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Thursday, April 24, 2014

Potty Talk




If I were to write an instruction manual on potty-training, it might go a little something like this:

"Let your child potty-train his or herself. Don't forget to buy motivating undies. And take pictures of his or her progress. Because kids take way bigger shits than you're non-parent friends would ever believe. The end."




Seriously, though, one of my girlfriend's daughters, who is almost a year older than the Bean, was using the potty independently at her 2nd birthday party. I was impressed, even then. At the time, my 15-month-old wasn't even walking, and I thought potty training was still years off. I would have guessed that 3-4 years old was the magic age. She is so advanced, I thought. She does speak so well already, practically in full sentences, and now she's peeing on the potty alone. I hope the Bean isn't delayed or anything. I really need to read about the toddler years so I know what to expect and don't fuck it up too badly, my brain continued.

I asked my friend what her trick was, and she replied, "She really potty-trained herself. Plus it helps that she likes jelly beans."

This is one of my more dramatically-inclined friends, so I took her words with a grain. I figured she didn't want to take too much credit, or show off how smart her girl is, or something like that. Turns out, she's kind of right. Some kids really do just seem to "potty-train themselves." Case in point - Francine.

The Bean and I had been battling over diaper changes for quite some time. Sometimes we fought about removing her dirty diaper, but mostly went head to head about putting on a new clean one. We had developed an annoying and laborious routine of "It's time to change your diaper." "no." "We need to get you a clean diaper." "no." "I don't want your butt to hurt, let's change your diaper." "no." "Are you hungry? We can go have a snack after I change your diaper. First diaper, then cookie." "cookie." "Ready to change your diaper?" "no." "Okay, tell me when you're ready." Silence. "Are you ready?" "no." "Do you want a cookie?" "yeah! cookie!" "Diaper then cookie." "no."

You get the point.

And then a couple weeks ago, just after her second birthday, I folded. Throwing my hands up in defeat I said, "Fine, don't put on a diaper. We're not going anywhere this morning anyway." 

We had a;ready bought one of those Ikea potty seats. I forked over the 10 bucks when she first started showing interest in us using the toilet, maybe around 18 months or so. Then my dad bought us to a tiny toddler toilet seat, the kind that also have a regular toilet seat, to put in our main downstairs bathroom. She'd shown interest in the potties and all things pee, poop, and privates for several months. And she had been sitting on the potty at least nightly before bath, for many months, only putting pee in the potty a few times.

The day I declared that the Diaper Changing War was over, and named her the winner, I brought the Ikea potty seat downstairs and put it in the hallway next to the bathroom, just to be safe. While she ran around neked pushing her babies in the shopping cart, I went back upstairs to quickly change from glasses to contacts. And before I even had time to blink my lenses into place, our little nudist proudly announced, "Show mama! Show mama! Pee! In potty!"

She had, in fact, put pee in the potty. I might have been even more proud of her than she was of herself. I never would have guessed that another person's toilet habits would take center stage in my life. Then and only then did I really hear her. She had been trying to tell me - via repetitive diaper change refusals - that she was ready to conquer the next milestone. But I had it in my mind that we were going to potty-train over summer, with that potty-training bootcamp I heard about. It would be warm out, we'd spend most of our time outside, she'd be a bit older, both Alex and I would be around to watch her like a hawk and provide consistent reinforcement. It was a perfect, fail-proof plan.

But as with all kids, the Bean had her own agenda.

So I quickly switched gears, briefly researched potty-training on the Internet, and developed a very scientific, research-based behavior program - I taped a piece of printer paper to the bathroom door, and offered stickers for every time she put pee or poop in the potty. On top of that, every time she put poop in the potty, she would also get a tattoo of her choice.

"Stickers for Potty."

I kept a little journal of her potty habits, to get a better feeling for how often she needed to go. Over the course of that first long weekend (starting 4/4/2014, for the baby book), she was mostly naked and wore diapers to nap and overnight. She still woke up with very wet diapers, and the occasional nighttime poo. We made a special trip to the store for her to choose her own undies, and we also bought some pull-ups, unsure of how to handle daycare. She didn't have any pee accidents the first day, and peed in the potty about six times. We read that we shouldn't nag her or force her to use the potty, so we frequently checked in to ask if she was "still dry." She did have a poop accident, where she shat one turd on the wood floor, and put another one in the potty. Her first butterfly tattoo! She did have minorly wet undies periodically, but put pee in the potty nearly every time she tried. 

I was worried about how her progress might stall or regress at daycare, depending on their approach, her access to a potty, and the different environment. But they were fully supportive and open to following my lead and behavioral reward system. She wore undies that first day back to school, and pissed all over the floor as soon as we arrived for drop-off. I was not feeling so confident, but put her in a clean pair of undies anyway. Turns out she didn't have any additional accidents and pooped in the potty that first day back to school. Success!

Her first deliberate poop at home happened on Tuesday morning (4/8/2014). She kept complaining "butt hurts" and "tummy hurts" and got on and off the potty seat at least three dozen times. Once she finally sat still long enough to take a dump, she earned herself yet another tattoo. I, on the other hand, almost barfed in my mouth cleaning out her potty, skid marks and all. That shit is nasty, pun intended. This is why I favor the toddler toilet seat over the potty. Shitting in a bucket is just not how we do it here. It's even worse than how you're supposed to throw your TP in the garbage in Argentina.

Since then, she goes to the bathroom more often in the potty than anywhere else, but periodically has some minor accidents.  I don't know when you get to declare your kid "potty-trained", as in past tense, but I decided to say it the day we went to the zoo, she kept her undies dry, told me she needed to use the potty, and peed in a public bathroom.  I assume it's a process, but being that she wears undies during the day - with the occasional pull-up - I say she's reached this major milestone. I even put away all our cloth diapers. Great job, Bean! I never knew your poop would make me so proud.

Potty-training = neked coloring.

Big Girl undies!!!


1 comment:

  1. Amazing! Way to go Francie!! I'm hoping my little one is just as inclined toward self-training.

    ReplyDelete

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