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Potty training


JewelsRus

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Some kids train themselves by the time they are two. My son, on the other hand, had to be forced to use the potty. People say "oh, they'll use it when they are ready." Well, he was never going to be ready because he saw absolutely no need to use it. Finally, I needed to go back to work and so by the time he reached age 3, I basically had to say "You are going to use the potty or else!" (The preschool I wanted to put him in so I could work part-time wouldn't take the kids unless they were potty trained, and by that point my husband was having fits because DS was still in diapers.)

My son hated using the potty. He would just rather pee himself than stop playing. Finally, after trying a variety of pull-ups including "cool alert" and the ones that have little pictures that fade when wet, and going straight to underwear, I tried just stripping him down so I could see when he was peeing and make him sit on the potty. It was summer so he wasn't cold and I made him stay in one area of the living room, where I put old vinyl tablecloths over the floor and furniture. It was a very gradual process. I often had to drag him to the potty to make him use it. There was no other way.

But, he did hate the feeling of pee trickling down his leg and he also didn't like having to stay on the tablecloths to play, so that worked... finally!!!! But he still wet himself a lot once I put his clothes back on.

We tried all kinds of reward systems - candy, sticker charts, staying dry x number of days to earn a toy (the number of days gradually increased), and so on. Every system worked at first, until the novelty wore off. We also, as he started to show he could do it when he wanted to, took away toys for a day if he wet himself. But there were still lots of accidents. Finally this spring, when he was nearly five, he stopped having daytime accidents. Night time he still wears two pull-ups and often soaks through them both but as someone else said, he's been a sound sleeper since infancy so who am I to complain?

The reason I am telling you this is not to discourage you, but just to say that there are exceptions to every rule. You will get lots of advice... and you have to just try whatever seems good and if it doesn't work, try something else. You are the mom and you know your kid better than anyone!

I think your idea of having him sit on the potty and read books is a good idea right now, but don't be discouraged if he makes no connection between sitting on the seat and his bodily functions. We spent a LOT of time reading stories on the potty, without seeing any actual success in the training, although it was quality time spent together. I think the point at this age is just to get them to maybe accidentally pee in the potty so that you can make a fuss over it and start giving him the idea of what he is being asked to do, because right now he probably has no clue!

(And it's also really difficult to tell what is going through their heads at this age. I really didn't know if my son knew when he had to pee and just didn't want to, or if he really didn't recognize the sensation and was taken by surprise when he had accidents. DH would get so mad and I told him that would just make it worse and we had to keep being patient and working positively, not negatively.)

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I don't know what it was with my kids. When they were little each one tried to get out of the house stark naked at some point. Two succeeded.
ROTFLMBO!!! It's a "kid" thing, Grazhina, I think they all do it, or at least try.
And it's also really difficult to tell what is going through their heads at this age.
Our older two pottied when they were able to stay dry all day, which was between 21 & 27 months old. The youngest, who is bipolar, wouldn't & wouldn't and his last act of public defecation occured on an obnoxious neighbor's doorstep at age 7, so I concluded that sometimes it's a power/ control issue. Maybe making him clean up the messes he leaves will teach him there are better ways. That, or start following him around with a puppy pooper-scooper and a plastic bag. Even if he misses the humor you may be able to get the point across.
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That, or start following him around with a puppy pooper-scooper and a plastic bag. Even if he misses the humor you may be able to get the point across.

:photo: Oh my gaaawd, talk about almost having an accident over that comment Holly, I laughed so hard I almost wet my pants, good thing that the coffee cup was empty... :wave: Or I would ahve been the one who had to clean up a mess, sigh....

Hugs

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I think this topic just goes to prove as many of you have said that all kids are different. I want to be such a good parent I think sometimes I may get over zealous. Well, since we are moving I am defiantly not going to be introducing anything new for awhile. I think moving is stressful on kids and potty training can be stressful for kids so one at a time. Once he is comfortable in our new home I may start thinking about it again. I do think he may be a little young.

I have always been so proud because he has been so fast at so many things.. I actually don't think that had anything to do with me, he is just way active. He was walking at 10 months, before that he showed absolutely no sign of having any interest at all in walking. He did not do the hobble fall over thing when he started walking he just started all the way. Same with talking. He very rarely said one word, when he started talking he spoke in sentences, "I want more," "where is daddy?" ect... He did however start talking after many of my friends children, most of whom were girls. We teach him ASL, he was slow picking that up but when he did he picked it up fast. I was actually getting frustrated because it seemed he was not learning any of it. Then one day I put him on his changing table and with out any prompt he said "bird" both sign and vocal. This was followed by, shorts, dog, and many others all in about five minutes. My point is that I have never been able to really force anything. He learns things on his own terms when he wants to and when he learns them he seems to learn them well.

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When they mess up, point and yell at the offending patch of carpet until they are utterly ashamed, then hustle them outside so they can finish emptying all their plumbing. Worked for my kids.

(They're in my avatar... ;)

Wow, I am slow. I sat looking at your two dogs thinking, "those arent kids those are dogs." :lol:

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I do think he may be a little young.

You are probably right, My Pediatrician told me that the muscle to control their bladder isn't normally fully developed until 2. I was a very over zealous mother myself when my daughter was small.(still am now that she is a teen. :lol: ;) )

I aways tell her she is my "hobby"(should probably stick to mini's instead and give her a break :) ) I loved to work with her a little too early with each stage of her toddler years. I got her to pee on the pot when she was like 9 months. So I got all excited. Now is that over zealous or what? :) I ended up spending way more money than I needed to on pull-ups cause she wasn't quite ready yet. It took until she was 2 to have her completely trained.

I look back on all that now and my face turns red. :)

Thank goodess she turned out ok in spite of me. :)

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Thank goodess she turned out ok in spite of me.
Most kids do. This topic does remind me of one of the few times I wanted to exchange blows with my DM was over the subject of potty-training ouchildren, she wanted to know when was I going to start with DS#1 (who was 7 months old when we adopted him and this was when he was only 11 months old & she finally got to meet him), and got very upset with me when I told her sometime between when he could stay dry and before he went to school. It was worse with DS#2, she came up right after he was born and again when he was about 9 months old and nearly had hysterics that I hadn't even begun sitting him on the pot! It turned out that she was convinced she had me potty-trained when I was 6 months old! I think that was when I began to have serious doubts about her stability... (About a year later we took her up on her offer to babysit the kids for us and came home to find her in tears because (gasp, choke) I really did apparently know what I was doing with raising the children, none of the things she did "her way" with them worked! (I was very good & didn't laugh!) I did have to explain, very gently, that we never had to bribe the kds with cookies to eat their meat & veggies... BTW kids are very smart & learn things a lot quicker than you'd think. They know when they're ready to do "big kid" stuff and will show you when it's their time.
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I think that a child "trained at 6 month" was the pride and joy of our mother's generation! Remember that potty seats had clip on fonts (like a high chair and even restraining belts. Of course if you stuck a baby on one after a bottle she;she would eventually pee. I can remember that my brother had a nearly perpetual ring on his bottom and back of his thighs for hours he spent on the seat every day. I guess, like a puppy, kids would figure out what was needed to escape form the seat and be pronounced "trained". My mother graduated for college so was not backward. In her defense she did have a baby every 18months, used cloth diapers (no diaper service either), did not drive and had to many kids to take the bus, plus she did not know any better and it was what ALL the other moms did. When I outright refused to do as she did she was shocked. To her I was saying she did wrong and everything she did was wrong. It was one of the things she took great pride it, that all of her kids where off the bottle and potty trained by age one. The off the bottle thing turned out to be a good ideal but strapping an infant to a chair for several hours a day... to me seems like more effort that it is worth. Unlike my mother I had birth control and also I had things to do and places to go and con not have imagined sitting around all day waiting for a baby to pee.

On the other hand you all would be amazed at the number of people I have worked with that still do this! So many of them equate early potty training with high intelligence. Especially single teen girls that are under educated and living in poverty. They learn, not form their own mothers but usually from their grandmothers. Actually many of them really think that babies cry on purpose and attending to them will spoil them or worse. They really believe this so instead of nurturing an infant they get Angy because they feel take advantage of. So much child abuse happens becasue the parent believes a child is in control and wants to take the control back. I have seen this with babies just a few days old.

Deep down these Public Health Nursing experiences are probably the reason that I joined this thread in the first place. Not because anyone here has said or done anything that makes me think they are abusive. Actually, I think you are a very caring group of people. It is just that being a parent is hard work and being a GOOD parent is even harder. Hearing (or reading) views that advocate child raising approaches that support a healthy, peaceful home is always a good thing and I take any opportunity to do it, even in a miniature group!

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Oh! This is too funny! That is exactly why I started thinking I was so far behind. One of my friends mother-in-law was always bragging that all her kids were potty trained by the time they were six months. So she is getting all kind of pressure from her husband and mother-in-law to potty train her 9 month old. She dosnt want to because she is afraid she will fail.

I thought, "Wow, I am behind, my kid is 19 months!"

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It would probably be a good idea to talk this over with your friend, sometimes a disapproving parent can put alot of pressure on a new mom.

By the time the potty training thing came along my mother had already convinced herself that my then 8 month old son would still be breastfeeding when he went off to college! This was after months of her insisting that he was going to starve to death because he did not eat solid food at age 3 weeks, which was when she started us.

My MIL was so freaked out about it she could not even discuss what is still referred to as my "prolonged breastfeeding" with me and she is an RN! She just told me it was upsetting my FIL, which I already knew was not true because I asked him. I was such a Hippie.

Even with my steadfast refusal and explaining years later my mom (and her MIL) tried to do the same thing with my sister. After all we, Their children "turned out OK". My parents where perfectly normal- seriously- but in the 50's normal included it being OK for a dad to take off his belt and "discipline" a kid in public or making a kid sit at the table for hours until he/she ate food they did not like.

Last thing, just so you all know, all my kids where weaned and potty trained before they went off to college.

Parenting is not a contest, it is more of an endurance test...

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Musings of a Good Father on a Bad Day

"There's nothing sadder than the childless couple. It breaks your heart to see them stretched out, relaxing around swimming pools in Florida and California, suntanned and miserable on the decks of boats, trotting off to enjoy Europe like fools- with money to spend, time to enjoy themselves and nothing to worry about.

Childless couples become so selfish and wrapped up in their own concerns that you feel sorry for them. They don't fight over the kids' discipline. They miss the fun of "doing without" for the child's sake. It's pathetic.

Everyone should have children. No one should be allowed to escape the wonderful experiences attached to each stage in the development of the young. The happy memories of those early years - saturated mattresses, waiting for sitters who don't show up, midnight asthma attacks, rushing to the emergency room of the hospital to get the kid's head stitched up.

Then comes the payoff - when the child grows from a little acorn into a real nut. What can equal the warm smile of a small lad with the sun glittering on $1,500 worth of braces - ruined by peanut brittle. Or the frolicking, carefree voices of 20 hysterical savages running amok at a birthday party.

How sad not to have children to brighten your cocktail parties - massaging potato chips into the rug and wrestling with the guests for the olives in their martinis. How empty is the home without the challenging problems that make for a well-rounded life - and an early breakdown. The end-of-day report from Mother, related like strategically placed blows to the temple; the tender, thoughtful discussions when the report card reveals that your senior son is a moron.

Children are worth every moment of anxiety, every sacrifice. You know it the first time you take your son hunting. He didn't mean to shoot you in the leg. Remember how he cried? How sorry he was? So disappointed you weren't a deer. Those are the memories a man treasures.

Think back to the night of romantic adventure, when your budding, beautiful daughter eloped with the village idiot. What childless couple ever shared in such a wonderful growing experience. Could a woman without children equal the strength and heroism of your wife when she tried to fling herself out of the bedroom window? Only a father could have the courage to stand by, ready to jump after her.

The childless couple lives in a vacuum. They try to fill their lonely lives with dinner dates, the theater, golf, tennis, swimming, civic affairs and trips all over the world. The emptiness of life without children is indescribable.

See what the years have done. He looks boyish, unlined and rested. She is slim, well-groomed and youthful. It isn't natural. If they had kids, they'd look like the rest of us - tired, gray, wrinkled and haggard. In other words, normal."

All I can say is....how true!!

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