Big is teaching Small to read…
when they’d read the whole book, he came up to me and said “Does that make you happy?”
When I replied “Yes,” he said “Can I have the orange car?”
oh boy. I think I may have problems there.
However, I told him that the other thing that would make me happy is him using the toilet instead of a nappy – we’ve tried several times and so far today we have dry nappy and one wee in toilet!
I’m rather loath to start star charts with him, but I think toilet training might require them, as he seems singularly uninterested for his own sake.
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8 responses to “Newsflash”
Wow, if he’s reading and still in his diaper, I’m impressed. My only toilet training tip is that after I’d completely given up caring if they ever would be trained, after I threw every trick out the window, they learned on their own. It was like some zen moment for me. But then, I have friends who trained their 10 month olds to go by holding them over the potty whenever they squinted. So, its a diverse world out there! Good luck and I enjoy your blog.
Kim, I’m not sure to what extent he’s reading, and to what extent he’s memorising books! I was more impressed with her *teaching* him – she’s only been reading confidently for a month or two herself.
wrt potty training, I’d more like him to show some awareness of it. And given that we’re only in the house half the week, it kind of feels a bit pressured that he isn’t showing any interest himself – Big sorted it all out when she was about 2.
Thanks for stopping by, and I’m glad you enjoy it 🙂
Is he still in cloth at all? Does he notice/care when he’s wet? He might not be connecting the feeling of a full bladder with being able to release at will – I think they learn to ignore it pretty young. How would you feel about training pants so he knows when he’s weed? And talk to him loads about keeping them dry and comfy. Why would he bother stopping for the potty if weeing doesn’t make his nappy uncomfy? But we are at a different place wrt pottying so feel free to ignore lol
He’s not in cloth any more, not that he cared then either! He doesn’t mind about wet or dirty, in fact he hates being changed if he’s dirty, so that’s rather a battle. And I think the experience this morning shows that he does indeed know how to do it – with the promise of a car if he managed, he did it fine!
I’ve tried a couple of days with him in just pants so he knew about being wet, and towards the end he was heading for the loo *as* he was wetting, so I think we can probably get there, it’s just such a different process from with Big that it’s got me well off balance. And I’m struggling to fit it in to our life pattern atm, so that’s making it awkward as well.
now, I KNOW this is no help to you what so ever but…. dd went from totally resistant to using the loo to totally dry very suddenly.
and giggle about Big teaching Small to read!
No top tips regarding potty training, I’m afraid! Both of ours just sort of got there somehow or other. I think a really hot spell when you can be outside lots, and being naked from the waist down both help! Not much good if you’ve got places to go though.
Jeanette Winterson is one of my favourite authors. I’d recommend Oranges and Sexing the Cherry is a brilliant book – really compelling. I recently read Lighthouse Keeping in a day. She’s a story teller, you just have to go with the stories. It is intersting that, maybe because she was brought up on the Bible, her writing has this tremendous authority. I’d be interested to hear what you think of her writing. I haven’t had a chance to read that whole Observer article yet. I have read in previous articles that she is a real advocate of grammar schools, as one was her salvation. Interesting, but a long way from my views on education.
I can’t remember how old small is but I didn’t even start with ds until he was 3 years 3 months as from experience I found that boys tend to be later than girls anyway. He was interested in getting out of nappies though so it was very quick – we just stayed at home and kept his bottom half unclothed and it took 4 days. Night training took another couple of months. If he hadn’t been interested I would have just left it until he was ready.
Piglet is a nightmare – she just doesn’t care! We had ‘big girl pants’ on today, not that it made a jot of difference. And I’ve been making sure she’s been in the biggest, bulkiest cloth nappies for the past week. She does like wearing the pants, but it’s just not sunk in yet. I ask her every 15 minutes if she wants to go. Occassionally I make her sit on the potty and we might catch a wee. The rest of the time she’ll walk away going ‘no’ and promptly pee on the floor. And look very startled when it happens! Kind of ‘did I do that?’. Grrrrrr
I guess it’ll come in time – it’s rare to see a 5yo in nappies….