New question at the dinner table tonight, tell me how your day has been.
Mine has had highs and lows. The highs have been very high, the lows disgustingly low. So I managed to do my yoga this morning and ran at lunchtime, knocking another 20 seconds off my best time this year for 1.2 miles (am now under 12 minutes). And my new lovely shiny Samsung Note II arrived. It’s mine, all mine.
The lows however were not good. Smallest is potty training, and we’ve had a run of excellent days, so I’d stopped asking her every couple of hours. Big mistake. Huge. Today we’d damp pants before we left the house, damp pants less than an hour later at the leisure centre and then, worst of all, full scale the-other-thing-that-isn’t-damp. Let’s just say wet wipes weren’t really up to the challenge and we ended up heading for home with her wearing Tigerboy’s emergency disposable nappy, where I put her straight in the shower and scrubbed my hands raw.
There are some things about being a parent I don’t like. This is definitely one of them. It occurs to me that I was a bystander in previous potty training outings, as in both cases the child concerned was with someone else more than they were me. I suppose it would be wrong to send her to nursery just so sometime else could sort it out?
I don’t understand why we’re having the problem. I know she can do it, she just doesn’t seem to care about being wet or dirty. I’m considering a reward chart, wondering whether that would make a difference. I hate the idea, I want her to do it because she wants to, but maybe stickers would help get over this hump?
Suggestions in the usual place please.
Go back to prompting her, it works trust me I’ve done 6! I got bored of hearing my self ask but she needs to build confidence and remember to go. When they get involved in play or distracted they simply forget and then once they remember they try to hold on just too long! She will get there so stick with it and Good luck.
I am sure our easy transition out of nappies was due to DD being at nursery where she was influenced by the other children – nothing like seeing 20 other children turn up their noses at anything delivered outside the toilet to make you want to do it properly. As they had little toilets there we didn’t even use a potty but went straight to the toilet. Of course she’s totally toilet trained now (at 4yo) so I don’t really have any excuse to keep sending her to kindergarten 😛
Unreassurringly, we are still dealing with this with DS, and he’s 5.5. It’s been a terribly 2-steps-forward-1-step-back business, including six months back in nappies when he was three, so we could just start again. I can honestly say, he’s much better now than he was. He IS going in the right direction. But, I never imagined we’d still be here, now.
If rewards work, I say, go for it. They never seem to help much, around here. *looks sadly at the Batman underpants we’re supposed to be working towards *
I’m afraid I’m suggestion free but I do hope you manage to sort it soon
Aw! Feel for you – tricky times. But you know what – it passes so quickly. The less you make of it the better. A few damp pants don’t matter – just go everywhere prepared. And when doing the prompting be gentle and try and get it into routine times. You’ll soon look back on what seems like a lifetime and wonder what the sweat was over whilst mopping up after a teenager who’s downed too much cider and sicked up on the bedroom carpet!!! 🙂 O the glories of being a mum. Love it! Wishing you another good day next!