I realized as I went to bed last night that my post (remember how LATE it was?) made it sound like my three faithful readers (I actually have 4, but #4 is mystery-woman at this point) wouldn't have many ideas for activities with Karis, which is far from the truth! I DO expect lots of ingenious ideas:-) I was always impressed with the moms (Karis' grandmas) and how they came up with fun things to do with her (I think I'm missing that creative gene, or maybe I just get too focused on house stuff?) Anyway, I shouldn't have worded it in such a way to make it sound like I could get more ideas by surfing the net...I've tried that with other things and come up empty (and I know y'all have ideas!).
Since we're talking (or since I'm writing) along the lines of advice I think I'll go ahead and ask for some more! Anybody out there have potty-training motivation ideas? I'm totally stumped. I thought this would be so easy because while we were in the States Karis caught on quickly once we introduced the idea of m&m's (if anybody is reading and doesn't know me well, I have been very good at imposing health restrictions on my daughter that I don't follow myself, so chocolate was a new and very exciting thing for her! Although I do plan on changing my eating habits as well...starting today. ha!) When we got here and I realized that I was being almost completely drained from potty-training (mostly from laundry and cleaning puddles on the floor, as my days were being consumed with those two activities) I decided to surf the net. The only thing I came up with was several lists that had "indications" your child is ready for potty-training. Karis hasn't shown a single sign that she's ready! (as a side note, if that does happen to be you reading this Kanani, I have to say..er, give an excuse for why I didn't follow your advice for infant potty training. I was totally motivated to infant potty train 'til it got closer to Karis' due-date and then my uncertainty with everything finally won out with her being my first and knowing that we'd be traveling a lot her first year. It seemed so overwhelming...so I do recognize that the problem is I trained her to go in her diaper and now I'm trying to re-train her). So anyway, looking back I realize that Karis caught on to using the potty quickly because she was highly motivated but she never recognized the feeling of needing to go and then acted upon it. She was coming to me all day long saying "pee pee potty" and she would always manage to squeeze a bit out, but only because she had her precious m&m's in mind. Now chocolate is a thing of the past (she has even had her first popsicle!) and she never comes to me. She doesn't even mind sitting in a wet (or dirty) diaper for extended amounts of time. Because we're so swamped with "the big move" here I have only been able to use cloth diapers for small amounts of time (I don't have a dryer and we aren't into the full swing of dry season so it takes a while for them to dry) and we're losing major $ on disposable. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Why didn't I listen to Kanani?
The Truth of What Was Said and Done to Me
9 months ago
5 comments:
The only potty advice I can give is 'be patient'! Hah! How was that for practical?
I can tell you the the prospect of potty training my dd was that it was a piece of cake! I had already pt'ed both of my nieces, so I wasn't worried about it.
But my dd had other ideas. I was afraid I was going to be sending her to college in diapers! We tried EVERYTHING! She would go out in the yard, pull off her diaper and go to the bathroom.
She was probably 4 before I could pretty much count on her. But even then the BM's were a problem (for other reasons that I won't go into here.) for another year.
BTW, you were right on #4.
I don't have any potty training advice either, even though I've potty trained 7 children, because I have very little memory left. We used candy corn instead of M&M's - (mostly because I didn't want to share my chocolate.)
But I'm going to forward your blog address to my married daughter, Brite, and maybe at least she can empathize with you.
BTW- I'm really glad you're blogging. It's therapeutic :)
Just don't try to do it everyday for a month =8-/
Hi, this is Brite. :) I remember when you were pregnant with Karis and my mom was helping your mom look for the perfect baby bedding! I don't remember how old Karis is, but I'm presuming she's a little younger than my oldest, who is almost 3 yrs.
All I can tell you is what we did with him: I started him at 18 months b/c my sisters-in-law all say that starting before 2 years is always easier. At 18 months he had a few of the readiness signs, but not all. I used the "potty training in a day" method, which is really like "Potty train in a week" and after a few long hard days he really would go on command, but I had to set the timer for every 30 minutes. We got to where we could even run errands and stay dry, although we still used pull-ups. Then I had baby #2, and it was too much to expect my mother and mother-in-law to keep up the every 30 min. thing...lots of accidents. So we stopped, and tried again around 22 months. That went MUCH better, and it seemed like it really clicked. I was surprised at the difference, and it made me wonder if I should have waited in the first place. (???) I've heard that if you start young (18+ months) plan on at least a year of having to take them every so often (guess it depends on how much they drink...mine is a big water drinker). Cooper will be 3 in August and he really WANTS to be independent, which has helped speed things along and he does everything by himself, and even stays dry on long car trips. (Although he pooped in his pants every day while we were on vacation b/c we forgot his potty seat...just so you know, there are always setbacks!)
This is sort of a long shot, but I actually bought a (don't laugh) Potty Scotty...a boy doll that wets. I'm not sure how helpful that was, but I do think there's something to the theory that if your child teaches the doll to go potty, they are capable of learning the process. Just another thought.
J says try giving her a sticker when she goes to put on her shoes that she can see when she sits down to go potty
Hmmmm .... great advice that you've gotten so far! With Sophie, it took it clicking in her timing not mine ...me not forcing anything ... encouraging her yes! Once it clicked, she did awesome! I'm not a big fan of pull ups b/c they were comfort for her ...too much like a diaper! Once we did away with those all together she did great ... and that was all Joel's idea :) Now with Eli, it hasn't clicked with him yet ... he can push out pee-pee, yet I can tell that he's not ready ...I thought he might be, yet I was wrong. Sooooo, we'll see! Try not to stress out over it .... She will be potty trained eventually! :) ha!
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