23 February 2010

Define Successful

We decided, what with Josh being home 4 days in a row, that President's weekend would be a good time to give potty training a whirl. We figured the "nakey bum" route would be our best bet, so Friday morning, we took off their diapers told them if they had to go potty, they had to use the toilet. Simple enough, right?

It was a somewhat stressful first morning. Zeke cried for a solid 5 minutes because he wanted a "biaper" on. Deacon, however, was very pleased to be not only pantsless, but diaperless as well. By the end of the day though, Zeke had pretty much figured it out, he even pooped on the little toilet I set up in the living room during movie time (I'm no fool, I know there's no chance of them going to the bathroom to go to the bathroom when the TV is on). Deacon, however, had had 3 accidents that day, the first involving poop, which I could smell, but could not find. Josh finally found it after I went on about the smell enough.

But now I feel we're in sort of a stalemate. Zeke will use either the little toilet or the actual "big potty" to pee. He has yet to poop again in either one. He LOVES the little toilet though, and I had to move it into the bathroom because otherwise he would just sit on it all. day. long. Seriously, all day. Deacon has yet to do much of anything in either toilet. He's gone twice, I think, but he's happy to just sit there, reading his books and singing his songs. We've tried putting them in underpants, to get used to the idea of them, but Zeke pees in them. We still put them in diapers for naptime and bedtime because, well, because we don't think they're fulling grasping the concept, and we're waiting for them to show more awareness, I guess.
Now, I know that Deacon is still a bit young, so I'm not expecting too much from him. I cheer when he does actually use the toilet, but the fact that he waits until he has a diaper on doesn't really frustrate me. In fact, it proves to me that he has really good bowel control since he's able to hold it for however long he's nakie for. But he isn't even 3 yet, so I'm not rushing him.

What frustrates us most, I think, is Zeke's insistance on wearing diapers. The kid literally cheers when it's time to put diapers back on. He is getting better about not crying when he's not "allowed" to wear one, but he still gets WAY too excited about putting one back on at the end of the day. I know it's something we just need to keep going with, but how do we get him to understand the concepts behind it all better?

So, part of me feels like it's been a good thing, and we've been successful in that they are practicing exercising control over their bowels. They enjoy using the toilet (our water bill will probably be a bit higher this month than normal) even if they don't use the toilet. They are staying dry more often through naptimes. But then part of me feels like, if Zeke can figure all of this out so quickly, why can't he grasp the rest of it? What am I missing/not seeing/grasping myself?

But that's where we are right now. When we're home, we're running around pantsless. When we're sleeping or out on the town, we're in diapers. Is that it? Am I sending conflicting messages by putting them in diapers when we go out/sleep because I don't want to deal with the inevitable messes being diaperless/in underpants will make? Does this post make any sense at all? My mind has started wandering as it's closing in on the end of naptime, so I'm not even sure what I'm saying anymore. Anyone have any advice they'd like to share?

3 comments:

Embrace the Circus said...

First off, I am no potty-training expert. But here are some thoughts, for what they're worth, which is NOT MUCH.

- It's time consuming (and often frustrating) no matter how or when you do it. Remember to give yourself some grace. (That's like my parenting mantra of late.)
- We treat day and night training differently. So, I think pull-ups or diapers for nap and nighttime are no big deal. My theory is that sleep is about the most important thing I can do for the kids, and I won't mess with it. Once they're day trained, night will follow. (It usually just takes a couple more months.)
- I don't know if it would help motivate your boys, but one thing that helps Madeline is that we have a small stack of super-cool princess panties. She puts one pair on at the beginning of the day. Once that pair is wet or dirty, though, she has to wear the plain, old white training panties until the next day, when she gets a new princess pair. Princesses are like gold here, so that's some big motivation for her. We generally only need one (maybe, two) pair of plain old panties.

Hang in there! (Sorry this is so long -- I feel your pain, friend!)

JStar said...

Hey Beth,
I'll put in my two cents here...

When I started training with Sammie, I noticed that she was much better during the first half of the day. I would take her out on short errands in the morning with panties on. She could hold it for a long time! I would always ask her if she needed to go while we were out, and then of course we would try once we got home. I don't think she ever had any accidents during those mornings out running errands. I think it helped her to get used to wearing the panties when we left the house. I think it was Jenn Wake who encouraged me to just go for it and realize that there could be accidents and you just deal with it. I think she told us a story about Deana at the PX peeing in the aisle. But anyway....

We recently reverted back to pull-ups at night time for the Samster. She would have accidents at night about half the time. She just wouldn't wake up when she had to go. I realized that it was no big deal for her to wear a pull-up at night time still. What is funny is that now she is back to wearing pull-ups (which she refused to wear again at first) she wakes up at night to go potty, and she's dry in the morning! What's up with that?

Anyway, I second Kristen that potty training takes time and patience. Nakie bum around the house was what we did as well! And if Deacon likes to sit on the pot and read his books, and if Zeke wants to sit on the potty all day, why not?

Oh, we used the good ole bribing method as well. Such as, an m&m for doing it in the potty. You can decide if you are a bribing kind of mom or not. I'm not sure if I liked doing it that way, but it did help!

Good luck and stick with it!

summer said...

I'm in your shoes girl!
OK here's my experience.
1. In general boys take longer, in general.
2. We went through a lot of different transitions ie: new baby, moving back from Germany etc so I didn't start training Hawkin till 3+ and it was fairly quick and easy and the night time thing came right along with it.
3. Soren learned right @ 3 or a month before. Again, fairly quick and easy. Night time came right along with it.
4. we're still working on Kristian.

SO here's what you can learn from us.
Everyone's different. You can count on your kids getting it eventually. Do what works for you.

My method was to try it and if we have some accidents that day we go back to diapers, try again in a week or more then one day you try it and seriously, it just clicks and they get it!
We did do pull ups at night just to avoid accidents but after a few weeks of dry pull ups we just switched to undwear all together.
My girlfriend tells me, every kid has their currency! MnM's or whatever!
Good luck and don't stress!