Potty Training
For any of my unchilded friends out there, I know that you absolutely cannot understand the manical devotion that we of the childblooded variety give to this subject. I'll admit. Before I had children, I couldn't understand the subject either. But, once I had children, not only did I fully understand the importance of the subject, I also at once became just as manic about it as every other parent of every other unpotty trained child.
My first was easy to potty train. We simply followed the advice of the local newspaper writing child pyschologist from whatever city we lived in at the time and removed his diaper for a couple weeks and let him run around naked as the day he was born. The internal conversation went something like this..."Hey, whats this stuff coming out of me. Ohh, it's wet. Yuck! I don't like water. MOMMY!!!! He was potty trained within a week and we never looked back.
J on the other hand is a totally different story. For one thing he LOVES water. I don't mean loves it, I mean LOVES it. We have to spell the word bath. If he hears it, he runs and gets in the bathtub. At one year old he figured how to climb in the tub when he didn't want to get out of the bath. I'd taken him out, turned around and there he was, towel and all, sitting in the bathtub grinning at me.
So I should have known that potty training him was going to be an adventure. But at 18 months I started trying. I pulled out the little potty and left it out for him to play with. At 21 months I pulled off his pullup and tried that. He liked making puddles. So I put the pullups back on. He started pulling them off before he'd go and making puddles on the floor, then getting a clean pullup and putting it on himself and grinning at me. Arrrgh.
But I think I've finally hit on something that might work. J HATES (as much as he LOVES baths) to be changed on a changing table in a store. Last Friday we were out and had an emergency changing session with J screaming at the top of his lungs the whole time and me calmly explaining "If you learn how to go to the potty and don't have to wear diapers anymore (for some reason we never call them pullups although that's what he wears), you won't ever have to be changed on a changing table again." Would you believe that the next day he went to the potty on his own without any prompting?
Like I said, if you don't have kids, you won't understand at all how exciting this is. If you do, you're probably cheering for me already. :)
My first was easy to potty train. We simply followed the advice of the local newspaper writing child pyschologist from whatever city we lived in at the time and removed his diaper for a couple weeks and let him run around naked as the day he was born. The internal conversation went something like this..."Hey, whats this stuff coming out of me. Ohh, it's wet. Yuck! I don't like water. MOMMY!!!! He was potty trained within a week and we never looked back.
J on the other hand is a totally different story. For one thing he LOVES water. I don't mean loves it, I mean LOVES it. We have to spell the word bath. If he hears it, he runs and gets in the bathtub. At one year old he figured how to climb in the tub when he didn't want to get out of the bath. I'd taken him out, turned around and there he was, towel and all, sitting in the bathtub grinning at me.
So I should have known that potty training him was going to be an adventure. But at 18 months I started trying. I pulled out the little potty and left it out for him to play with. At 21 months I pulled off his pullup and tried that. He liked making puddles. So I put the pullups back on. He started pulling them off before he'd go and making puddles on the floor, then getting a clean pullup and putting it on himself and grinning at me. Arrrgh.
But I think I've finally hit on something that might work. J HATES (as much as he LOVES baths) to be changed on a changing table in a store. Last Friday we were out and had an emergency changing session with J screaming at the top of his lungs the whole time and me calmly explaining "If you learn how to go to the potty and don't have to wear diapers anymore (for some reason we never call them pullups although that's what he wears), you won't ever have to be changed on a changing table again." Would you believe that the next day he went to the potty on his own without any prompting?
Like I said, if you don't have kids, you won't understand at all how exciting this is. If you do, you're probably cheering for me already. :)
posted by Teeg | 9:57 AM
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