Potty training :( :( :(
If poos, wees and all other sort of toilet stuff make you a bit squeamish then it's probably best to just close this blog right now. I won't be offended - honest!
The time has come to potty train my second child and it is a task that I just hate, hate, HATE! Seriously, if I had the money to hire one of those super nanny/Gina Forde type women to come to my house and do it for me (whilst criticizing and judging me also), I would . It is without a doubt my least favourite part of parenthood.
Andrew was an absolute nightmare when it was his turn to learn to use the potty. He could manage the wees no problem from day one and was extremely proud of his undies (he flashed them to everyone who came to visit the house for a number of weeks such was his self-admiration for his big boy status) but some some bizarre reason he developed a huge fear of actually sitting on the potty/toilet and refused point blank to do his numbers twos in them. This led to him holding his poos in for up to seven days at a time until I would be distracted (usually doing the shopping or visiting a friends house) and he would finally relieve himself in his underwear and the smell and the amount of poo held in for that length of time was just atrocious and would almost make me wretch - and I am his mother so that is really saying something! (I apologise if this is all too much info). That's not even taking into account the fact that he was in continuous agony all the time and managed to keep this up for just over six months.
He was eventually alleviated of this problem when I took him to the doctor who gave me suppositories to put into his bum to help him go and it then transpired that he had an even greater fear of the suppository than he had of the toilet and so after a few nights of waving the suppository around his bum in a threatening sort of manner he gave in, sat on the toilet and was cured (I am thinking of leaving this solution to our problem on one of those parenting advice websites. Find something else that scares your child more. I'm sure other families would benefit from this little gem of wisdom).
I have been putting off training Charlotte for ages as to be honest, she shows no signs of being ready, is not the best talker (I know, I know - how can she be related to me blah, blah blah? I've heard it all before) so it wouldn't be as easy to explain the whole process to her and also - I just don't want to. Like I said before, I HATE potty training
However, she has just turned three and I really can't put it off any longer so today I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I splashed out a fortune on the fanciest potties that I could find (I bought two. one for upstairs and one for downstairs to make my job as easy as possible). I used them for Andrew and they are just the business. They sing when you sit down, remind you to use toilet paper and to flush and also have a sensor to detect anything going into the bowl and sing with delight and praise you when you finally do deposit a wee or poo. They are just the king of all potties.
Charlotte is not a bit interested! She is happy to sit and play with the potty but does not want to actually wee on what she considers her toy so after many unsuccessful attempts to get her to sit on this potty of all potties, I eventually went to the two Euro shop and bought this.
She will sit on this but only if I sit beside her and provide constant entertainment but I'm potty training, that's my job so I was happy to oblige. Let the potty training begin...
MONDAY 06/09/2010
9:30am Introduce Charlotte to her new knickers. She has a choice between Dora knickers or Disney Princess Knickers. She chooses a Cinderella pair. No sooner or they on she then points says " Dora panties". Fair enough I think and so I go to remove the first pair of knickers only to be on the receiving end of great screams of indignation. She wants to wear both pairs of panties at the same time. I see where this is going. She will no doubt end up wearing fifteen pairs of knickers at once and will then do just one wee in them and I'll have no knickers left to put on her. I quickly hide all the knickers and am left with one screaming, tantruming child.
9:40am Screaming stops abruptly with the first whoosh of wee on the floor. Charlotte stands there stunned for a second and then looks down in delight and shouts "A puddle" and starts to jump in it. Cue the quickest clean up ever with my paper towels.
10:00am Sits on the potty for five minutes while I sing, clap my hands and contort my face into all manner of 'hilarious' poses. No wee!
10:17am. I am aware of the second accident when Charlotte shrieks gleefully "ANOTHER PUDDLE!!" and dives in feet first.
10:25am Sits on the potty for another five minutes while I sing 'row, row, row, your boat', 'this old man' and 'the twelve days of Christmas'. No wee.
10:40am A WEE WEE IN THE POTTY!! Hurray! She sits on the potty for five minutes while I read Jack and the beanstalk and I only see the wee (very small wee but however) when she gets up. Massive celebrations and I give her two chocolate buttons as a reward.
10:55am Huge Niagara falls type wee on the ground. How? Why? Where did it come from? She doesn't even notice it this time. Just carries on playing.
11:15am Sits on the potty for eight minutes - nothing.
11:28am Tiny accident but I quickly put her on the potty and she finishes the wee there - hurray! More chocolate buttons to celebrate and a phone call to Daddy who is in a meeting and can only congratulate her in a very serious, subdued tone of voice. He doesn't think his boss would understand a cartwheel.
12:26pm Sits on the potty for three minutes and does another wee. Whoo-hoo! This is so easy. What was I worried about? Chocolate buttons again and one for Andrew who is home from school now and doesn't want to be left out.
12:28pm An accident - how the hell can she have an accident two minutes after doing a big wee in the potty? The celebratory chocolate buttons are still in her mouth for God's sake.
12:45pm. Sits on the potty for ten minutes and then gets up and wees on the floor as she is walking away.
1:00pm - 3:15pm Put her on the potty every 15 minutes but she does nothing. I suppose after nine wees before lunch what can I expect?
3:17pm Two minutes before she is due to go back on the potty she wees on the floor again. Andrew is very annoyed. "Does this mean we won't get any sweeties Mummy?", he asks whilst throwing Charlotte a dirty look.
4:20pm I have been putting her on the potty every 15 minutes since the last accident and she is sitting on it when she suddenly decides to stand up, move to a position just in front of the potty, look at me square in the eyes and then just does a wee on the floor. I am speechless. It's like she did it on purpose.
5:00pm Another accident. I'm putting her in a pull-up so that I can go and make dinner. I am so disheartened.
7:15pm Her pull-up is bone dry but she refuses point blank to sit on the potty and do a wee before bed.
7:35pm. Come downstairs, wash all the floors and knickers and suddenly realise that, she never did a number two all day. Crap! (Pardon the pun) Please don't let her do an Andrew with the poo's. I don't think my stomach or nose to take an encore of that. Thank God that day one is over. I just hate potty training with a vengeance and nothing anyone says helps. I am sick of advice. Why can't someone just do it for me?
Here are a few of my most hated words of advice from various people:
"Stick with it!" Argh - I actually think that I might smack the next person who says that. I really do. I would like nothing more than to give up. Why can't anyone say that? That's what I really want to hear or better yet - "Why don't you take yourself off the the spa for the day and I'll potty train her for you". Please someone - come to my house and say that.
"Don't worry - you never saw a child going to school in a nappy did you?" No, I did never see a child go to school in a nappy but that's because 1. They are not allowed to go school in a nappy and 2. A few wet pants (and maybe even one soiled pants in the case of a boy in my class) is enough to ensure that potty training is bullied into your child for life from some fellow classmates. I'm not quite ready to go down that road yet.
"Maybe she's not ready". What does that mean? Not ready to want to give up soiling herself? Not ready for the hassle of having to go the loo six times a day. Well we'd all love to not have to bother with that and just do our wees whenever and wherever we are but unfortunately it is not sociably acceptable and so for any hope of a future for Charlotte without ridicule and with maybe one or two friends hopefully, the nappy has got to go.
And my most despised phrase of all "She might surprise you". Well that's true. When I saw her splashing in her own home made puddle with a look of pure bliss on her face, I was most certainly surprised. I was not expecting that!
So day one is down and I think I can safely conclude that it was a disaster. Would anyone like to come visit me tomorrow and show me how it should be done? You can belittle and criticize me as much as you like - I welcome it as long as you can get Charlotte potty trained. Anyone...? Anyone....? No? Oh well, lets bring on tomorrow.
The time has come to potty train my second child and it is a task that I just hate, hate, HATE! Seriously, if I had the money to hire one of those super nanny/Gina Forde type women to come to my house and do it for me (whilst criticizing and judging me also), I would . It is without a doubt my least favourite part of parenthood.
Andrew was an absolute nightmare when it was his turn to learn to use the potty. He could manage the wees no problem from day one and was extremely proud of his undies (he flashed them to everyone who came to visit the house for a number of weeks such was his self-admiration for his big boy status) but some some bizarre reason he developed a huge fear of actually sitting on the potty/toilet and refused point blank to do his numbers twos in them. This led to him holding his poos in for up to seven days at a time until I would be distracted (usually doing the shopping or visiting a friends house) and he would finally relieve himself in his underwear and the smell and the amount of poo held in for that length of time was just atrocious and would almost make me wretch - and I am his mother so that is really saying something! (I apologise if this is all too much info). That's not even taking into account the fact that he was in continuous agony all the time and managed to keep this up for just over six months.
He was eventually alleviated of this problem when I took him to the doctor who gave me suppositories to put into his bum to help him go and it then transpired that he had an even greater fear of the suppository than he had of the toilet and so after a few nights of waving the suppository around his bum in a threatening sort of manner he gave in, sat on the toilet and was cured (I am thinking of leaving this solution to our problem on one of those parenting advice websites. Find something else that scares your child more. I'm sure other families would benefit from this little gem of wisdom).
I have been putting off training Charlotte for ages as to be honest, she shows no signs of being ready, is not the best talker (I know, I know - how can she be related to me blah, blah blah? I've heard it all before) so it wouldn't be as easy to explain the whole process to her and also - I just don't want to. Like I said before, I HATE potty training
However, she has just turned three and I really can't put it off any longer so today I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I splashed out a fortune on the fanciest potties that I could find (I bought two. one for upstairs and one for downstairs to make my job as easy as possible). I used them for Andrew and they are just the business. They sing when you sit down, remind you to use toilet paper and to flush and also have a sensor to detect anything going into the bowl and sing with delight and praise you when you finally do deposit a wee or poo. They are just the king of all potties.
Charlotte is not a bit interested! She is happy to sit and play with the potty but does not want to actually wee on what she considers her toy so after many unsuccessful attempts to get her to sit on this potty of all potties, I eventually went to the two Euro shop and bought this.
She will sit on this but only if I sit beside her and provide constant entertainment but I'm potty training, that's my job so I was happy to oblige. Let the potty training begin...
MONDAY 06/09/2010
9:30am Introduce Charlotte to her new knickers. She has a choice between Dora knickers or Disney Princess Knickers. She chooses a Cinderella pair. No sooner or they on she then points says " Dora panties". Fair enough I think and so I go to remove the first pair of knickers only to be on the receiving end of great screams of indignation. She wants to wear both pairs of panties at the same time. I see where this is going. She will no doubt end up wearing fifteen pairs of knickers at once and will then do just one wee in them and I'll have no knickers left to put on her. I quickly hide all the knickers and am left with one screaming, tantruming child.
9:40am Screaming stops abruptly with the first whoosh of wee on the floor. Charlotte stands there stunned for a second and then looks down in delight and shouts "A puddle" and starts to jump in it. Cue the quickest clean up ever with my paper towels.
10:00am Sits on the potty for five minutes while I sing, clap my hands and contort my face into all manner of 'hilarious' poses. No wee!
10:17am. I am aware of the second accident when Charlotte shrieks gleefully "ANOTHER PUDDLE!!" and dives in feet first.
10:25am Sits on the potty for another five minutes while I sing 'row, row, row, your boat', 'this old man' and 'the twelve days of Christmas'. No wee.
10:40am A WEE WEE IN THE POTTY!! Hurray! She sits on the potty for five minutes while I read Jack and the beanstalk and I only see the wee (very small wee but however) when she gets up. Massive celebrations and I give her two chocolate buttons as a reward.
10:55am Huge Niagara falls type wee on the ground. How? Why? Where did it come from? She doesn't even notice it this time. Just carries on playing.
11:15am Sits on the potty for eight minutes - nothing.
11:28am Tiny accident but I quickly put her on the potty and she finishes the wee there - hurray! More chocolate buttons to celebrate and a phone call to Daddy who is in a meeting and can only congratulate her in a very serious, subdued tone of voice. He doesn't think his boss would understand a cartwheel.
12:26pm Sits on the potty for three minutes and does another wee. Whoo-hoo! This is so easy. What was I worried about? Chocolate buttons again and one for Andrew who is home from school now and doesn't want to be left out.
12:28pm An accident - how the hell can she have an accident two minutes after doing a big wee in the potty? The celebratory chocolate buttons are still in her mouth for God's sake.
12:45pm. Sits on the potty for ten minutes and then gets up and wees on the floor as she is walking away.
1:00pm - 3:15pm Put her on the potty every 15 minutes but she does nothing. I suppose after nine wees before lunch what can I expect?
3:17pm Two minutes before she is due to go back on the potty she wees on the floor again. Andrew is very annoyed. "Does this mean we won't get any sweeties Mummy?", he asks whilst throwing Charlotte a dirty look.
4:20pm I have been putting her on the potty every 15 minutes since the last accident and she is sitting on it when she suddenly decides to stand up, move to a position just in front of the potty, look at me square in the eyes and then just does a wee on the floor. I am speechless. It's like she did it on purpose.
5:00pm Another accident. I'm putting her in a pull-up so that I can go and make dinner. I am so disheartened.
7:15pm Her pull-up is bone dry but she refuses point blank to sit on the potty and do a wee before bed.
7:35pm. Come downstairs, wash all the floors and knickers and suddenly realise that, she never did a number two all day. Crap! (Pardon the pun) Please don't let her do an Andrew with the poo's. I don't think my stomach or nose to take an encore of that. Thank God that day one is over. I just hate potty training with a vengeance and nothing anyone says helps. I am sick of advice. Why can't someone just do it for me?
Here are a few of my most hated words of advice from various people:
"Stick with it!" Argh - I actually think that I might smack the next person who says that. I really do. I would like nothing more than to give up. Why can't anyone say that? That's what I really want to hear or better yet - "Why don't you take yourself off the the spa for the day and I'll potty train her for you". Please someone - come to my house and say that.
"Don't worry - you never saw a child going to school in a nappy did you?" No, I did never see a child go to school in a nappy but that's because 1. They are not allowed to go school in a nappy and 2. A few wet pants (and maybe even one soiled pants in the case of a boy in my class) is enough to ensure that potty training is bullied into your child for life from some fellow classmates. I'm not quite ready to go down that road yet.
"Maybe she's not ready". What does that mean? Not ready to want to give up soiling herself? Not ready for the hassle of having to go the loo six times a day. Well we'd all love to not have to bother with that and just do our wees whenever and wherever we are but unfortunately it is not sociably acceptable and so for any hope of a future for Charlotte without ridicule and with maybe one or two friends hopefully, the nappy has got to go.
And my most despised phrase of all "She might surprise you". Well that's true. When I saw her splashing in her own home made puddle with a look of pure bliss on her face, I was most certainly surprised. I was not expecting that!
So day one is down and I think I can safely conclude that it was a disaster. Would anyone like to come visit me tomorrow and show me how it should be done? You can belittle and criticize me as much as you like - I welcome it as long as you can get Charlotte potty trained. Anyone...? Anyone....? No? Oh well, lets bring on tomorrow.
Oh God - poor you. I know exactly how you feel. I tried to do Amy a little while ago and it was useless. She was absolutely petrified of it all. And everytime she peed on the floor she screamed and cried for about half an hour - and then peed again!
ReplyDeleteShe was becoming traumatized...!
One day was enough and I decided I'd have to wait til she was a little older and I was more able to explain things to her. I'm gonna wait til she's about 3 I think. But I am NOT looking forward to it.
Why aren't they programmed to just start doing it at 2??!!!
Good luck with it - and I really mean that... x
hahahahahahahahahaha! At this moment in time I'm delighted that I have no kids and I teach the ones who are well potty trained! (although the boys tend to pee around the toilet bowl rather than in it - do they ever grow out of that?)
ReplyDelete