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Potty training and "the myth of readiness"Submitted by Emile on Fri, 03/02/2007 - 4:40pm.
I’ve been getting progressively more worried about the fact that my efforts to potty train my 3yo, Tommy, over the past six months have resulted only in negative progress. When we started, he was willing to sit on his potty once a day while I read a story. Now he runs away screaming when I suggest it. It has turned into a classic power struggle. All the conventional wisdom I’ve picked up from my peers and those “what to expect” books and their ilk has told me to give it a rest. When I told a neighbor I was making an effort to get him sitting on the potty, she said “why bother? There’s no point in trying until he’s ready”. But he will be 4 in less than six months. He is too big to sit comfortably on the potty I bought over a year ago. He has been dry overnight for at least a year and a half. I personally am “ready” to say, fuck this, he has to get out of diapers now. We went to the big central library the other day and while my two boys zipped around the room and knocked books on the floor, I desperately grabbed a dozen or so books off the potty training shelf, and only had a chance to see what I’d picked up when we got home. I think I checked out just about every picture book there is on the subject, and ironically, Tommy loves them. He just doesn’t seem to make a connection with what’s on the page and his own pee and poop. Another book I got was called “Diaper Free Before 3”, and I have to say it gave me the jolt I was looking for. This book goes against the grain of most parenting books by advocating early training -- starting to sit the baby on the pot as soon as he or she can sit up, so that they just come to accept it as part of a normal routine. This is the way it has been done for centuries, and still is in most places where plastic diapers aren’t readily available. The author gives some dramatic statistics about the rise in the age of potty training since the availability of disposables, and points out that the notion of delaying the training until the child is “ready” arose at the more or less same time disposables came on the market, and that diaper manufacturers have actively supported this philosophy. She also says that only a decade ago, she had to write prescriptions for diapers for children over 35 pounds. They weren’t usually available on supermarket shelves because they were considered to be medical supplies meant for kids with disabilities. This is also the first book I’ve read on potty training that actually mentions the environmental impact of all those disposable diapers. This honesty makes me trust the author when she says that the idea that toilet training trauma has long term psychological impact is also a myth, and boy do I really need to believe that given the hysteria Tommy displays when I gently tell him it’s potty time. The course I’ve decided to follow is just to let him go diaper-less, and hopefully the discomfort of peeing and pooping himself will eventually overcome his resistance, because obviously holding him down by force on the potty is still out of the question. I just really, really wish our rented apartment didn’t have wall-to-wall carpeting...Maybe I should invest in some of those products for getting “pet odors” out of carpets? I also wish we had used cloth diapers from the beginning. I thought it was out of the question because we use a laundromat. If only I’d been on hipmama when Tommy was born. Now I know they’re not that scary and impossible. Damn. I feel so angry that we have come to this. Tommy is learning the alphabet song and can name the planets and jump over a skip rope. If I had gotten him used to the potty before he was old enough to resist it, he would never be in the position of being miserable and embarrassed because he has just made a big dump on the floor, poor kid. Wish me luck mamas, please. I was just gonna say, that when you wash them, the best way is to do either a cold wash, or soak first, and then do a hot wash. That way, they won't stain. Lapina is a mama on this site who is super cloth diapering super star if you need any help with washing/info too. She makes all her own stuff. Mine is so wishy washy about the bathhroom. Sometimes he will spontaneously go in there himself, do his business and even get out the toilet brush and clean the bowl for good measure & sometimes just the mere suggestion of actually going on the toilet will bring on a ridiculous tantrum. He wears fuzzy bunz at night and has usually soaked them in his sleep minus a few dry mornings ( much to my surprise). At home he wears underpants and at daycare I have started bringing him in pull ups. He just turned three. i keep hearing that the "magic" happens at three. We'll see. Funny, but mine takes great joy in cleaning up puddles too. Good luck. My friend just took this route with her 3 year old daughter and gave her a little speech that started it all--something like "X, I know that you are a big girl now. I've seen you writing your name and you know how to put your own clothers on now and you are really good at using a knife and fork. You are going to wear underwear from now on and I know that you might have some accidents and that we might need to change your clothes but that's o.k. It's time for you to learn this and i know that you can do this." and sure enough, "X" toilet trained reasonably quickly. I do it with my kid (19months) all the time and we have carpeting. He usually cleans up his own mess though. hehe. Sort of. I was at the cloth diapering shop by my house a couple of months ago, and a mama came in who was trying to potty train her child. He was over 2, but I'm not sure by how much. She had used disposables the whole time, and so she was sure that he wasn't using the potty because of that: he couldn't feel that he was wet. So, she was getting set up with a sort of late cloth diapering/potty training system. She bought a couple of bummis covers, the pull up kind and a bunch of packages of big kid underwear. She was just going to put the big kid underwear with the bummis pull up over it, so that he could feel when he got wet. I agree with the woman in that book about the disposable diaper companies. They have pull-ups now for kids that are 6 years old. It's a big industry. It's in their benefit to make sure that the children don't feel an ounce of wetness when they pee. It's in their interest that our kids don't recognize cause and effect. Wishing you luck mama. "The Universe Molds Itself To Prove Your Beliefs" with the carpet? i've been thinking about diaper free for paity (10 months), but i worry about the mess because it's carpet...and we're renting. she has a potty in the livingroom, but i dont put her on it becuase i have to keep her clothes on to keep her warm, and it just seems like a hassle. i'm not looking for her to train, but just to go diaper free, and train sooner. he's pooped on the carpet twice, and it was really easy to pick up (in fact, he did it himself and put it in the toilet...though he missed a little bit, but it was easy to pick up with a pptowel). Then I just use a little bit of hydrogen peroxide and some 7th generation cleaner to wash up anywhere that he pees/poops. Our house is really small, so maybe this is more manageable because of it, and we also have linoleum in the kitchen, where he tends to go. In fact, he's peed off the kitchen chairs the most, I think. hehe. I showed him when he pees where the washcloths are, and he usually goes and gets a washcloth and puts it on the pee and hops up and down and then goes and throws it in the diaper pail. (I think this is how he figured out the poop thing, but he just somehow knew to put it in the toilet). I think it's good that he recognizes that if he goes potty, that he has to clean it up, so that he's making that leap: going potty means that I have to do some work. I dunno though. I think we have a long way to go still. "The Universe Molds Itself To Prove Your Beliefs" That sounds totally managable!! we live in a small place (not many places for the bits to hide) with lino in the kitchen. i'm gonna start that soon. you're so inspirational sq! potty training my two year old. About 2 or weeks ago or so my daycard told me that starting Monday Owen will be going to daycare without diapers, 8 changes of clothes and underware (not training pants). Well...that's what we're doing and he's doing fine. To be honest I don't know that he makes the connection between I have to go to the bathroom and now I need to tell mama...but if I put him on his potty frequently enough he doesn't have accidents. They tell me that at daycard he tells them when he has to go. I'm not sure whether I believe it or not but he has the same clothes I dressed him in when he comes home so... Owen didn't much like the potty at first either but now...when he wakes up in the morning I let him drink his juice while he's sitting on the potty. Also, when he comes home from school in the afternoon I let him watch Lola (Plaza Sesamo for all you gringas) while he's sitting on the potty. The women at the daycare (who I consider to be fabulous and very professional) maintain that if I put him on the potty frequently enough for a long enough length of time he will be trained in about 6 months... Last weekend Owen was sitting on his potty in the parking lot of a market we were at... good luck mama! "No matter how cynical you get it's impossible to keep up," Jane Wagner I've taught Sunday school, ages infant to 3 1/2 for 8 yrs. I think it's a great idea to let him go diaper-less. Maybe he just has to learn the cause and effect. Good luck! |
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it was pretty halarious!
Thanks everyone who has written with advice support and commiseration. Thanks especially SQ, for the training pants suggestion. I think they will help Tommy a lot. I've ordered some online after trying unsuccessfully to find them at Target ("Diaper Free Before 3" said they're available there -- NOT), and getting depressed by the long, long aisle with row upon row of disposable diapers. The shelves with the "advanced" feel and learn ones were particularly annoying. Why do we need technological advances to "feel and learn"? Hello, cotton pants, anyone?
Anyway, I plan on posting an update in a week or so. I have a feeling I'll have a lot to say about this process...