In which I resort to text book parenting

I have mentioned a number of times that I suck at toilet training. The story of my efforts with Elissa sort of trailed off, which is probably because the toilet training itself sort of trailed off. Sadly, the accidents haven't stopped, using my preferred method of ignoring it and hoping it would fix itself.

A week or so ago, I had some brownies, so I went with some outright bribery and told Elissa she could have a brownie if she came home from day care without having wet herself. Three days in a row we had a completely dry Elissa. Then the brownies ran out.

So, I have finally dragged out the good old sticker chart.

I have 33 days worth of chart. I wonder what the odds are of anything changing by the end of that time?

Bad parenting 101

23 plastic toys our house doesn't need: $11.75
Shiny red paper: $1.50

Poos in the toilet: Priceless

Elissa the Songstress

Today is the best day to me
I had a poo today
One day, two days
Tuesday
Poo today

If only I had a musical bone in my body, I might be able to vaguely relate the tune.

Odds and ends

Dinner conversation:

Me: [To Elissa] See, when we ask nicely it makes everyone happier.

Elissa: [Nods (satisfyingly) enthusiastically]

Charlie: Yes, even me.

--

After asking Ben to remove his sheets so I can put clean ones on for much longer than I am prepared to admit in public, he chose tonight to finally do it. Tonight, after the shittest day I've had in ages, when I'm completely exhausted and pissed off, he decides to take the sheets off and I have to change his sheets and Charlie's.

--

Elissa is 95% toilet trained. She's wearing undies every day, just having some issues working out when those poos are actually coming - we either spend 45 minutes on and off the toilet waiting for it, or there's half an accident which finishes in the toilet. She's definitely trying - we tend to get a day of each, as she tries to get it right. We've also had 4 dry night time nappies.

--

Charlie made this train at pre-school today. For some reason I am quite taken with it. Possibly because it is more obviously a steam train than anything I could make. Besides, if I blog it, I'll feel less guilty when it ends up in the recycling bin.

Pride Cometh Before the Fall

Yesterday, I was responsible for this tweet:

We have had a virtually accident-free day. Dry daytime sleep nappy. I'm seeing a change table free existence in my near future!

Pretty much as I was typing this on my way to a spot of Hoyden Karaoke, Elissa was taking a dump on the floor. This morning, she was basically point blank refusing to cooperate in any way, shape or form. However, the afternoon nappy was still dry, and she was much, much better in the afternoon. She managed our excursion to Petersham Bowling Club with only minor indiscretions. It's not so much a journey as a line dance.

You know you want it

More toilet training updates.

We have had several instances of weeing in appropriate places - either on "ducky" (a kid-sized toilet seat insert) or on the potty. Not peeing is definitely not the problem. She can go hours without it. The problem is convincing her to go when in the right place. Even when she manages it, it's stop-start.

However, since we were away, it all went to pot really. It started well, with a few successes, and she clearly wasn't fond of the feeling of going in pull-ups, but with all of the in and out of cars and swimming and so on, she ended up back in nappies.

So today she went off to day care in undies. I figure we'll worry less about holding on, and more about letting go, as it were.

God I'm bad at this.

A wee bit of progress

You may have noticed a distinct lack of toilet training updates. This would be because there was nothing happening. A few more wees on the grass at day care, a little bit of unproductive potty sitting, but mostly an utter lack of commitment from me which was echoed by everyone else.

At dinner time this evening, she had the second dirty nappy in an hour and some vicious nappy rash. I rather dropped my bundle. I told her I wasn't letting her wear nappies any more, because they just make her bum sore. I put her training pants on and told her that I would be cross if she did a wee in her training pants. (Yes, I know, this is not how you are supposed to do it, but endless offers of lollies have got me nowhere.) There were some positive bits. We put her pants on with her standing up, which she was pretty chuffed about, so I grabbed the opportunity to reinforce the big girl thing, no need for a change table any more and so on.

We had dinner without incident. She voluntarily sat on the potty downstairs, sadly with no result. The boys had run themselves a bath, so I decided to go with more standover tactics. I told her she couldn't get in the bath until she'd done the wee in the potty. I left her to it and brought the washing in, and when I came back..... the deed was done!

There was applause. There was the proud phone call to Daddy. There were wild dreams that this was the breakthrough and it will all be plain sailing from here.

So it's taken two weeks to get a real wee in the potty. If we're really lucky we might be finished by Christmas.

Sunday updates

About 2-ish this afternoon I thought I should leap into action. I finally went and bought the surrounds for the tree. Here's the tree-when-planted and tree-now photos to prove something got done.

While I'm showing updates, this is the then and now for the front garden.

That massive mess of green on the left hand side is two tomato plants. They'd be the ones that everyone told me were weeds, merely on the basis that I didn't actually plant any tomatoes. Not only are they triffidising nicely, they are also growing tomatoes.

There are many more, in various stages of development, and they're still flowering.

The frangipani on the left that's hidden by the tomatoes has thrived since it got out of the pot it had been in for many years.

So that's the garden.

Toilet training. Yes. Well. Other people are doing fine. After our first day, Elissa went off to day car for two days. Each day she had one pair of training pants, and wore them until she had an accident. Both days she showed evidence of knowing what was going on, and even managed a small wee in the potty on Friday.

Sadly, I then took over. On Saturday nothing happened. We spent the day out, and she was in a nappy all day. Today, she was starkers all morning, resulting in a puddle on the floor and a poo in the front yard. The latter rather upset her, and she seemed sincere when she said it would have been better in the potty. By then it was bed time, so we put the nappy back on.

After sleeps the nappy was dry, so, thinks I, she is in need of a pee. I bribed her to sit on the potty for at least half an hour, including sitting in the front yard while everyone was working. When the lollipop ran out, she demanded to get up and put a nappy on. Within 3 minutes she had done her wee. At least I know she has plenty of control now.

*sigh*. I'm thinking nakedness for a week may be the only option.

Toilet training

A long time ago, I blogged Elissa's progress through learning to sleep through the night. That was a success story.

Just to prove that I am happy to show the world what I can't do, as well as what I can, I am going to blog Elissa's toilet training. Expect horrors and failures. This will no doubt be a study in how not to toilet train a child. Educational tips (including "You're Doing It Wrong, you idjit") are welcome.

We have been doing the prep. We've been talking a lot about using the potty. I've read half a book about toilet training. I bought Elissa a book about toilet training (which she loves). She's sat on the potty (both of them, we have two types) at length, but never really done anything in it. (There was one occasion a long time ago, when I caught her mid stream in the bathroom and sat her on the potty to finish, but it was never repeated.)

So today I finally bought some training pants, brought her home and put them on. We had the potty at hand, and explained the Plan. She was keen.

Half an hour later, she announced she needed to go to the potty. Yay!

Crash pulled her pants down and fortunately, was able to catch the poo before it landed on the carpet. Unfortunately, he was able to catch the poo before it landed on the carpet*. Nothing was forthcoming in the potty.

Strike 1.


About an hour after that, I asked if she wanted to go to the potty again, and discovered another poo in the pants. I'm smart, I learn from other people's mistakes and had checked before "pants down".

Strike 2.

At dinner time (maybe 45mins later) I was pretty confident she was due for a wee, but she wouldn't have a bar of sitting on the potty. This should have been a warning signal for me. It wasn't. I found her standing in a recess in the dining room in a puddle.

Strike 3.

At this point we put the nappy back on, in order to actually eat dinner in peace. There was a plus - she stood in the corner for the wee. She must have known it was coming. I explained that instead of standing in the corner, she should have sat on the potty. Maybe it made it past her ear lobes.

She's at day care tomorrow, so the plan is to send a pair of training pants, and have her wear them until she has an accident. Hopefully accompanied by a good deal of encouragement to use the potty.

Please feel free to chime in with ideas. Or just point and laugh. 

*This is word for word what Crash told me when I got home from work, I merely replaced "I" with "he".

A breakthrough perhaps?

As previously mentioned, I am bad at toilet training. In case you thought I was making this up, it took 4 months from when I started toilet training Charlie for him to do his first poo on the toilet. This was only repeated once, when I wasn't there, in all the intervening time.

Then last night, after half an hour of reading a book on the throne, we had number 3. Today, we had a re-run. 7 months from embarking on this process, we have something resembling progress. And I am still not convinced this will be the last of it. For starters the whole thing will fall in a heap when we run out of cupcakes...

Toilet humour

Yesterday was an exciting day - Charlie did a poo in the toilet. This gargantuan feat has yet to be repeated, but he did seem to be more co-operative and happier all day after it. I started toilet training Charlie in April. This is the very fist time he has managed this, a mere 4 months later. And there are still dirty nappies after sleeps. *sigh* I think toilet training should be a software upgrade.

I wouldn't have thought it was possible

I discovered a new talent today, I can, in fact, help my 2 yr old go to the toilet whilst breastfeeding the 5 month old. Fortunately boys don't need too much close contact, even when it is only the second day of toilet training.

Did I mention before I am bad at toilet training? I really don't know how this is going to go. If only life didn't have to carry on while attempting this monumental transformation. Tomorrow we have to go to the eye specialist and Wednesday he is off to a play centre. Pull-ups may be necessary.

Crash left for Singapore at sparrow fart yesterday and doesn't get back until Friday night. Women who choose to be single parents are either blissfully ignorant when they embark, or way better women than me. Possibly both.

Real attempts at learning

I decided that talking about being bad at toilet training wasn't very constructive and decided to actually ask for help.

One of the mums at school was telling me about her methods - very old school. Remove the nappies and have potty on hand in an intensive way for a few days up to two weeks. She was also old school in timing - by age 2. She suggested it was easier when they were that age because they weren't old enough to say "I don't want to." I think she may well have a point, but since I have passed that window of opportunity (file it away for Elissa), I can't really take it on board. I have heard "I don't like it" more than enough already.

So I talked to Mum about her methods. She swears by a method that involves asking the child if they use the toilet after asking about everyone else in the family. This never worked with Ben, he gave random answers to all the questions throughout the process. So we discussed the motivation behind the method, which is essentially showing the kid what's in it for them.

We have a new Plan. Every morning we ask him if he wants baby nappies or big boy pants today. No argument about the answer. We talk a lot, casually, about the good things about being a big boy. Each night he is still offered the toilet before bath (a generally successful process currently) but no pressure is brought to bear if he says no. Other than that, no mention of toilets unless he brings it up.

I was pretty confident that at least one of my sleep methods would work, this I have much less confidence about. I hope to report a happy ending, but stay tuned, it could be a train crash. :)