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C is For Co-Operation: Potty Training the Hard Way
Potty training is a necessity. It is not particularly fun. It is not particularly aromatic. But it is necessary. A three year old - not just any three-year-old mind you but one who is already big for his age- in diapers is not a charmingly cute sight. It's odd. He looks at least four. He needs to be in undies. I know that. His parents know that. So why am I the only one trying to get him to aim and squirt? I think that parents who are working feel rushed and feel as though the time they spend with their child is already not enough, never mind the hassle of taking out the extra time to get them to the bathroom for a number of false alarms. It is just soooo much easier to let them go in their diapers and get on with playing. That's all good and fine, but when he was already pooping in the toilet for the nanny at age two and a half, my thoughts would be to run with it. Get him excited about what he's doing. Twice he pooped for me and then BOOM never pooped for me again. Not in his diaper or the toilet. He figured (I keep telling you kids are smart) that mom and dad let me just do my dirty business in my diaper, so I'll just wait till they get home and poop then. Communication is so vital in the potty training stage. When there are two separate sets of caregivers for a child, they have to be on the same page about most everything. If pooping in the toilet is what he does in the day, then pooping in the toilet it shall be at night. Simple. Potty training is an important step in your child's life, a major one. It is a step towards independence and personal growth. It is something the child can do on their own, and do it well. It is something everyone should congratulate and applaud. And if the toilet is his receptacle during the day, then there is no reason why it shouldn't be at night. When I first attempted toilet training with George it always seemed to be when we were spending the afternoon at my house. And due to the fact that his first positive experience was in MY bathroom, it became stuck in his head that he only had to poop in the toilet at MY house. It took awhile to convince him that all toilets were the same and that all the stuff inside ended up in the same place (the poop party). I'm not sure how convincing I was considering any and all poop action abruptly ended for my 9 and a half-hours a day with him. Like I said, diapers are easier and mom and dad let him do it, so who was I to argue? Skip ahead six months. Dad is out of town. Mom is out of town. I figure HA, I have him overnight, he'll HAVE to poop for me. No chance. I did, however, make him wear the pull-ups that have been sitting in his closet collecting dust for the past six months and told him they were just like undies and that you can't pee or poop in them. So he didn't. He waited until naptime when I put a diaper on him. As far as pooping? As soon as mom walked in the door the next evening - Whoosh - into the dining room and behind his chair he flew. I'm sure he felt relieved. So my first attempts were unsuccessful. No biggie. There were still four days before the dad was to return so back to the pull-up scheme I went. I was slowly growing more and more fed up because anything I was attempting during the day was being erased in the evening. Regardless, we put on the pull-ups and I guess he remembered my mantra from the past few days (if you have to pee, come tell me, if you have to pee, come tell me) because out of the blue he ran up to me and said in a hurried voice, I have to pee. Off we went like a bolt of lightening and stood poised over the cold, gray bowl, aiming and waiting, waiting and aiming. After a few false starts, a stream appeared and I felt like an idiot, sitting in the floor of my bathroom, holding back his shirt so as not to get the yucks all over it, grinning like I won the lottery and feeling so proud of this child who wasn't even mine, for doing something so utterly fabulous yet so commonly natural to everyone else who was just a touch older. I squealed with delight and gave him a huge kiss and we waved it goodbye as he proudly flushed for the very first time. That was yesterday. I wondered to myself on the way to work if he had told his mom when he had to poop or if she even bothered to ask. I dreaded hearing what she had to say because I feared the worst. And it came true. "I don't think I did that good in the potty training department last night. I hope I haven't erased everything you did yesterday." That makes two of us. But good, old, dependable, reliable George. We threw on some pull-ups and headed off to the library. "Do you have to go pee before we go?" Nope. Okay. We were about to leave the library. "Do you have to go pee before we go?" Nope. Okay. Tuesday's we spend lunch time at my mom's house and as we were just about ready to leave, he said, "I think I better go pee before we leave." So we ran to the bathroom and indeed, he did go pee. My mom was excited for him and I could hear her from the kitchen saying "Good boy!" which, after quite a lengthy flow, turned into "Good Lord!" She thought perhaps it was me, but I assured her that it was ALL him! (To which he received smarties as a take-home bonus fore having such a good pee!!) So now we are at the present. He is napping with a diaper on (we still have yet to master the nap time peeing) but he is fully aware that he can and will be peeing in the toilet from now on. I will have a little talk with him about letting mom take him to the bathroom and get across the fact that I'm not the only one he can pee freely with. But it is high time, I suppose, that I had a little talk with the mom too. She needs to remember to ask him every once in awhile (as I do) if he needs to go pee, be as persistent as I am, and be as reaffirming when he does go. If the parents and the nanny take the same approach, then both involved parties should achieve the same results. And if it happens to be the nanny who initiates the ordeal and creates the style of approach to use, then so be it. Whatever works. Just be sure, for something this important, that you are all on the same page. Or should I say, same sheet of toilet paper!!
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