I haven’t meant to be gone so long, but I am in the midst of
potty training. We started on Thursday. Because Christmas is over, the house is
finally clean so why not start
another time and energy sucking project, right? Ha ha ha… whimper. I can’t say
it’s going well. I can say I’m doing a
lot of laundry.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not going horribly, either. But those books on “Potty Train in One
Day”? (Yes, I read those.) Are you kidding?
One of my best friends is a preschool teacher. I finally called her.
training! It’s going kind of… slow… though.”
Teacher Extraordinaire: “Yeah, usually it takes 2-3 weeks.”
Me: “Really?! That long? I thought you could do it over a long weekend.”
Teacher Extraordinaire: “Yeeeeaaaahhh… (long pause)… just have a lot of patience. And when you get him back to school next
week…” (next week? yipes!) “…the teachers will help, too.”
Oy. So there you go,
from the mouth of someone with infinite more experience than I.
It’s ironic to me that we potty train at roughly the same
developmental period where toddlers really need to test their boundaries. We’ve definitely been experiencing some “when
one door closes, another obnoxious behavior opens.” I.e. Chance has been OK with the potty
training… the “practicing” on the pot, pulling his clothes on and off
constantly, being harassed about having to go. But suddenly he will NOT participate in “clean up time” to save his
life. Or much else we request of
him. Besides derisive laughter and
taunting. And occasional screeching.
Remember when your parents used to say, “Just wait until you
have kids”? Yeah. Well, I’ve figured out that really means, “Oh,
the fact that you made it to adulthood without me throttling you is such a
miracle, you have no idea.”
– the
weirdgirl
Potty training sucks. Those who say it went smoothly lie (or are in for some other karma evening out nightmare, I promise). Yeah, there is something wrong with our society that we think it is a good time to pt when our kids are getting a distinct mind of their own! Good luck (no advice from me, I am the WORST pt-er out there!)!
Happy New Year!
Thanks Lori! The pt is getting better slowly. But it will be kind of nice to take him back to preschool on Thursday and have the teachers take over for a day.
(I am a bad mommy!)
My son will be 4 next month and we JUST now got him potty trained for daylight hours. And we still have accidents…
I think it was Dr. Brazelton that said – show them how to do it, explain the process and when they are ready, they will go on the potty.
I was beginning to think my son would go to High School in Pull-Ups.
We started setting the kitchen timer for every 15 minutes and would put him on the potty for 5 minutes when it went off.
that – and we bribed him. my hubby took him to WalMart and told him he’d buy him the biggest baddest battery-operated, ride-on jeep they had.
So as soon as we had a few weeks where he was w/out pull-ups, hubby took part of my son’s college fund and bought the Jeep.
Now, on days that he has accident – no Jeep…
It ain’t easy. it ain’t fun. hang in there – you can buy a NEW CAR with the money you save on buying diapers and pull-ups.
(Not really – but it’s fun to pretend!)
T Cole – I am a HUGE fan of bribing for certain situations! I know the childcare experts go back and forth on it but… hell, how many of us would work if they gave out money for free? There’s nothing wrong with incentive.
Just went through a similar potty training experience. Our son’s three. We tried everything under the sun and when it came down to it, I offered to take him for fresh donuts one morning and *snap* he was potty-trained. We were shocked. He’s had a few accidents since then, but for the most part he’s been very independent about it. I know it sounds silly, but in this case it was just a matter of waiting until he wanted to do it, and offering the right incentive.
My parents never said that to me–I don’t know why.
My parents never said that to me–I don’t know why.