Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Adventures in Potty Training

Little one is almost 27 months and we have decided to start potty training. This is all helped by her desire to wear the "big girl pants" (cloth training pants) which I got for her on a recent trip to the US (much cheaper over there than here!).

Transitions always seem to be more work that I expect. I remember my delight at starting to feed solid food quickly souring on the realisation that this was just an extra thing to be fitted into every day. Of course now she's weaned and can feed herself it's all much less work - but it was a long trip from there to here. Transitions to crawling and walking were much the same - initial delight at the new skill changed quickly to a realisation that life would never be the same again and would involve a lot more running around on my part!

These transitions also seem to happen when they happen - regardless of how much you do or do not want them. Little one decided for herself when to stop nursing luckilly before the point I thought she was too old. She also just switched to a big girl bed one night - and never looked back.

So I'm approaching potty training somewhat cautiously. I'm not really sure that anything I do will help much. I do not want to spend much dealing with nappies (diapers), but I'm very anxious about what it means to take a potty trained toddler out for the day - or on a long car journey....

So far the entire experience has been a huge roller coaster of success and failure. Had I written this post last Thursday I would have been saying how hopeless it all looked. At that point little one had been in the training pants for 3 days straight with absolutely no success at using the potty - although some impressive stats on how long she hold in her pee at nursery! If it wasn't for her insistence on wearing pants (and the fact that since we cloth diaper at some level a dirty diaper or dirty training pants and clothing are about equal) I would have given up for a while. But Friday was a huge success - no "accidents" all day, and both pee and poop in the potty. She got a lot of stickers on Friday night! Then came a weekend of peeing and pooping in her pants, followed by a successful day at nursery again on Monday. This led to a lot of wondering if maybe she'll get it at nursery (perhaps because of peer pressure, and a much more fixed routine) but not at home.... and then she used the potty at home! So Monday night I was thinking we almost had it. But then yesterday was completely unsuccessful altogether. Who knows what today will bring! It's adding a whole new dimension of excitement to life, along with many more conversations about wee wee and poo poo than I would have thought possible.

5 comments:

Alyssa said...

Hehehe! I shouldn't laugh, because one day I'll be dealing with that :) Sounds like she's getting the hang of it though! Yay!

Astronomum said...

No - I think it's funny too!

She is getting the hang of it better, and is still insisting on the "big girl pants". So we're continuing, and washing a lot of clothes, but less diapers. We'll get there.

AstroMaman said...

I hope Little One gets the hang of it soon! It sounds like she is very much ready for the change, which hopefully means that her enthusiasm should quickly turn into success. Good luck with all of this, it's really a big step!

Astronomum said...

Well it took 2 1/2 weeks of lots of extra washing, but now we seems to almost have it. No significant accidents since Tuesday (just a couple while she's been distracted). On Friday she came home from day care with no dirty washing. It was a miracle! We even coped with a weekend out - only resorting to a nappy for nap time. The latest battle though - she wants to wear her "big girl pants" at night. We'll be holding off on that for a while though.

Astronomum said...

Susan,
Thanks. Glad you're enjoying it. If you want an update... two months on, little one is still a bit hit and miss with the potty. But I refuse to go back to nappies at this point. She'll get it eventually!