Innernets, your votes have been tallied. Housecleaning it is. I should confess that I do have a super-secret Babysitting Weapon - my mother. And to boot, she lives in
Lawrence,KS. It is a cinch to dump the kids off at her place, then hoof it to downtown and hole up in a coffee shop for a few hours (or days?) On Saturday, I did this and found myself hanging out in a new, little tea shop called
Teapouro. Then yesterday, my sister and I did a double swoop-down on our mom and left ALL THE CHILDREN with her so that we could frolic downtown together. We had lunch at Milton's and then went shopping at the Phoenix Gallery and the Toy Store. Seriously, I think it has been at least a few years since my sister and I have had a conversation that did not involve at least
one instance of at least
one of us bellowing at our kids to just Lock Their Lips. Admittedly, our mom look a wee bit haggard by the time we returned, but she was none worse for the wear. [
Stage Left: Evil Laugh]
In other news, I would like to give a shout-out to Elmo. Oh, sure, we have had
our differences over the years, but truly, the Great Red One is totally rockin' our house these days. Arun is
obsessed with the whole
Elmo's Potty Time video. My general theory regarding toilet training is "when he is ready, he will let me know." Overall, I am hoping he is "trained" (I HATE that word. Bleh.) by this November. So. Um. I do not normally seek advice, but I am definitely open to it on this subject. We talk about it and I ask every now and then if he would like to perch his royal bum upon his Diego-Embossed Throne. So far, no takers. Eh.
15 comments:
I am in the same position of potty training with Alex. He is just not interested. He was there for a while then I guess the thrill just wore off when he realized he has to STOP PLAYING to go potty. Back to diapers.
Even when asked if he wants underwear or diaper..."Diaper!"
I am going to check out Elmo's Potty Time. I wonder if there is a SPONGEBOB potty time, haha.
summertime- best time ever to potty train. Let him run around the house and yard nekkid waist down - without pants. He will quickly learn that peeing on the floor is not ok, and he will want an appropriate place to go. Ergo, toilet, or grass.
Don't worry about the peeing in the grass part becoming a problem in public. Once he makes the connection to go the right place when his brain triggers that he has to go, THEN you can work on teaching grass is ok ONLY in the back yard. Boys LOVE peeing in the grass.
Pooping, well...that comes later. Let him learn to recognize the urges first.
Hey, we're potty-training an Alex as well! And doing Jenny's method, running around naked in the back yard. We've moved up to underwear, and he does tell me at times he'd rather wear a diaper then underwear. I wait awhile, take the diaper off, and go back to "naked bottom" time. A little while later he's ready for underwear again. I've been real laid back about it but this week we're going to start doing more and more in underwear.
My cousin trained her son the way Jenny suggested.
It's pretty much the desi method...they just let them run around naked. I am never going to show you my baby pics!! I am bottomsless in most of them. Or swaddled in a cloth diaper (once in a great while). Not the hip kinds from the internet. Like the ones with ginormo pins in them and plastic pants.
My parents pointed out it's a lot harder to let kids do that here, though. On account of the carpeting not being as easy to clean up as cement flooring.
PT is so hard. My kiddo has a potty watch that goes off every 20 mins (we keep him in underwear and shorts only, no pull ups or diapers) on the weekend when we're home. He's happy to run to the toilet, pull down his shorts and underpants, sit on the toilet, sing the potty song with me (1 potty, 2 potty, 3 potty, 4, 5 potty, 6 potty, 7 potty, MORE, then change the words to pee pee and repeat!), then jump up, grab some toilet tissue, watch it float down to the bowl, get wet, flush, and pull his pants back back up. The problem? NOTHING EVER COMES OUT. He holds it and holds it, and 5 hours later, will have an accident. Or I'll have to go to the grocery store, put a diaper on, and by the time I get to the grocery store, the diaper is SOAKED. At day care, he's in underwear all day and the same thing happens. The teachers put a diaper on at 4:45 pm before the parents get there, and he always takes a giant crap between 4:45 and 5:10 when my husband arrives to pick him up. So I really have no advice.
I can suggest a few things that made it fun for us: 1) Karen Katz's potty book is great, 2) in the bath tub, we play with a cup and funnel, pretending the cup is the potty and the funnel is Boo Boo going pee pee, and we elaborately flush by dumping it over, and if the funnel misses the cup we talk about accidents (everyone has them, and it's okay); and 3) Diego and Thomas underwear is fun to wear. We sit for both pee pee and poo poo for now, and he watches both me and his dad do the same thing.
Our school says he's ready to mentally and emotionally ready move to the three year room and had him scheduled to move on August 1. And we started working on potty training in March, at age 2 1/2. But he's still not ready, so he's going to stay in this class for a while till he gets it. I don't really care, I just don't want him to be bored.
I'm just sick of it, and want it done already before the new baby arrives in early Nov.!
I totally agree about waiting until the kid is ready.
That said, we've resorted to bribing. And it's working.
We can't do the naked thing because 1) it's too hot to be outside and 2) Max has some weird clothes issues and won't walk around without clothing.
We DID think of a big event (a plane trip for vacation) and got Max to agree that after that he'd come back as a big boy who would use the potty. It's worked fairly well.
If that wasn't long enough for ya, I'll share a funny story. So, I'm pregnant. I have a bit of, ahem, incontinence occasionally, totally normal of course but mortifying just the same. And once, when my little one asked me, what's wrong, Mama? I told him that I had an accident. And he immediately comforts me, it's okay mama, everyone has accidents, I still love you. At least he gets it!
oooh i may check that video out
You asked, remember that! But, I screwed up training my oldest, learned the secret on #2, it worked like a dream on him and on #3, and also worked on the one friend (also a boy child, so I don't know if this works on girls!).
What I did wrong with first kid? Waiting until he was interested (or vaguely or something like it) but trying to make him go and try all the time and going back and forth between diapers and undies, etc. He quickly realized that while he *could* pee or poop in the potty, it was really quite a hassle compared to just sitting in a diaper and doing it whenever. He was *almost* there at 2.5 and then was finally trained when I took away diapers at just over 3. It wasn't awful, but it involved a lot of accidents and whining (from all parties, I'm afraid!)
So. For kid #2 at right about 2.5 yo I went out and bought exciting underwear and I washed all his clothes (summer is definitely best) in preparation for many clothing changes. Then one day I announced as cheerfully and excitedly as humanly possible (well, for me) that today he got to wear his undies and use his potty or the big potty! Yay! Want to try sitting on the potty now? (either answer is fine -- those are the key things here, the unremitting cheeriness and lack of demands).
So, within the hour he'd peed in his pants. Wet and uncomfortable. Mommy says, Oops! next time you'll probably make it to the potty in time to do it there! Want to sit there now while I put these in the laundry?
Change clothes, clean floor, later rinse and repeat. The poops in the pants are nasty, it's true. But I swear to you that at some point of you suggesting that they'll get there in time and perhaps offering up extra liquids that they will get there on time. Offer up that great excitement again -- You did it! That's great what you can do!
Continue for two days (you will have to do laundry!)
I kid you not that both of my latter two were trained in two days. Not to say they never ever had accidents after that or that they never needed a reminder, but honest to god, they got it. I was all willing to go with diapers or pull-ups at night, but both kids actually refused them the second night -- that was totally unexpected, but I went with it and they stayed dry, just as an added bizarre touch.
The keys are the cheeriness, the belief in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, and the lack of diapers entirely. Plan your schedule accordingly and try to find a time you can stay home for two days.
Caveats: use this early -- the closer a kid gets to three, the more they can smell your desperation and the more oppositional they tend to be -- they know how badly you want it! I think twos are easier than threes, twos just want to say NO, threes want you to regret having made them say NO.
;- D
Hi :). I don't think I've ever commented, but I check you blog every day. I just wanted to tell you that my husband travels A LOT (like-more than 6 months out of the year). So anyway-he was telling me about this Lebanese restaurant he dined at while recently out of town-he really enjoyed it. All the sudden a little alarm went off in my head and I excitedly told him about FoodieBytes! He immediately checked it out and is so excited! I couldn't believe how much he liked it. He said he will definitely use that at times when he travels. So tell X....awesome job!
Oh-and sorry for the totally random comment...after reading everyone elses comments I realized just how out of place it seems lol.
In true twilight zone fashion, I just wrote about this today.
do do doo do.
which, exactly!
:)
Bribery. It's working slowly, but it is working.
I won't regale you with our potty time woes except to say that we have done it wrong...all wrong... with Duncan and it has been exhausting. A couple of things I recommend 1) don't use Pullups 2) start young-- I bought into the wait until their ready idea which turned into a very late start for us. It's great that you are already working with Arun. I agree with Jen that they are more wiling at two. Good luck!!
I'm so ready to start down this road with Alex, but overall he's just not ready. He's almost 2 and I would LOVE for him to be trained sooner than later. Especially with 2 in diapers now... it's just too much all together.
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