So Monday began what I have been calling full court press potty training. As mentioned in a previous post, we have been working on potty training for some time with pull ups. Monday I decided I was going to keep him in big boy underwear all day, no matter how many accidents. Surprisingly we got through that day with just 2 accidents, and they were back-to-back at the very end of the day, so it seemed like we almost went the whole day with no accidents. Tuesday as I already posted was great, zero accidents. Wednesday we just had one. Thursday there was just one, too, right before dinner after being at the pool. He had come back from the pool with John and I wonder if he was doing a little testing. He had been doing so well all day and I was not having him go quite so frequently anymore because he was so good at going when I asked and I was getting better at judging when he needed to go. We had even gone downtown to have lunch with grandma and he had had had quite a bit to drink while we were out. I had him potty a couple of times before we headed home, and I started to put a pull up on him for the ride back because I had a feeling he would fall asleep. He refused the pull up (even though I didn’t ask him, I was just trying to get it on him) and I didn’t push it because I felt that was a great sign. He did fall asleep on the way hole and stayed asleep for about 2 1/2 hours. When we got home I put him on the couch with a blanket under him, presuming he would have an accident, but he stayed dry with all that he had drunk! So when he had the accident later it seemed like he might have done it maybe to test the waters to see if he had to do the potty thing when daddy was on duty as well. Friday and so far today he has had zero accidents! I also feel now like I can relax a little bit. The beginning of the week I was feeling like I was constantly worried about how long it bad been since he drank and how much he had had to try to catch him before he had an accident. As he’s gotten so much better over the week I have more confidence that he will be able to hold it. He never tells me he needs to go and if he’s asked if he needs to he never admits he does, but it’s been working well for me to just tell him its time to go when I judge it to be so.
So all this potty success has been on his little plastic potties. He’s had no interest in the big potty, so that’s the next thing to tackle. Luckily it’s summer right now because the only way we’ve been able to go out anywhere is by having a little potty in the van so we can go when we’re out, which he is surprisingly ok with. Yesterday I started getting him to go in the big potty by putting one of those child seats on it that makes the seat smaller. Previously he did not like this thing but luckily when I suggested it yesterday he was ok with it. We call it his Elmo potty since it’s a sesame street seat. Hopefully it will be a small leap from that to using the regular potty because it will be great when I feel like he can completely use available facilities when we are out! But for now I am so happy with his progress and am very, very proud of him!
It’s almost bedtime but I just had to squeeze in a quick blog because I’m so excited! Hayden had a completely dry day today! We have been working on potty training for a while, and it’s been pretty hard going. Hayden has just not been terribly interested in it. We have tried a lot of techniques – rewards, sticker charts, potty timer, etc. Yesterday I decided to just put regular underwear on him (instead of a pull up) and see how we go. I have tried before to just let him be in regular underwear and let him feel the yuckiness of having an accident (some camps believe potty training has become harder as diapers have become more absorbant because they can’t feel the wetness very easily), but he never has had a big problem with the feeling of having an accident with underwear. In fact, once when I tried it a couple of weeks ago he had about three accidents in 20 minutes – it seemed like he was trying to have accidents for some reason.
When I was six I made my mom a mug in girl scouts for mothers day. I was so proud that I had a present for her that was completely my own – no none had gotten her a present “from me” or taken me somewhere to pick it out. I couldn’t wait to give it to her, and when the time came to wrap it I was again very excited as it seemed a very grown up thing to be wrapping her present FROM ME. I was so darn excited that as I was leaving the room to go wrap it I told my mom, “I’m going to go wrap your mug now!” The sentence I had wanted to say was any configuration of words that did NOT include “mug.”
I’ve been slacking on my blogging since Layla’s been born. New job, and a new baby at the same time has caused a dip in my blogs and I feel a bit guilty that poor Layla will read all this when she’s older and think that no one loved her or wanted to write about her!! Not true!
She never complains if she has one of those days where Hayden’s playing up, she takes everything in her stride and makes it all look so effortless!! She juggles the newborn and still manages to get so many chores ran during the week, still gets my dinner ready most nights, and still gets plenty of time to give the kids lots of cuddles!
will nap, and then several days (or more) where he won’t. Lately we have been able to be more or less successful with naps by letting him sleep in our bed. It works for us on many levels – he will always protest when it’s naptime (“I want couple minutes”), so “mommy and daddy’s bed” is used successfully as a bargaining chip to get him upstairs (“if you don’t go upstairs by the time I count to 5 then you can’t sleep in mommy and daddy’s bed”). Once he’s there usually he will then sleep. It’s not foolproof, but I think he is nearing the end of his napping in general anyway, so to get him to nap some of the time feels like a victory to me. The reason I think he is on his way off naps is because you can definitely tell a difference between a day he has napped and one he hasn’t – once bedtime rolls around it will take him a long time to fall asleep when he’s had a nap and he’ll go straight down when he hasn’t. It’s tricky, because the flip side to that is sometimes when he hasn’t slept he will be in a bad mood around bedtime because he’s tired. So do you hope for a nap followed by a late bedtime (well, we usually keep the bedtime the same, but you get the idea) or take out the nap and risk a monster in the early evening?
Well I have to say Layla is completely spoiling me – I am getting as much sleep as people who don’t have a newborn! For a while now she has been getting up only once in the night for a feeding, usually around 3 or so. But the last few days she has been sleeping until 6 or even later! She’s even gone as late as 7:45! Yesterday I actually woke her up at 7:45 because I really needed her to eat to relieve some of my discomfort. I just really can’t believe it. She goes to sleep around 11:30, and once she’s down I go straight away, so that means I’m getting 6 1/2 or more hours. I guess I paid my dues with Hayden since I was getting up for a middle of the night feeding with him for months and months. She is still cluster feeding in the evenings which I think helps set up her for a good sleep, and she is usually awake all evening which also helps. Long may it continue!
Hayden and Layla's Place 