When my oldest, Soph, turned one, I wrapped up one of those little plastic potties and a potty book for her to tear open and be amazed. We read, and re-read the potty book one-million times. And, though I was careful not to push anything too early, the potty sat there waiting to be used when she was ready. At the tender age of one, my daughter could put a tinkle in her potty on the way to the tub. Good times, good times. Good, ignorance-is-bliss times.
One of my friends potty-trained her daughter at eighteen-months and gave me the following advice, "You just have to put the underwear on her and deal with the messes for about three days. Then, she will finally get what is going on and start using the potty." Three days? Really.
Well, to any of you who have had that kind of an experience with potty training -- good for you. You can stop reading this post now. And, please, please, don't leave me a comment to gloat about your superior knowledge on getting kids to use the potty. You are just lucky, alright!?
We tried the 'three days' thing. And, at the end, she was still showing absolutely no signs of recognition when she went potty. She went right along playing as if nothing at all had happened. She didn't even acknowledge the warm ooze in the very moment it was running down her legs. The puddle on the floor did not phase her.
So, we waited a few more months. And, tried again. And, again. And, again. We read the book. We potty trained the dolly.
And, one day in particular, I remember devoting the entire day to letting Soph run around in nothing but a T-Shirt while we did all kinds of fun projects in the kitchen (over tiled floors), drank lots of fluids, and sat on the potty every 20-minutes when the timer went off. The day was full of treats, and fun, and slippery tile, but, alas, not success.
I gave ear to all of the tried and true wisdom and settled with, "She'll do it when she is ready."
That was all fine and good until she reached about 3 1/2 and I was tired of buying and changing diapers for TWO kids for a whole year-and-a-half. I was tired of waiting for her to be ready, so, I mandated that it was time.
We finally stopped having weekly if not daily accidents near her 4th birthday. Whew! That was a long haul from giving her the potty at one to finally stopping mopping up pee and rinsing out poopy undies at 4!
Needless to say, I was not excited to begin the whole procedure with the E-Man.
"Boys are harder," everyone told me. "He'll regress when the baby comes," they warned. AiAi would be born when E-Man was 2 years 9 months old. "Why even bother until after the baby comes?" I reasoned.
At 2 1/2 years, E-Man practically potty-trained himself. And, no, he did not regress. It was awesome! So, see this is how I know for a fact that I'm not completely flawed in this one arena of child training. Those of you who have easy to potty-train kids are L-U-C-K-Y.
Now, comes AiAi. He'll be 3 at the end of the summer, so I've had to work my way out of denial and admit that potty training is on the horizon. He hasn't been showing me any signs. And, by that I mean, he hasn't woken up in the morning, put on underwear, and started using the toilet. That's the kind of signs I'm looking for at this point. I was feeling pretty O.K. with my decision to let him stay in diapers until college if necessary, until it occurred to me that I've signed him up for pre-school in the fall, and potty-training is required. Shoot! What was I thinking? Given my track record (with Soph at least), I figured it was best to get started.
We've been doing the underwear thing for three days now, and guess what? Absolutely, positively no recognition or identification on his part when he goes. And, he's not tempted by my bribes of treats to sit on the potty either. Not interested. Not at all. Even the plastic toy, bubble-blowing lawn mower waiting in the box will not sway him.
Yet, I am determined to move forward. I'm going to keep on keeping on with the underwear. We'll see how long I last. Is it acceptable to let him run around in the backyard naked until the end of summer?
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2 comments:
Hey, now that the fence is in, I see no problem with letting him run free. I will admit that it took me THREE tries with Samuel. The second time I actaully UNpotty trained him because he seemed to get satisfaction in peeing in unacceptable places... A half case of apples, the sand box, the heater (I cut my finger cleaning that one), we were even carving pumkins and he says, "I want to pee in it." He was so obsessed. So, he knew what he was doing and had control. I actaully was so fed up that I just made him go back to diapers. You should have seen the look on the fellow moms faces when Samuel said, "I need to go potty!" and I said, "Just go in your diaper." Now, six months later I basically made him beg me to wear his Cars underwear. The Chuck E Cheese website has a printable chart and I rewarded him with Chuck E Cheese tokens. Thankfully, he seems to have forgotten the joy he got from peeing in odd and unacceptable places. I do find Chuck E Cheese tokens all over the house but you can guess that I prefer that any day. I feel for you. I promise.
I'm pretty sure someone needs to create a potty-training business. For sure it would be a gold-mine! I would SOOOO rather pay someone to do it for me. My sister Jessica said in Chicago there is a place where you can take your child and pick them up at the end of the day potty-trained. Ummm...HELLO! Who WOULDN'T I pay to take over that not-so-fun parenting trial? But it is oh so nice once they finally are trained. 1 down, 1 to go.
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