So Seporah will be 3 Dec 30th. This means she will be done with nursery and moving up into primary. She will be the VERY youngest child there due to her birthday. Most children who go to primary are potty trained, the teachers like it that way. However this whole potty training thing, not going so hot. She takes off the diaper and the shorts, she sits on the potty, she reads the potty books, uses the toilet paper, flushes the potty, washes her hands and helps get dressed. But is there any poo-poos or pee-pees in the potty? No, nada, zip, zero. In 12 months, she has pooed on the potty once because Dad saw she was going to go and put her on it and that totally freaked her out. I don’t think she has a clue what’s going on. We (almost entirely Steven) did intense potty training last week without any results, except huge temper tantrums about having to sit on the potty AGAIN.
So I thought I’d try it Sarah S.’s way. This way you need a doll that pottys in a toy potty. Off to Walmart, holy crap, a peeing and pooping doll cost $67?!?!?! And you have to buy the dolly food for it to work, dolly food refills costing $6 each. I was like stop me before I have a heart attack. No, not spending that kind of money on a doll, craig’s list, darn, nothing there. So back to square one.
I had heard people say it took them 2 years to potty train a kid and I didn’t understand why. Now I do, potty training not so much fun. I guess I’m glad I use cloth diapers, because my kid still poops like crazy and disposables cost way too much for me to continue to be buying them. I still change 12 diapers a day (and when they both get sick with diarrhea watch out, it gets up to 30 or more). I swear I deserve a medal for that (Steven too) or at least a merit badge. www.mamameritbadges.com (ha, are these not the greatest!)
Seriously though, I really think she’s going to primary in diapers, I wonder if that will be an issue? I mean I’ve taught sunbeams on more than one occasion and I’ve never had a kid in diapers. I’m wondering if they won’t let her go. If they’ll just keep her in nursery. Any thoughts?
She won’t graduate from high school in diapers. It will work out. They will let her go to sunbeams, potty-trained or not, unless you say she needs to stay in nursery and you can talk them into it. hmmm.
Hey, I can’t make it any better, but I can tell you it happens for each kiddo when he or she is ready, and before that, it’s just the parents who get potty trained. I AM betting though, that Felicity will be much easier (BTW: in case you haven’t heard the stories, you were a BREEZE after your big brother)
Hang in there. Hey, also, does this mean you are getting more for your money on the wash and wear diapers? Something bright.
Love you,
Mom
Maria,
Instead of buying an expensive potty training doll, you can buy an ordinary doll and simulate going potty with a plastic syringe. I hear it works well.
I just bought an old plastic doll from goodwill and am putting a hole in the mouth (it has a hole at the bottom). I’m not about to put more money into the last baby.
No worries. She’ll get there. My SIL just got here little girl potty trained (She’s the same age as Seporah) by sewing little Wizard of Oz pictures on her underwear. She doesn’t want to pee on Dorthy or the Good Witch Glenda.
Maria,
What my mom did to get me potty trained:
Bought a pack of really cool Strawberry Shortcake “Big Girl” underwear. Showed them to me. Promptly put them up high and said “Only Big girls who go potty in the toilet get to wear them.” It worked! I wanted to be cool! 🙂 It’s all about having the proper motivation! -Nicole
So true about the proper motivation. Problem is when it doesn’t seem like they care about anything. My mom used m&ms, skittles and marshmallows, train my brothers. Ben and I have used this reward system for our kids too. The key is to start rewarding yourself and anyone else who goes to the bathroom at your house. (Get good little candy for yourself because you will get lots of rewards.) And make a big todo. When Ben would go to the bathroom we would call attention to it and I would reward and praise the living daylights out that grown man and it was the same for me. And you should mention all the people that are so proud of you for going to the bathroom. If she acts like she doesn’t care just don’t worry about it. She just doesn’t know what kind of game you’re playing yet. Give it a month. Eventually she’ll want that candy and the attention that you are giving each other for going potty. Really with kids this age it’s all about the head games. You will do and say all sorts of things you never even dreamed you’d say or do.
On the other hand you could potty train Felicity at 18 months and once she sees that Felicity is getting a ton of attention she’ll potty train pretty quick.
You guys are doing great! You really are. Something else to think about, she’s a pretty poopy girl, and training to poop in the potty can be harder than learning to pee in it. Read through that book if you can get your hands on it. Even if you don’t do it exactly like they say, it does have a lot of useful information that you can transfer to your way of doing it.
I’m cheering away for you!!