Friday, March 16, 2012

Potty Training - It's for the Birds!

Potty training.  I loathe it.  I have absolutely NO patience for anything potty related.  I do not can not help a child to the potty 50 million times a day, clean up 25 mishaps, wash all the laundry such occurrences create and maintain a sensible level of patience and mental stability.  Now that that is clear we'll move on...
I have 4 children.  Two of them are trained.  One of them should be.  And the other might could start trying if I had the patience for it.  Here are my kids potty stories:
M - M is my oldest child.  She began asking to potty when she was 14 months old.  Yes, asking.  Saying she was very verbal is an understatement.  She began talking when she was 4 months old and she has never stopped (she is almost 13 now.)  At 14 months, she knew what she was doing and had all the language needed to verbally communicate what she was doing.  I would let her go when she wanted, but at 14 months I still had her in diapers.  Between the ages of 14 months and 2 1/2 she would have spurts of pottying.  She would wear panties and have no accidents for a week to two weeks at a time, and then revert to diapers when she would have an accident and spend 20 minutes crying and condemning herself even though I was reassuring her and telling her it was okay.  Sometimes she would refuse to potty at home, but would ask to visit EVERY potty outside of our home - eventually I cut her off.  I mean, I had no patience for maneuvering every public potty when she wouldn't even potty at home.  She stayed dry at night, but refused to potty in the morning saving it for her diaper.  A couple months before she turned 3, I no longer had patience for her morning antic.  I literally begged her to go to the potty - you know you just can not MAKE a child go - and she went in her diaper.  So, I changed her diaper and put panties on her.  I told her NO MORE DIAPERS - EVER!  And she cried sobbed for 10 minutes.  She has been pottying ever since.
A - A is my second daughter.  I bought a potty for A when she was roughly 18 months old.  She was a tad curious, but only because she thought it was a neat looking contraption.  She had no desire to actually use it for it's intended purpose.  Fast forward until she was nearly 3.  At this point I decided she had to potty train because age 3 was going to be my cut off for using diapers - after all, big sister had her diapers taken away before turning 3 right?  Let's just say that A tried, bless her heart.  She wore disposable pull-ups for a very l-o-n-g time with almost every one containing an accident.  She just didn't get it.  Eventually she was in undies (age 4ish) but still had an accident nearly every day.  *sigh*   She is still not dry most nights, and she is 8.  Obviously there is a physical thing happening here and she just wasn't ready before she turned 3.
N - N is my only son.  When he was just turning 2 he was constantly taking off his sposies and complaining that they were wet even though they were dry as far as I could tell.  I would actually take them, hide them in a drawer and put them on him later in the day.  But he soon caught on to that.  We were wasting money left and right on sposies.  He began asking to potty.  I literally tried put him off for a couple of weeks - remember I loathe potty training.  I am not kidding.  Yep, I put him off.  And I had a good reason.  It was football season and I didn't want to be rushing to the potty every time we went somewhere.  But, he was fascinated with the ugly porta-potties at the ball field.  He.insisted.on.going.every.game.  It was an all out kicking whining fit until I took him kind of thing.  So, each ballgame we would go into the gross porta-potty and 'potty'.  Agh.  Well, he decided he wanted to potty at home.  So, with all signs pointing to potty readiness I gave in.  I took him to stuff mart and let him pick underwear and a potty.  Success!  He went potty, wore undies and stayed dry for 2 weeks!  Then one morning he got out of bed and said, "I'm not going to potty any more."  (That is a literal quote.)  And he hasn't.  He is almost 3 1/2 now.  Yes, I've tried to get him to go potty!  I even take his diapers away from time to time.  He just doesn't care - remember he is not going to potty any more.  He meant it.  I use cloth diapers for him now.  Spending money on endless disposables is not a concern - the cloth diapers are already paid for and reusable.  The messes are in his diapers and not on my floors.  Do I worry that others will look down on me - or him - for not pottying.  Nah.  I'm 40 years old.  The opinions of others just do not matter to me much any more.  I do have cloth pocket training pants for him.  When we go to church he wears his trainers (stuffed with an extra insert) so if he gets the sudden desire to potty again he can pull them down and have at it just like all the other little boys in his class that are probably potty trained by now.
K - K is my babe.  She just turned 18 months.  She often tells me when she needs a clean diaper.  Ha - she will even tell me when N needs a clean diaper!  N gets aggravated at her.  You see, my sniffer doesn't work very well;  I tend to not smell things unless they are brought to my attention so when she tattles on him he has to endure another diaper change which he hates.  LOL   I am in no hurry to train her.  K will begin using the potty when K asks to go and not a moment sooner.  If I'm lucky K and N will both begin going potty at the same time.  Two birds with one stone.

Do you have a late trainer?  How do you feel about moms who let their children train late?  Have you ever had to eat your words when your 2nd or later child didn't potty train as easily as the first?

1 comment:

Maria said...

Potty training IS for the birds, LOL.