudes outwards at the sides in the form of a strip of material. As the child moves, the glued or welded connection is loaded by normal forces that act as tensile forces perpendicular to the connecting surface.

The disadvantage of this arrangement is that the connection in the opening area must be particularly strong so that the normal forces generated by the child's movement do not accidentally open the opening area. In order to take them off, the children's training pants should, however, be easy to open. To do this, the connected material strips must

be pulled apart by hand. The forces that occur when the door is opened therefore have the same direction of action as the forces that arise from the child's movement. This means that on the one hand there is a requirement for a firm connection to prevent accidental opening due to the child's movement and on the other hand there is a requirement for the opening area to be able to be opened easily by hand.

Since these two requirements contradict each other, only a compromise can be chosen for each of the requirements, i.e. the fastening area must be glued or welded sufficiently and yet still be able to be opened by hand without great effort. Such trousers are only suitable for single use, i.e. if the trousers are not taken off as a whole pair but opened at the side, they cannot be used again.

Another disadvantage of this design of children's training pants is the fact that it is not possible to tell from the outside whether the pants contain excretions or not. Since such pants are not intended to be changed as frequently and regularly as a diaper pack or pants, the possibility of easy inspection is desirable. For this purpose, such pants are equipped with moisture indicators that signal the presence of liquid excretions through a color change that is visible from the outside. However, these moisture indicators do not detect solid excretions.

Accordingly, the object of the invention is to create children's training pants which make it possible to detect the presence of solid excretions without such a check having to be associated with a change of the children's training pants.

This problem is solved by the features of claim 1.

Children's training pants have been created that have a special opening mechanism that allows the pants to be easily and conveniently opened on one or both sides for inspection and then securely closed again without the closing properties of the fastener deteriorating due to repeated opening and closing. This means that solid excretions can now also be easily identified and the moisture indicators used up to now are no longer necessary. The opening area also has good flexural elastic properties so that the child's urge to move is not hindered. On the one hand, the subject matter of the invention differs significantly in its wearing properties from conventional diaper pants or diaper packs and thus has a beneficial effect on the training effect of "becoming clean". On the other hand, by opening them easily and repeatedly, it is easy to check whether the pants contain excretions or not. The pants according to the invention can therefore be worn for longer and possibly even repeatedly.

The wave-shaped design of the opening area is particularly advantageous, so that particularly favorable bending-elastic properties are achieved that do not hinder the child's movement. The overlapping surfaces of the opening area are provided with an adhesive layer of a special adhesive. This special adhesive has pronounced anisotropic strength-mechanical properties. It is characterized by a particularly high adhesive strength when subjected to shear forces and only a low adhesive strength when subjected to normal forces.

Further advantageous developments are the subject of the other subclaims.

In the following, a preferred embodiment of the invention is described in more detail using schematic figures.

Show it:

Fig. 1 is a perspective overall view of the children's training pants according to the invention;

Fig. 2 a detailed view of the opening mechanism;

Fig. 3 the same view as Fig. 2, but deformed under load;

Fig. 4 is a detailed view of the opening mechanism to demonstrate its function;

Fig. 5 is a schematic and enlarged view of an opening area with a one-sided adhesive layer

Fig. 5a the object of Fig. 5 in the opening phase

Fig. 6 is a schematic and enlarged view of an opening area with a double-sided adhesive layer;

Fig. 6a the object of Fig. 6 in the opening phase

Fig. 7 is a schematic view of an opening area with a double-sided, only partially present adhesive layer;

Fig. 7a the object of Fig. 7 in the opening phase.

Fig. 1 shows a pair of children's training pants with a front part 1 and a back part 2, leg openings 3 and an elastic waistband 4. The front part 1 is connected to the back part 2 via the opening area 5. In the present example, the back part 2 overlaps the front part 1 in an area of 2.5 cm. This area is corrugated, with the wave front E running parallel to the elastic waistband 4. During the manufacturing process,

the opening area 5 has been given the corrugated shape by a common manufacturing step, so that a wave crest 8a of the rear part 2 comes to lie in a wave trough 8b of the front part 1. At least one adhesive layer K is arranged between them. The adhesive layer K is preferably 0.01 mm to 0.5 mm thick in total. The adhesive used has pronounced anisotropic properties, i.e. its adhesive strength is significantly higher when the bonding point is subjected to a shear force load F _s than when it is subjected to a load by normal forces F _n . These special properties of the anisotropic adhesive layer achieve the desired effect that the opening area 5 can be opened very easily, i.e. with little effort, by means of a pull tab 6 shown in Fig. 4, which has a protruding end section 7 for holding it in place, since during the opening process normal forces act on the adhesive connection or normal stresses are present, against which the adhesive layer offers only a small resistance. On the other hand, it is a given that when the opening area 5 (Fig. 2, 3) is deformed by the movements of the child, tensile forces act in the plane E or shear stresses are present, against which the adhesive layer K offers a very high resistance.

The pants are sold in stores in a closed state and are put on the child in this state. The child is therefore made aware that he or she is no longer wearing diaper pants or a pack and should go to the toilet. The flexible opening areas mean that he or she does not feel any hindrance when moving.

If you want to check whether the pants contain excretions, open the pants on one side. If excretions are visible, the pants can be removed very easily by opening both sides, without

without soiling other items of clothing.

If the pants do not contain any excretions, they are closed again. The special design of the opening area 5 ensures that the advantageous mechanical properties of the opening area 5, such as tightness and high flexural elasticity, are retained even after being closed again.

In a first embodiment of the opening area according to Fig. 5 and 5a, only one adhesive layer K is provided. Depending on requirements, a double adhesive layer K1, K2 can also be provided according to Fig. 6 and 6a.

A particularly advantageous design of the opening area is shown in Fig. 7 and 7a. The adhesive layers K1, K2 are only partially applied to the wave crests and, correspondingly, in the wave troughs. If the adhesive properties are selected so that only the adhesive layers adhere to one another, this embodiment ensures particularly simple and secure positioning when the opening area is resealed, since the adhesion of the two adhesive layers only occurs when the previously opened opening area is back in its closed position in accordance with the initial state according to Fig. 1.

Claims (10)

TIEDTKE - BUHLING 4-'-KINNE- ":&*: PARTNER Patent Attorneys Representatives at the EPO' Tiedtke-Bühling-Kinne & Partner, POB 20 19 18, D-80019 Munich D' II MT ritk ' Dipl.-Chem. G. Bühling* Dipl.-Ing. R. Kinne" Dipl.-Ing. B. Pellmann* Dipl.-Ing. K. Grams' Dipl.-Biol. Dr. A. Link Bavariaring 4, D-80336 Munich 19 November 1993 EN 14520 Protection claims 1. Children's training pants with an absorbent insert for training small children after the diaper or diaper pants phase with the training goal of "becoming clean", consisting of a front part (1) and a back part (2), leg openings (3) and an elastic waistband (4), whereby the front part (1) is connected to the back part (2) via a repeatedly closable opening area (5) which extends continuously from the elastic waistband (4) downwards to the leg opening (3) and the inner and outer surfaces of the front part (1) and the back part (2) each overlap in an opening area (5) following the curvature of the waistband (4). 2. Children's training pants according to claim 1, wherein the opening area (5) is wave-shaped and the wave front runs essentially parallel to a plane (E) which is tangent to the opening area (5) starting from the waistband (4) in the direction of the leg opening (3). 3. Children's training pants according to claim 1, wherein between the overlapping inner and outer surface of the front part (1) and the rear part (2) at least Telephone' 089-539653 Dresdner Bank (Munich) Account 3939 844 (bank code 700 800 00) TalafavfrVi· &Pgr; RQ Ki! OR 11 .. .... . Deutsche Bank (Munich) Account 2861060 (bank code 70070010) &tgr;- , K<!'&lgr;&lgr;&lgr;ro&lgr;&lgr; S rn in"."..". Postgiroamt (Munich) Account 670-43-804 (bank code 700100 80) Fax (Q4): 0 89-53 29 09 50 *..: ·. : .· J*·..··.; J Dai-Ichi-Kangyo Bank (Munich) Account 51 042 (bank code 700 207 00) Telex: 5-24 845 ..**..* .J. * Sanwa Bank (Düsseldorf) Account 500 047 (bank code 301 307 00) an anisotropic adhesive layer (K) is arranged which has a significantly lower bonding force against the normal forces (. ^F }$) acting perpendicular to the plane (E) than against shear forces (Fg) acting in the plane (E). 4. Children's training pants according to claim 3, wherein the adhesive layer (K) is firmly connected either to the overlapping area of the front part (1) or to the overlapping area of the rear part (2). 5. Children's training pants according to claim 3, wherein the adhesive layer (K) is divided into a first adhesive layer (K1) and a second adhesive layer (K2) and each of the adhesive layers (K1, K2) is firmly connected to the overlapping area of the front part (1) or to the overlapping area of the rear part (2) and can only be joined to one another to form an adhesive connection. 6. Children's training pants according to claim 5, wherein the adhesive layers (K1, K2) are partially arranged in the overlapping area. 7. Children's training pants according to claim 6, wherein the adhesive layers (K1, K2) are arranged only at the peaks and at the troughs of the corrugated opening area (5). 8. Children's training pants according to claim 3, wherein the total thickness of the adhesive layer (K) is in the range of 0.01 mm to 1 mm. 9. Children's training pants according to claim 1, wherein the opening area (5) is formed in a meandering or zigzag shape, so that similar mechanical properties &diams; 10 · as in an apprenticeship. 10. Children's training pants according to claim 1, wherein the width of the opening area (5) is preferably in the range of 5 to 50 mm.