This just in: Parenthood apparently requires parenting skills
There's so much work involved with caring for a very small child, but pretty much all of it boils down to Keeping the Baby Alive, Limiting the Amount They Cry, and Occasionally Removing Their Coating of Filth. I mean, sure, there are intermittent brain-benders having to do with figuring out their sleep, and finding the best ways to get calories inside their cry-holes, and deciding whether or not Baby Einstein videos promote development or beam math-destroying dullard rays directly into their fontanels -- but generally it's less about middle management strategy sessions and more about digging for patience reserves as you deal with what is essentially a tiny, adorable howler monkey.
Toddlers, on the other hand, are sort of a terrifying combination of Infant + Teenager, where one minute they're curled in your lap wanting hugs and kisses, and the next they're slamming the door to their room and blaring emo music and writing angry poetry because no one understands their needs. They require much of the work a baby does -- because they aren't quite ready to open the fridge, fix themselves a sandwich, then grab a hot shower before motoring off to preschool -- and they also require active intervention, in the form of discipline, education, and guidance.
Guidance! How scary is it that there is a human on this earth that needs my questionable life-navigation advice? Never mind the sheer horror of helping my kids make it through their school years without succumbing to the various horrors that could befall them (like drugs! Unsavory friendships! Eventual dedication to the Republican Party!), I'm freaked out that my ineptitude is going to ensure the presence of a diaper under my child's commencement robe.
See, we're in the midst of potty training in our household, and nothing has made me question my parental abilities quite like the task of teaching a child to void themselves somewhere other than their own pants. I secretly want to punch all the people who claim they trained their kid in one joyous feces-filled day, and if there was a professional potty trainer I could hire -- sort of a Cesar Milan-esque Potty Whisperer -- I would totally do so, because at least I could feel confident that someone with some EXPERIENCE was handling this project. My only skill set with regards to the potty is knowing how to use it myself.
(And, frankly, even that came into question more than once during the Great Third Trimester Chest Cold of Aught-Seven.)
Still, though, what can you do but muddle onward, making mistakes and hopefully learning from them (Handy Potty Tip! Offering M&Ms as a reward can result in a child producing exactly one molecule of pee at a time before demanding a CHOCWATE, PLEASE). This surely won't be the last time I'm faced with a parenting challenge and feeling unsure about whether or not I'm doing the right thing -- but man, I sure hope it's one of the last ones that involve poop.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Eric's Mommy 6-04-2008 @ 8:31AM
Don't feel bad, my son was 4 when he would finally poop on the potty. When he was ready he just did it, and never had a accident again! Of course he still likes to hold it most of the day, and then his poop is the size of a bowling ball and clogs the toilet.
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Anita 6-04-2008 @ 9:29AM
Your post cracked me up! I also found the M&M's backfired. If my daughter did not feel like and M&M at the time, she just peed in her pants.
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Christina 6-04-2008 @ 9:35AM
Can I offer helpful suggestions??? Annoying, eh?
Let him go free of diapers as often as possible esp when you are outside (my son still thinks it is okay to pee on the grass which is a habit I am not proud of and we are trying to break but still...)
I was just reading an article in Wondertime that got me thinking - but teach him about poop - why we do it, where it comes from, etc... sound super lame but I guess we have sort of done that over time and so he knows... he also talks about poop to no end up which drives us batty but hey he poops, on his own, in the potty!)
He goes to day care, right? Are they training there? If not ask them if that possible. My son learned quickly because the other kids at his day home were doing it.
Let him see you and your husband using the bathroom
Make sure the seat is comfy and stable. We had a seat that sucked it wobbled and shifted and quite frankly scared the crap out of the boy! We bought the Baby Bjorn one which is perfect.
Sit in there with him while he is pooping/peeing
Encourage him - ask him as often as possible about using the bathroom (try to make it exciting and fun to go and if he does cheer him on!)
Buy some poop/fart books. We have Farley Farts, Everyone Poops and one other book. They stay in the bathroom and we read them quite a bit when he was first learning. The fart book cracked him right up!!
I am sure you are doing these things but boy it sure seemed to help us a lot. By NO means did it take one day. He had accidents of the pee variety (and one or two tragic poop incident that I will not go into because I am still scarred by this!) We just did not make a big deal about it. Oh and he has to be interested in it. Just be patient. It will all come together!
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Jamie 6-04-2008 @ 10:02AM
Dear Linda,
If you ever want to join a parenting commune, I'll do it with you.
I can offer you this advice, which I learned by scraping toddler crap out of Hello Kitty underpants with a butter knife on a regular basis while pregnant: just throw the stupid underpants away.
--Jamie
http://www.travelsavvymom.com
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Sleepynita 6-04-2008 @ 10:30AM
Thankfully I never had to go the M&M route - or my kid would do the
Dribble and Demand Chocolate Routine. The Dictator seems to think
flushing his pee down the toilet is reward enough for peeing and he
isn't even two yet.
That all being said we still use diapers when he has friends over or
when we go out because the smallest amount of excitement makes him
forget.
http://www.drowninginlaundry.wordpress.com
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JustMyThoughts 6-04-2008 @ 1:44PM
Time for POTTY SCHOOL. Get a doll that wets and get your child to teach the doll what to do - including what to do if there's an accident. The child should be 'responsible' for the clean-up. They'll figure out quickly it's too much trouble to just go whenever and wherever because of the amount of work involved to clean it up and they'll be proud of teaching the dolly what to do. I agree with letting them go naked, and then just underwear for a while. I'm one of those awful "We did it in a day" parents. Really, it only took about 4 hours. Another week of an accident or two per day, then a month of maybe one accident per week. When he was refusing to go at school, we took dolly to school and he showed dolly what to do there. Never had an accident there again. Much easier than coaxing and begging for six months to a year like many of my friends did.
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JustMyThoughts 6-04-2008 @ 1:45PM
PS - Don't reward with M&Ms - reward with juice boxes! It makes the next round much more productive!
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Kristi 6-04-2008 @ 4:17PM
I will happily hold down those training-in-a-day parents while you punch. I'm getting quite good at holding down squirming people--little ones at least (hold them on the potty, isolate a hand for nail clipping, hold the head still for eye drops, saline, and/or breathing treatment....)
With my daughter, nothing worked. Absolutely nothing. She knew how to pee and poop on the potty. We'd gone panty-free. Multiple times. And have the steam-cleaner to prove it. We'd switched from disposable pull-ups to "big girl pants", and did a lot more laundry. Daycare "potty trained". We encouraged. We discouraged. We read books. We peed in front of her. We stuck her on the potty every half an hour for months. We tried NOT sticking her on teh potty every half an hour for months. I offered bribes (chocolate, watching an epsiode of Dora on TV, whatever). I tried withholding those privileges. We have not yet found a cure for stubbornness.
One day, magically she decided that she would stop having accidents, and she stopped having accidents. The kid has a mind of her own, and nothing we could do would convince her--she had to do it herself.
There is no advice I can offer except to wait and see. Take lots of deep breaths. Always have a spare change of clothes (or 6) on hand when you're out of the house. And maybe one for the kid as well :) And wait. Unless you think that the kid truly cannot control their bladder for a medical reason (and not just out of stubbornness), then time and patience is all it takes.
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Carolyn 6-04-2008 @ 4:47PM
"Toddlers, on the other hand, are sort of a terrifying combination of Infant + Teenager."
Amen! I was just telling my husband that I think our 2-year-old is going through early adolescence.
We haven't gotten to potty training yet, but it is looming. I'm hoping Smarties and stickers do the trick, but somehow I think I am being naively optimistic.
Good luck!
Carolyn
http://www.momsontheedge.ca
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Rutta_7701 6-05-2008 @ 11:40PM
Oh Linda, I so totally feel your pain. We are at the exact same point as you. It is so friggin frustrating. We've actually been potty training for a year, off and on of coarse. I think I'm the first mother that has prayed for Poop.
I guess the best advice that I can give is to be patient. Don't get mad at Riley, if he doesn't get it as soon as you want him to, it's not really his fault, he will eventually get it. Everyone does.
The M&M thing didn't work for us at all either. We mostly have to talk Jordan into using the potty, we don't give him the choice, although we do ask him quite often, when we know it's been awhile we say "It's time to go potty." And if he won't go into the potty for us, we start taking away the TV,we tell him no cookies after supper, and he eventually gives in. He recently has started pooping (a very little) on the potty, which we have been trying to make the biggest deal out of. But he still won't tell us on his own. Very frustrating, but at least we're getting a little bit closer.
Good luck!
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randi 6-06-2008 @ 10:58AM
you have hit the nail on the head my daughter has decided that she has to wear he diapers all the time and i had the baby going on the potty but now she wont go either. thanks for the laugh. believe me i needed it
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Marie Green 6-06-2008 @ 2:48PM
Sorry, one more thought- We went cold turkey to underwear, even when out and about. Pull-ups are basically diapers, and my girls knew it. It undermined their confidence to have to wear them when we weren't at home. So we kept a potty chair in the van for awhile, and packed extra clothes and hoped for the best... and like I said in my last comment, it worked fairly quickly, but they STILL had lots of episodes of many-accidents-in-a-row days.
Why can't I shut up about this? No one asked me! GAWD!
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Marie Green 6-06-2008 @ 2:49PM
Ok, here's my two thoughts on potty training. (Not that you asked.) (I'm helpful like that.)
1) don't do it until you absolutely have to. I trained my twins at age 2 1/2, and they trained fairly quickly (about a week or so), but then proceeded to have accidents quite regularily for the next 2 years. GAH! So with baby #3, I'm waiting until she begs me to use the potty.
2) Using immediate gratification techniques, like M&M's (we used M&M's and Skittles- one if they peed, two if they pooped), works GREAT. Even if it DOES only produce one molecule of pee/poop at a time, at least they are motivated to try often!
Good luck Linda and Riley. I wouldn't wish that stage back for a thousand bucks! =)
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Mandy 6-06-2008 @ 3:23PM
Riley will figure it out when he's ready. You've given him the tools--he knows where to go, kind of--but you have to let go of the "when." That's the hard part for us parents! One day, maybe later than you'd like, his mind and body will finally connect and he will get it. Finally. Not that we didn't go through a fair share of M&Ms at our house just to, ah, reinforce what was happening!
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Kelli 6-06-2008 @ 9:21PM
The hardest part of potty training for me wasn't my own kid; it was other parents.
We started at 2 1/2. My son just was not ready. It was a fight every day over using the potty. Finally, I just gave up. I told him he could use the potty when he was ready. Luckily for me, he goes to a daycare who doesn't push the issue and lets the child do what they are comfortable with.
Last week, at 3 1/2, my son decided he wanted to wear big boy underwear and use the potty. That was it. Sure, I need to remind him to go but he just decided he was ready.
You and Riley do what is best for the both of you!
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Shawna 6-08-2008 @ 2:07PM
We're at that odd stage of our daughter being potty trained for poop but not for pee, and the concept of the latter seems to not interest her in the slightest. I have heard that having one of those blue pucks in your toilet tank is supposed to help toilet train boys for pee because they get to watch it turn green, but I'm not sure about girls. We figure she'll maybe get it this summer when we let her roam the backyard without diapers.
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LauriceB 6-21-2008 @ 9:32PM
I feel for you. My grandson who is 4 only recently became clean and dry all the time. He just decided one day to do it and he has been dry ever since. No amount of rewards or coaxing worked. Playmates who were potty trained were no incentive whatsoever. It is totally a matter of readiness on their part. Their is no magic answer except patience, patience, patience.
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