Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Potty Training

We decided to give potty training a go last week. Yeah, it seemed a little crazy and many of my friends noted that it seemed a bit…early to them. But I’d gone to this thing on sign language for potty training at the library last month and THEY said your child could train by 18 months. And as the monkey is 19 months, CLEARLY I needed to get on board.

Hahaha.

So I picked a weekend that both my husband and I were off and would be home for several days (THEY recommend 3 days “intense training”) and marked it on our calendars. As it happened, we were both home Thurs-Sun. Plenty of time. Then my husband signed up to teach Thursday nights and Sundays. Ok, Ok. But Sunday would be day FOUR and we really only needed THREE. And he’d be home most of Thursday, right?

Then he signed up to take a class on Thursday. (I swear he doesn’t even look at his calendar. Seriously when he sent me the details on that class, he sent me his schedule for the fall. I looked at it and said – you know we’re in FL for a wedding for 3-4 of the dates you have listed, right?) Ugh! So day 1 is all me! I told him he could make it for it by starting on his own on Wednesday. Ha. (Actually, he did legitimately have some work stuff to do that day – though it wasn’t on his calendar…!)

Thursday morning the monkey wakes up and after breakfast I decide – ok, let’s start. I take her diaper off (THEY all say to leave them naked from the waist down for this) and set up the potty in the bathroom. I ask her if she has to go potty. No, but she really likes it. She sits on it for awhile, enjoys checking it out, squats down next to it to look at all the parts and – when she stands up the floor is wet! Right directly NEXT TO the potty! I decide to take this as progress – hey, you got close! Next time IN the potty, baby. But so close. Yeah!

A few minutes later, she squatting again, but I figure she’s ‘empty’ this time so we’re fine. She stands up and she’s pooped on the floor. I just barely got it up before she fully stepped in it. Ugh! But hey – close, yeah! Being a total idiot, as she hadn’t pooped IN the potty, I forgot all about poop etiquette and consequences and didn’t think to wipe her till I noticed some brown on her foot. Oh, yuck…

She’s still interested so we stay in the bathroom. She’s up and down on the potty, checking it all out and – yup, she’s peed on the floor again. (yippee?) Sigh.

By this point, she was done “looking” at the potty (and christening the floor all around it), so we go out to the family room (sans diaper) and start to play. It takes a little bit, but I start to realize that her crankiness seems to be related to her lack of diaper – maybe? Aren’t babies supposed to like being without a diaper? I don’t know, but man she doesn’t seem happy.

After half an hour, the timer goes off, so we head towards the bathroom and I ask if she wants to use the potty. NO! She starts to head towards a tantrum, so I immediately drop it (that’s what THEY say to do). But I also decide we better put a diaper on her. If she’s not going to try on the “schedule,” it’s just going to be a damn messy day. She must not be ready and we’ll try another day.

My Mom was visiting so I asked if she’d watch the baby while I went up to shower. While I was gone, the monkey looked at her and said – Potty! They went into the bathroom, she sat down the potty itself was finally christened! My Mom put her back in her diaper.

Twenty minutes later, we’re back in there (and now I’ve got it fully set up with batteries and turned on so when she goes it plays a song). She goes in the potty again and the song plays. She loves the song! Why won’t the song play again? A small tantrum ensues. She sits on the potty again – up and down. I empty and clean it and she tries again (almost right away). She pees another thimbleful and gets another song! So that became the pattern for the day. Running into and out of the bathroom all day and peeing every time she could get enough in her bladder to make the music play. My Mom asked if I thought she did these small pees all day long normally. Could she really have that much control to work out to only go a little really frequently so the potty would sing to her?

Sadly we had a few things come up this weekend unexpected that prevented any further potty training (she used it on and off, but I think we totally lost momentum). We’re contemplating whether to do a bare bottom weekend (when my husband does NOT schedule classes!) soon, but we’ll see…

1 comment:

  1. You have GOT to be KIDDING ME!

    OMG.

    This was hysterically awesome to read and I'm just amazed at what a little smarty-pants (no pants?) you have.

    I've considered trying with The Cute. Since she is so kind to remove her diaper after she pees and hand it to me. I don't know if I'M ready. :p

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