Keeping It on the PT.
Abbie’s developmental milestones:
Run? Check.
Jump? Check.
Climb up and down stairs, chairs, and bookcases? Check.
Talk? Pass.
The next thing I see on the list is potty trained. We’ve been working on this skill off and on for more than half a year. I started taking an interest in potty training Abbie when I discovered that a neighbor boy who’s a few months older than Abbie was potty trained. Our neighbors set out his potty when he was about 18-months-old, he started using it that day, and he’s been potty trained ever since. Jerks.
Inspired by their success, we purchased a potty, set it out for Abbie, and watched her sit on it that day. Not that she deposited anything in the potty; she just sat on it. We’ve been stuck at this stage ever since. We’re not really in a hurry to potty train her, just responding to larger cues from society and relatives. I know plenty of children who aren’t potty trained by three, and I think Abbie will be one of those children. She does need to be potty trained for preschool, and if I want her to experience valuable social contact in a fun and dynamic learning environment that gets her out of my hair for a few hours a week,* we have a training deadline of next September.
The Internet has helpful checklists like this one to guide us in determining if she’s ready. She met most of those goals (like walking, having a regular bowel movement, and pulling pants up and down) months ago. A few items, like having words for urine and stool,** are still beyond her. Nevertheless, I was satisfied that she was ready enough, so we soldiered onward.
The first step is making sure she’s comfortable with the potty. As far as we can tell, she loves her potty, or she at least doesn’t object to it. We have two potties, one in the bathroom and one in the living room, and she’ll sit on either for a minute at a time with or without pants, and she’ll tote the living room potty about the house, sitting on it without us prompting her. She also likes playing with the waste cup, which sounds disgusting, but keep in mind that she’s never actually put any waste in the cup.
The next step is to encourage and reward good behavior. She already tolerates sitting on it, so we can move straight to encouraging her pee peeing in the cup. I found several ideas on rewarding her, such as stickers, candy, and letting her show the dog what she did.*** While the dog idea has potential, we opted for the stickers. Ellie purchased a few hundred butterfly stickers, affixed a few to a sheet of paper with the creative heading “Abbie’s Potty Stickers,” stuck the sheet to the refrigerator, and waited for her to eagerly piss the days away to fill her sheet.
A month later, the mostly untouched sheet fell on the floor, and we threw it away. Abbie never understood the pee pee-sticker connection. We still have the stickers ready for her, but we can’t encourage behavior she won’t do. Aside from the occasional dribble that’s probably an accident, she will not pee in the potty. She’ll pee pee in the bathtub while taking a bath, pee pee on the bathroom rug after standing up from the potty, and pee pee on the living room carpet while running away from us as we try to put a diaper on her, but not in the potty. No offer of songs, stickers, or dog can convince her otherwise.
A friend suggested that we use a timer to make her sit on the potty every 30 minutes. I tried this for about three hours one morning. I never got any pee pee in the cup, but I did get a few wet diapers and a pair of babies who were screamingly mad at being ignored for minutes at a time. She doesn’t give us any cues as to when she has to go, or if she does I miss them while I’m basking in my children’s love or at least working my butt off to keep complaining to a minimum.
I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s just not ready, and that’s okay. We’ll just keep encouraging her, and making her sit on the potty a couple times a day to see if she’ll do anything. The dog will be so proud when she does.
* I do.
** That one seems unfair anyway. Even if she could talk, I don’t know why she’d have words for those. It’s not like I’m standing with her over the toilet explaining “that’s pee pee. That’s poo poo. And that’s a hair that fell in the basin.” Although maybe I should…
*** Seriously.
Run? Check.
Jump? Check.
Climb up and down stairs, chairs, and bookcases? Check.
Talk? Pass.
The next thing I see on the list is potty trained. We’ve been working on this skill off and on for more than half a year. I started taking an interest in potty training Abbie when I discovered that a neighbor boy who’s a few months older than Abbie was potty trained. Our neighbors set out his potty when he was about 18-months-old, he started using it that day, and he’s been potty trained ever since. Jerks.
Inspired by their success, we purchased a potty, set it out for Abbie, and watched her sit on it that day. Not that she deposited anything in the potty; she just sat on it. We’ve been stuck at this stage ever since. We’re not really in a hurry to potty train her, just responding to larger cues from society and relatives. I know plenty of children who aren’t potty trained by three, and I think Abbie will be one of those children. She does need to be potty trained for preschool, and if I want her to experience valuable social contact in a fun and dynamic learning environment that gets her out of my hair for a few hours a week,* we have a training deadline of next September.
The Internet has helpful checklists like this one to guide us in determining if she’s ready. She met most of those goals (like walking, having a regular bowel movement, and pulling pants up and down) months ago. A few items, like having words for urine and stool,** are still beyond her. Nevertheless, I was satisfied that she was ready enough, so we soldiered onward.
The first step is making sure she’s comfortable with the potty. As far as we can tell, she loves her potty, or she at least doesn’t object to it. We have two potties, one in the bathroom and one in the living room, and she’ll sit on either for a minute at a time with or without pants, and she’ll tote the living room potty about the house, sitting on it without us prompting her. She also likes playing with the waste cup, which sounds disgusting, but keep in mind that she’s never actually put any waste in the cup.
The next step is to encourage and reward good behavior. She already tolerates sitting on it, so we can move straight to encouraging her pee peeing in the cup. I found several ideas on rewarding her, such as stickers, candy, and letting her show the dog what she did.*** While the dog idea has potential, we opted for the stickers. Ellie purchased a few hundred butterfly stickers, affixed a few to a sheet of paper with the creative heading “Abbie’s Potty Stickers,” stuck the sheet to the refrigerator, and waited for her to eagerly piss the days away to fill her sheet.
A month later, the mostly untouched sheet fell on the floor, and we threw it away. Abbie never understood the pee pee-sticker connection. We still have the stickers ready for her, but we can’t encourage behavior she won’t do. Aside from the occasional dribble that’s probably an accident, she will not pee in the potty. She’ll pee pee in the bathtub while taking a bath, pee pee on the bathroom rug after standing up from the potty, and pee pee on the living room carpet while running away from us as we try to put a diaper on her, but not in the potty. No offer of songs, stickers, or dog can convince her otherwise.
A friend suggested that we use a timer to make her sit on the potty every 30 minutes. I tried this for about three hours one morning. I never got any pee pee in the cup, but I did get a few wet diapers and a pair of babies who were screamingly mad at being ignored for minutes at a time. She doesn’t give us any cues as to when she has to go, or if she does I miss them while I’m basking in my children’s love or at least working my butt off to keep complaining to a minimum.
I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s just not ready, and that’s okay. We’ll just keep encouraging her, and making her sit on the potty a couple times a day to see if she’ll do anything. The dog will be so proud when she does.
* I do.
** That one seems unfair anyway. Even if she could talk, I don’t know why she’d have words for those. It’s not like I’m standing with her over the toilet explaining “that’s pee pee. That’s poo poo. And that’s a hair that fell in the basin.” Although maybe I should…
*** Seriously.
posted by Matt at
11:17 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home