(no subject)

[rivka]

Child-rearing experts univerally agree that the worst possible time to make a big push towards potty training is when the child is facing some other major transition. Like, say, being about to start nursery school.

Alex does not read books by child-rearing experts.

About ten days ago, Alex decided to put herself through intensive potty boot camp. It's really the only way I can explain it. She started wanting to sit on the potty multiple times a day, sometimes staying there for 45 minutes or more. Inevitably, because she was spending half the day on the potty, she managed to pee in it a few times. Her success delighted her. And more: it enabled her to start figuring out how the whole process works.

Four times today, she interrupted her playing to announce that she needed to sit on the potty. Then she walked over to the potty, sat down, and peed. So it's not just "sit long enough and eventually it has to happen" anymore - she actually recognizes her body's signals, at least to some extent. (There were also plenty of false alarms.) It's so cool.

We're having her spend about half the day naked, and almost all of her successes are coming during naked time. After two accidents yesterday morning, she seems to have figured out how not to pee on the floor - which is nice, so I hope it lasts.

The most interesting aspect of all this, to me, is how little seems to be required from me and Michael. We sometimes suggest that she might want to sit on the potty. We help her undress. We read a lot of books while she sits. We provide practical advice when it seems like it might be useful. And we plan to take her shopping tomorrow to buy some underwear. But we don't, for example, require her to sit at certain times. We don't talk up the inconvenience of diapers. We haven't made a sticker chart or given prizes for peeing or promised her a special treat in exchange for a certain number of successes.

This isn't really about us, except inasmuch as everything a two-year-old does has to involve her parents closely. After all, this is the last time we would have picked for potty training. It's very much an internally motivated project of Alex's.

Comments

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm impressed with her. And envious. None of mine ever really wanted to learn, although they did eventually.

Hurrah for potty training!

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

::jumping up and down:: That's so cool! Wow!

Elena is still circling her potty chair, and occasionally wants to sit on it. Yesterday we were getting her undressed for her bath, and as we took off the diaper we said "Hey, do you want to sit on your potty?" and while I grabbed it - from 3 feet away - she peed on the floor. :)

I'm not worried. She will get her own internal motivation in time. She is very interested in watching *me* use the toilet.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I'm not worried. She will get her own internal motivation in time.

She will also probably pick the worst possible time, and then bull-headedly insist upon it. In the meantime, I think any interest whatsoever in the potty is a great sign at this age.

She is very interested in watching *me* use the toilet.

Hoo boy, Alex too. Which, okay, I know it's a very educational experience for her, and all, but I guess I wasn't ready to have the pubic hair conversation yet.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I learned about menstruation when I was about four, and my older sister came into the bathroom and changed a tampon in front of me. I asked. She answered, matter-of-factly.

That's what comes of having six kids across a wide age range in a one-bathroom house.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

(She didn't just randomly come in while I was standing around, I was in the tub. It was pretty much the only option other than to let her stand there and leak while I bathed.)

[naomikritzer]

Yeah, we also have a one-bathroom house.

I do believe it was watching a pad change (while we were on the road, actually) that inspired Molly (at age five) to say, "Oh hey, Mom, I've been meaning to ask. I know how the egg from the mom and the sperm from the dad turn into a baby. But how does the sperm GET to the egg in the first place?"

(I gave her a brief but accurate answer. She said "EEEEEEEEEEW!" Conversation done. To my relief, she didn't offer up this new info as dinner conversation with my FIL two hours later.)

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Bull-headed and badly timed? My child? Noooooooooo. :)

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll admit that I'm sufficiently enamored of your Alex anecdotes that I am even willing to read the ones about potty training.

I vaguely recall having been told that I did more or less the same thing: I announced one day that I wanted to sit on the toilet (there might have been a potty seat; I don't remember), and pretty much made the connection.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

If there's any one thing I've learned, it's that despite all the happy potty training pants out there -- padded undies, "pullups," etc. -- regular thin underpants are your friend. But it sounds like she's not especially typical. She'll have accidents, but not tons.

I usually tell parents not so much "don't try potty training while kids are undergoing transitions so much as "don't get emotionally attached to it," "don't push it," and "don't be surprised if your kid who hasn't had a pee accident in three months has three in her first week in nursery school." But that's different. It's kind of like "don't push a three-year-old to read" doesn't mean "don't let your three-year-old read." Some kids are just ready.

And Alex is by no means typical.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Since you're a nursery school expert, do you have any suggestions about how we should handle potty-and-school issues?

Alex starts school Monday. (!!!!!EEEP!!!!!) She'll go for three half days the first week, and then three full days the week after that and continuing.

We're thinking of asking her teachers to offer the potty from time to time, and perhaps having her sit on the school potty with one of us before we leave some morning. But my idea is that we should leave her in diapers at school, regardless of whether she's mostly doing nudism or underpants at home, until she specifically asks to wear underpants to school.

I know they're used to potty training in the two-year-old room, but it seems as though it's a whole new set of challenges for Alex to master. I don't want to put pressure on her to proceed at the same pace at school as she does at home.

[tammylc.livejournal.com]

As I wrote elsewhere, this is pretty much how it worked for Liam too. I hope you continue to have as much luck as we did!

[naomikritzer]

Child-led potty training ROCKS when (a) they lead at an early age and (b) it goes smoothly.

We refrained from potty training Molly when she was 2 1/2 and showing some interest because I was pregnant and kids always regress when a new sibling arrives anyway. We did keep pull-ups and training pants around: she was allowed to choose a pull-up if she sat on the potty (even if she didn't pee) when we were changing her, and if she pooped in the potty she could wear cloth training pants for as long as she could keep them dry.

About a month and a half before my due date, she pooped just before bedtime one night and demanded underwear. We said she could have them the next morning. Morning came, she put on underwear -- and that was it. She was trained. She had NO accidents the next day or the day after. She was dry at NIGHT, even.

Kiera tried something similar at 2 1/2 except she wanted to wear underwear (and was really insistent about it) at a point when she didn't quite get the whole "must go sit on potty and pee there, not just pee on the floor" concept. She figured that out after about a week, but pooping was harder, so she decided she just wouldn't ever poop again anywhere. You can imagine how well THAT worked out. Multiple ped visits, an utterly hellish trip out to the in-laws, and a prescription of Miralax later, I told her that she would be allowed to try pooping on the potty again when she had learned how to poop in her diaper without screaming and crying and saying it hurt. (She was on Miralax. It did not hurt. But she had enough psychological resistence to pooping that she interpreted the urge to poop as pain.) She wanted to wear underwear badly enough that she figured that out in another week or two, and we let her switch to underwear, and it's been mostly smooth sailing since then.

Neither of my girls needs night-time pull-ups, which amazes me, as I think I wet the bed for the last time in fourth or fifth grade. I don't know where they got their bladder capacity, but I have to visit the bathroom approximately twice as often as both my children put together.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh, poor Kiera. How awful.

So far, during all of this, Alex has only pooped in her diaper. Not sure how much of that is just random chance and how much of it is a disinclination to poop in the potty - she had a couple incidents a while back of pooping in the bathtub, and they completely freaked her out.

[naomikritzer]

The thing I realized with Molly (that was reinforced with Kiera) is that pooping on a potty is a whole new set of physical skills. So is peeing, but pooping is a lot more physical demanding, and most toddlers in diapers will squat when they're doing it, though some stand. Pretty much none of them sit. Learning to poop while sitting is a huge transition.

I kind of wonder if kids who grow up in parts of the world where squat toilets are the norm have an easier time of it. (Though in many of these places they do some radically different things to deal with babies and toddlers and their lack of bladder/bowel control. Have you ever read A World of Babies? The conceit of the book is that each chapter is a childcare guide written by an experienced parent from some other society. So they'll tell you things like, "You need to give your baby an enema every morning, just like you give yourself, so that he won't poop all over the auntie who's caring for him. That blue syringe the hospital gave you will work really well for this.")

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Wow, the book sounds wonderful. Thanks.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

According to my mother, this is pretty much what happened to me. In the middle of having my diaper changed, I said, in a very disgusted tone, "want to go potty" or some such, and apparently that was it. No more diapers.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Congratulations.

I have spent far more time dealing with potty issues in the last fifteen years than I had ever expected. Just when I thought I was mostly done with it (the grandchildren, after all, are long past this stage), I began babysitting a toddler, so I went through the whole thing all over again. The grandparent and babysitter role is less involved than the parental role, but the adult who is there when the butt needs to be wiped is the one who's gonna wipe that butt.

And then there's the great-niece or great-nephew to be born in September...

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

Who's pregnant?

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

My nephew Brad and his incredibly sweet and wonderful spouse Amanda will have a baby in September.

Yeah, I wiped Brad's butt thirty years ago, and cleaned up for him in other ways later. He's turned out quite well.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much how Z did it. We went from a zillion nappies a week to seven a week, just like that. Then after about a year he saw his father peeing standing up and had to learn that trick.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Had to laugh at the warning for the "potty training story avoidant", and hey, I willingly spend time up on a dairy farm, so that wasn't anything.

My youngest nephew Cole took forever to get potty trained. And--I'm hesitant to say this--his folks took sort of a "let him be wet" attitude. That it wouldn't be worth the effort to try to train him until he got tired of being dirty. It seems to have worked. The last time it was an issue was when Jeff & Charlie (brother & oldest nephew) came for a visit (four hour drive) and Cole wasn't able to come becasue he wasn't trained yet..

[ailbhe]

This is basically how Linnea approached it, both times - 18 m and 36 m - and the second time it stuck. Bet Alex sticks first time around.

It makes life SO much easier.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

One of the biggest rewards of being a parent is when your child starts bringing home bags of money. I guess. Anyway, I'm looking forward to it.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Huh?

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Sorry, trying to be funny. "One of the biggest rewards" was written about the present situation, and for some reason, I wanted to go look at left field after that. Those responsible have been sacked.