Saturday, August 30, 2008

Potty Training: Take Two.

After I started potty training Eli two months ago, a few of my twin mom friends, inspired by my bravery, started too with their kids. Some are doing great and are pretty much diaper free. Some are getting there and doing better every day. And some of the children basically told their moms to shove it up their ass. (And I think you know who you are moms.)

One of them got started this weekend and told us all about her strategy at the last get together. She decided to go with the naked route and is home during this long weekend with naked kids, rolled up rugs and lots of drinks. I read some of her notes from this approach and got re-inspired to try again.

So this morning, I took off the girl's jammies and didn't put anything else on them. And amazingly, Miranda took to it right away. Not only did she have a day with only 1 pee accident, she asked to go pee twice and sort of (started in the living room, finished in the bathroom) pooped in the potty too! It was stunning. Like some switch was flipped and she got it. Elizabeth did well too. She can hold it longer than Miranda so she didn't go every time we all went in for "potty time!" But she had no accidents (except the big poop she took in the backyard). I did some reading on the whole 'not wanting to poop in the toilet thing' and felt a lot better about it. Apparently, there are 4 and 5 year olds wearing pull ups still because they don't poop in the potty. They are potty trained, but ask for a diaper when it is time to poop. I hope to hell that isn't my situation in 2 years, but it did make me feel better about my not quite 2 year old not quite getting it.

The only downside to naked time (and I guess it depends on who's perspective you are looking at it from), but the girls tend to fondle themselves a lot when left naked. They like to get wipes and wipe their butts too. Sometimes Eli wipes Miranda's butt and vice versa. And throughout the day Eli tells us about her penis. Parker reminds her that she doesn't have one, but she brings it up again a couple hours later.

1 comment:

Lori said...

Any parent who allows the "not pooping in the toilet" to go on at 4 or 5, when their child is asking for a diaper is just plain ridiculous. Come on. I do not want to be judgemental, and I am sure there are some kids behind the curve in development, but please. If your child can ask for a diaper to poop, then he has enough of a rational thought process to master the poop in the toilet task. Period.