Our kids have both had potty break-thrus over the last few weeks. We’ve had so much trouble with Hayden holding in his BMs for the last… well, forever it seems. We’ve had him on a stool softener for a long time (his Dr said that is ok as it’s not absorbed into the blood stream) so we know it’s not that he’s constipated, and I think his problem was psychological after a BM which hurt from being constipated 2 or 3 years ago. Whatever the reason, he was reluctant to go (and I am really being conservative there). We had a “trick” to help him when he was younger where we would pretend we were pushing on his belly to help him go. That worked for a while but after all this time it was his crutch and he really thought he couldn’t go unless we pushed on him. Since he’s five and he was getting more and more reluctant to go (and as such we would spend DAYS trying to get him to go), we really had to break him of the habit. John was finally able to get it into his head that he could do it on his own and he really stood his ground that he would absolutely not help him (we had both tried this before but eventually gave in in favor of just getting on with it). He eventually went on his own and has been doing EXCELLENT in going more frequently and always on his own. This is such wonderful news in our house, because when he had to really go but wouldn’t it was hard on everyone and even made it hard to do things sometimes because he was so focused on doing nothing but holding it in.
Layla has been potty training for the last couple of weeks, and she is doing fantastic. We were having her “practice” potty training here and there – if I knew we’d be home for a while I’d put her in underwear, but if we were leaving the house I’d put her back in a diaper/pull up. She was doing a pretty good job when she had underwear on, so finally I decided to bite the bullet and dive full-fledged into potty training to try to avoid giving mixed signals about when she needed to use the potty and when she didn’t. So last week I sent her to day care with underwear on instead of diapers (and a bag full of pants, underwear, and socks). I thought that would be a good place to properly start since so many in her class are potty trained and they have scheduled bathroom breaks where she knows it’s just time to go. (She doesn’t respond well to me asking her every 15 minutes if she needs to go.) She’s done really wonderfully, particularly at day care. Every time I’ve picked her up she’s been wearing the same pants/underwear/socks! She does great when we are out and about, too. We went to the children’s museum yesterday, and again I brought a bag full of backup clothes, and she was dry the whole time! She really only has accidents at home, and I’m not sure exactly why that is but she is so new at it I couldn’t be happier with her progress.
I remember feeling the same way when it was time to potty train Hayden – a day just came that I hadn’t planned for when it just seemed like a good time to plant a flag in the ground and say (with some internal surprise and reluctance), “From this day forth, there shall be no diapers during waking hours,” and off we went. With Hayden, it was a really long process with many steps and victories, and with Layla she seems to be getting it in a more all-at-once fashion. Of course, she wears a diaper while she sleeps, but even with that she is dry when she wakes up many times (at least from naps – it takes her a long time to agree to get dressed in the morning which includes getting out of her diaper, so she could be waking up dry but not letting me take her diaper off until too late).
“Miiiiiinnnnnnnnniiiiiiiieeeeeee.” She’ll also call out for “Baby” if that was what she was playing with last. She did that this morning when she was upset from hurting her finger: “Baaaaaabbbbbbyyyyyy.” It’s pretty cute, and nice that she has things that give her comfort. It also makes for good bargaining chips. The other day she was being rotten and wouldn’t say she was sorry for trying to bite me while I got her dressed (something that, fortunately, has not reared it’s ugly head much recently but we have had to deal with in the past). I put her in her crib to give her time to calm down, but she still wouldn’t say she was sorry. Finally I told her I would take all her bed toys away if she didn’t say sorry, and she still wouldn’t so up onto a high shelf in her closet they all went. She was really upset about that (she sleeps with approximately a million dolls, stuffed animals, various pillows, 2 quilts….), but since then I have been able to get her to pay attention by telling her I will take them away again if she doesn’t [fill in the blank]. She did eventually say she was sorry that morning, by the way, but is was the quietest sorry I ever (barely) heard.
Hayden and Layla's Place 