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This question has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe Eric’s second birthday triggered it all and maybe it’s the endless questions of everybody we know (and don’t know!) “So when are you having another child?”.
It’s funny how people feel completely free to ask you such a personal question - especially the perfect strangers. Hello, my dear cashier lady, thanks for putting my groceries into the nice plastic bags, can you please tell me why you’re so interested in the number of children I will - or will not - have? I don’t even know your name and might never see you again. Actually, from now on, I will make sure I never see you again - and if I do, I will go to another register.
This will be the last post in the potty-training series, because guess what - we made it!
And when I say “we made it”, I mean that one month after an intensive potty-training week Eric is 98% dry through the day, wearing diapers only for sleep time. We still get an odd accident here and there, if I don’t remind him for too long that he needs to use the potty. But overall, he knows how to use the potty, can pull his pants down, sit on the potty, do his thing, get up and pull his pants back up, empty the potty into the toilet, wash it in a sink, put it back and even wipe it with toilet paper :) - all that without any help from me.
Wow. I can’t believe today is the last day of 2009. It seems like only days ago we were celebrating it’s beginning. And just in time, Simplemom.net posted some questions for me, as a parent, to think about, to look back and see how I measure up - and to make future plans.
Here’s what she asks:
After a week of intensive potty training I was reasonably sure that Eric can demonstrate his new skills at the day care. Ha ha ha (laughing bitterly). What a joke.
When I discussed potty training with the staff at the day care center, they assured me that there is a special procedure they follow for all the kids in potty training. They are taken to the potty every 30 minutes and that leaves little room for accidents. Sounds logical, doesn’t it? Well…
Contrary to what you may think, our potty training is a long way from being over. What surprises me most is that all the books I’ve read are saying “bowel motions are easier for toddlers to get control of, compared to urinating”. For Eric it’s exactly the opposite. He will go dry for an hour (or even two) and will pee when I sit him on the potty, yet he will poop his pants.
It’s like he doesn’t feel when he needs to poop. He’ll come to me right after such accident and will tell me that he did it, but never before. So now I find it more difficult to train him to poop in the potty than to wee in the potty, because I only get one attempt a day and it’s hard to predict when, his bowel motions are not regular. When I see him going quiet and red, it’s too late already, and if I try to anticipate it and sit him on the potty after meals, he’s getting sick of sitting after 10 minutes and wants to run away.
Just when I though we were on the right track, came the morning of day 4 and proved me wrong. If yesterday was one step forward, this morning looked like two steps back.
A couple of times I tried to sit Eric on the potty - he did nothing. But then it was time to go outside for a walk and a play in the park, and as much as I didn’t like the idea of Eric peeing in the bushes again - well, we didn’t have any choice, now did we? :)
Today I woke up in a much more optimistic mood. Some good night sleep can do wonders and I was ready to work hard on Eric’s potty training. Whatever it takes, right?
I was also not setting my hopes high to avoid unnecessary disappointments. If I get to clean mess the whole day, who cares, as long as we have just a little bit of progress. But it turned out to be a pretty good day!
If I learned something yesterday, it was that Eric needs to use the potty every 30 - 35 minutes. That knowledge gave me a good reason to keep track of time and sit him on a potty every half an hour.
No miracles happened.
Our daughter turned two in December and we’re expecting our second in late July. My wife had siblings older and younger than her and enjoyed it immensely. I have a sibling, but there is a rather large gap between the two of us, so we’re not nearly as close as I would like. We wanted our daughter to have a sibling she could be close with and we are not really hoping to still be supporting children into retirement age, so it made sense for us to go ahead and have another now. Sometimes we wonder what we have done, but I imagine that after the initial growing pains, it will really turn out wonderfully. When we are able to take meaningful family trips there will be more fun for the kids as they can enjoy things together.
Comment by J — February 5, 2010 @ 8:09 am
I once had a dream of camping when the kids got older…then the kids got older and hated camping.LOL!!
Have fun with this, good luck!
Gerardine Baugh
Comment by Gerardine Baugh — February 6, 2010 @ 1:56 am