Before becoming a parent, I often imagined parental work as changing lots and lots of diapers. Now that I changed lots and lots of diapers for two children, its really not so bad. In fact, its probably one of the easier things that I do. Still, it would be nice to cut down on some of that work and not to have to buy so many diapers. Headbanger has been showing signs of potty training preparedness for some time, and yesterday I finally bought our first potty.
My goal for today is to get her to sit on the potty and she got there, though I started out a little too fast. I got her pajamas and diaper off and sat her on the potty and she started to freak out. She was clearly bothered by the fact that I was asking her to sit on a hole. Not wanting to traumatize her forever, I got her dressed and we left the bathroom. Since then, she has returned to the potty and started to play with it and gradually they are becoming friends. Kitty, her favorite toy, has even spent some time in the hole and has shown Headbanger that its not so bad. After that, Headbanger worked up the courage to sit on the potty, which she has now done a number of times, though fully clothed.
So for those of you who have done this before or observed the process - how do I proceed?
4 comments:
Wow, where do I start? There are so many different methods you could try. I guess I will just tell you what we did. I had my kids just wear underwear instead of pull-ups in the house so that they could feel when they were wet. When we went out of the house I put on a pull up over the underwear. They could still feel when they had an accident, but without the disastrous results. I remember actually taking a potty to Disneyland while we were potty training Jedi. I actually have some hilarious pictures of us pulled over somewhere en route to California with him sitting on a potty playing with sticks. We had some major set backs with all three of the kids when there were changes in our lives. Since my husband just LOVES to study/study abroad in foreign climes, we had set backs every time we went abroad. Sassafrass was potty-trained at 18 months, even at night and then HotDog was born and we moved to England and it was as if we were starting at square one.
Another method I have heard of is having your child sit on the potty the entire day and every time they pee or poo you give them an M'n'M or other small candy. They get the whole cause and effect thing pretty quickly, but you have to spend the entire day feeding them and letting them watch tv or reading to them on the toilet. So the one day is a pain, but some people say that kids figure it out really quickly if they like candy and if they are deprived of it beforehand for a few days.
I'm sure other people have better advice than this. I think the Chinese method is kind of cool, but probably would fly in our culture since public urinating/defecating isn't socially acceptable. In China the kids wear pants with a giant butt exposing hole and when they need to go, their parent just has them squat down wherever they are and go. They start wearing the pants as early as 6 months.
ok, I obviously meant WOULDN'T fly in our culture
Thanks for your tips! I'm looking forward to only having one kid in diapers...
Our kids wore nappies until the age of tree. They were ready before but they were not especially motivated and we weren't either. At 3, we take out te nappy, and they are clean. They all became dry at night at 4. Same process. We take out the nappy and magic, they are ready. (Well, 2 out of 4 are not 4 yet, but it worked that way with the 2 elder one). If we had been motivated, I tell you what we would have done: take out the nappy, wear normal underwear, put them on the toilet every 2 hours or so, or do nothing and just clean afterwards when they have an accident, or just let them go naked in summertime. Then, pretty quickly, they get it. But this requires some extra energy that I did not have. My little one was much happier without nappy last summer, but I only let her like that in the garden, not in the house.
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