Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Secrets to Toilet Training Success?

I’d like to tell you all that I’m so busy commenting on all the NaNo blogs that I just can’t cram enough hours in my day to update here, but that’s just plain not true. I spent a couple of days dragging myself around all sick-like, and I went to bed at 8:30 last night, so I almost feel human today. I’m making two pots of chicken soup right now. One so that I have broth to use for stuffing, and one so that I can eat it with matzah balls and maybe get better already.

Anyway.

My friend M. and her family spent Shabbat at our house, which was fabulous for so many reasons. At one point, while discussing D., M. said, “I know you think there’s more to it, but so much of what he does is just plain three years old.” I have been trying very hard to internalize that sentence. We talked about one of the reasons that it’s hard for me to do that – the fact that D. is, um, really big. And so, while intellectually I know that he is just three, the sight of this extremely large child fumbling with his shoes or putting his pants on backwards is, you know, a little bothersome.

D. is talking a lot these days, and I am understanding a great deal of it. It just comes back to the same whining you always hear from me: I don’t want to be the mom in denial who says, “Hey! Look! My 12-year-old is finally toilet trained, so we think he can be mainstreamed now.” But I also don’t want to be the mom who says, “Yes, I know he can split an atom, but do you think he’s well-rounded?”

Speaking of toilet training, we are so not. Not even close. Not even getting close to getting close. So it should come as NO SURPRISE to you that I am going to suggest that we use the long weekend as a chance to try to toilet train D. Any tips? Besides, you know, DON’T? It’s this whole boy thing that throws me. Standing? Sitting? What? Yeah.

Mr. WG has to work till 2 p.m. today, so I think we’ll start The Great Toileting Adventure after D’s nap.

Also, I’ve been inspired by in awe of completely unable to come up with anything to write about, so I figured I’d just copy Schnozz and tell you all the story of how I met Mr. WG. It’s a pretty good one. So this weekend, you'll find updates on how toilet training is totally not progressing and How the WG Family Came to Be.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When it was time to train my son, age 2.5, we just went straight from diapers to underpants. He has a great bladder so he almost never had more than 4 accidents a day and by day 23 he had achieved total training. The two things that made the biggest impact, IMO, were the fact that he DID NOT like the feeling of being wet. Along with the fact that when he had an accident I made sure that HE removed the soiled clothes, HE put on his dry clothes, and HE took the soiled items to the machine to be washed. I believe that it made him feel responsible and helped him to realize that it was his deal and not mine.

All that to say that kids are all different and I wish you the best of luck!! I hope this helped at all!

Oh, we still do "night pants" (the disposible overnight ones) at our house because he just isn't staying dry through the night yet (age 3.5). This way he doesn't wake up in wet sheets, (yuck!) and who wants to change the sheets every single day?

fluentsoul said...

I agree with Sabrina about the underpants. We tried lots of things with my son (he was 3), and he learned HOW to go potty, but it wasn't until we let him wear underwear and have some accidents that he really started to figure out WHEN he was supposed to go. He prefers standing. Letting him stand was a big motivator for him. But man, I get tired of cleaning that bathroom floor. :-)

Best of luck!