So for the last week our house has had the pleasant smell of urine and disinfectant spray. Yes, we are potty training... No one ever mentions this stage, milestone, adventure in the parenting books, or shared it in parenting experiences. There's a reason- it sucks. If the first sentence of this post doesn't give you an idea to the pleasures of this family event, (yes, it takes the whole family to get one little person committed to this new task) then maybe the rest of the post will.
My beautiful, amazing, and brilliant daughter is 21 months old (not yet 2 yrs- for those of you without kids and don't think of age in months). For over 4 months she has been letting me know when she needs a diaper change (we use clothe so its pretty instantaneous when it needs to be changed). The exact time to start potty training is another thing that isn't plainly written out in the parenting books. If the subject is mentioned in books or word of mouth it pretty much sounds like this, "every child is different and will be ready at different times, even within one family." No one ever mentions the second part of that phrase, "every parent is different and will be ready to tackle this task at different times too." I've found that in most families the child becomes ready for this before the parent. This is because as parents we never really think about this milestone until it's upon us, and when it is, we'd really rather not deal with it because it takes time and effort on our part. It's not like a child learning to roll over, or crawl, or even walk, where most of the parents job is to make sure nothing surrounding the child can injure them and to just sit there saying "you can do it! You're so big! Yay!" No, with potty training you have to chase, grab, wipe down, wipe up, flush, spray, and I'm sure many more things I can't think of at the moment.
I have had the 'pleasure' of potty training other children in my life, so I had a clue as to what it requires before this week began. The children I've potty trained before have all been over the age of 3 and knew they had control over the situation (meaning they could refuse to "go" when put on the potty and wait to pee in their pants just to spite me). Since I've been told for months now when a diaper change is ready, I figured I might as well get this over with before she's old enough to realize she could control the situation. Scientifically speaking, once a child can walk well, they have the muscle strength for this task, they simply need to be taught how to control those muscles. So really I could have started this like 7 months ago. But that wasn't happening. ;-)
Anyway...
Yes, it's winter, yes it's below freezing out, no we're not going anywhere in this insane weather; might as well do something productive while we hole up inside. Plus she looks pretty awesome in the legwarmers I made her so she can stay warm while keeping the bum bare.
So far it's been 6 days. Six long, laundry filled, disinfectant spray days. But I can say with pride that she is getting it. With any new milestone in a child's life it takes time and practice to master a new activity. She fully understands what I tell her. She just needs to experience the peeing all over oneself (more than a few times) so the next day she can stop mid stream for me to rush her to the potty. At this point we're still having accidents, but there have been a couple incidents where she "uh-ohs," and does a tippy toe dance follwed by me grabbing her and getting her "in position" before any spillage. Maybe tomorrow she'll make it to the potty mid stream on her own, or recognize the full bladder sensation and make it to the potty on her own before an accident occurs. I think these are reasonable hopes, I mean, she's already pooped in the potty a few times this first week and has started waking up dry from naps. Those are both pretty awesome since I wasn't even planning those yet!
Yeah, she's a young learner in today's world, but based on man's history in the learning of this lesson I'd say she's right on track.
