Sunday, November 09, 2008

Increasing My Carbon Footprint One Diaper At A Time

I am making another halfhearted go at pushing the potty training thing. As I type, (having been up for two hours already on a SUNDAY, what the heck) Adelay is dancing around bare bottomed to her Angelina Ballerina movie, her potty chair abandoned behind her. At the moment, her brother seems more interested in it than she does, though his designs for the potty have more to do with licking and less with peeing. Lord, but parenting is disgusting.

Ah, and now she's just gone to her room to fetch a clean diaper, informing me that she is done sitting on the potty. "Have you gone pee?" I ask hopefully, jumping up like a fireman to a bell. But no. As always. Two sticker charts, bags of pink M and M's, and multiple packs of Disney Princess and My Little Pony panties later, our successes on the potty could still be counted on two hands.

And... Eli is hunched over the potty chair, up to his elbows in the actual POT part now. He looks like a small, portly plumber. His little sleeper sleeves are rolled up, even. Off I go again to put a stop to it.

And I'm back. I must remember to corner and hiss at whoever suggested dragging that stupid potty all over the house with us.

Someone tell me about the worst potty training stories you can think of. Children going to sleep-away camp with Pull Ups in their duffels, that sort of thing. Cheer me up.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hang it there... Courtney announced at 19 months she was a big girl and big girls wear panties not diapers... That was that. Her brother, was another story, we were grateful that he was at least potty trained before he started school. Just relax...before you know it you'll be worrying about her changing your diapers instead of you dealing with hers. It happens in the blink of an eye.

Anonymous said...

I meant Hang in there. Must learn to proofread

Kelsey said...

Okay, I don't know if this will make you feel better or not, but here goes: Harper has been potty trained since she was about 2 and 1/2. Yes we have the occasional accident, but it isn't something I worry about. EXCEPT when she's asleep. The child will be four next week and still wakes up with a soaking wet diaper every single morning. We've finally reached the point where she doesn't have to wear a pull up if she naps, but we are nowhere close to going diaper-less at night. My mother tells me my sister wore diapers to bed until she was four and a half, so I guess I won't really get worried until this summer. But sheesh, I'm sick of those pull ups!

Hang in there - it does happen. To train her (for the daytime) we spent about a week at home with no pants on, or underwear only, I let her stay in the living room and watch her shows nearly all day and gave her cup after cup of liquid so she had to go to the bathroom all the time. After about a week she pretty much had it. I never did pull-ups during the day. Although I guess I shouldn't be offering any advice because of our night time situation!

The Workman Family said...

Ugh. Potty training. I don't have any advice, but, as a former kindergarten teacher - no one came to school in diapers - so if all those kids learned it before school, I'm sure yours will too.

Swistle said...

At the pharmacy, I filled the occasional prescription for a medication used to stop a child from peeing at night---it's not used nightly, but for one-time or short-time use such as sleepovers or sleep-over camps.

Swistle said...

Oh, got another one! Our pediatrician said that something like 10% of children are still not night-trained at age TEN.

Mommy Daisy said...

Don't fret, it won't last forever. Zacahariah has waffled back and forth about potty training. He'll do really well for a while, then not be interested at all. Matt & I are tired of it. We'll be starting some serious potty training boot camp soon. I'm sure you'll hear about it once we start.

Mary said...

My son was trained at nearly three, and only because it was summer and we let him pick a tree to pee on.

Sadly though, confirming Swistle's factoid, my neice is nearly 10 and she still wears a pull up at night. Unfortunately, it isn't due to a physical problem, but sheer laziness. That sounds harsh, but really, she gets up in the morning and doesn't go to the toilet, but hangs out in bed for awhile and "goes" in the pull up. My 5 yr old neice (not a sister to the 10 year old) asked her mother is she could give her old pull ups to her cousin after she fully night trained. That is a little sad.

Marie Green said...

my almost 6 year old still wears pull ups to sleep. She's dry only maybe 5 times in her life. Her twin didn't start staying dry at night until around her 5th bday.

If she's not interested, I'd say revel in the silver lining that is diapers (less time in public bathrooms!) and try again later. Gah, I hate potty training.

Mary O said...

We're having our own potty training struggles here. Ollie can pee in the potty pretty well, but will not even think about pooping in the potty. He'll be 3 in January, so I'm not super horrified yet, but I just wish this whole thing was easier.
I am always super interested in hearing other people's stories too.

Anonymous said...

My son is almost 3.5 and he has no intention of ever being potty trained. He's autistic and has major sensory issues and just can't feel it? Or something? My 10 month old daughter never, ever used to poop - ever - and I use cloth diapers for her and for the last few months that child has pooped every ten minutes, it seems! I am having another baby in May and this morning it occurred to me that I am going to have three children in diapers. THREE.

Dr. Spock says that for some children they can be like nine or ten before they're trained at night.

It will get there, for all of us. Just maybe not for years? Is this helping? :)

CAQuincy said...

I'm on the same bus as Kelsey. My (almost!) four-year old has been trained during the day since she was 2 1/2, but she still wets her pull-up EVERY NIGHT. Hubs keeps saying we've got to DO something. But, honey! There is NOTHING we can do. It's soooo frustrating. The other two were NOT this difficult.

It'll happen when it happens. (Keep repeating that and maybe it'll work--and you won't go crazy.)

Good luck.

Jen @ Rolling Through Looneyville said...

My kiddo was a treat to potty train. That is, if you like having your hair things peed on:

http://rollingthroughlooneyville.blogspot.com/2008/08/potty-training-success.html

She's crazy at night though... she'll go two weeks and be accident free and then when I take the pull-ups off, for a few nights she's good and then BAM, she's back to peeing in her bed. Poor kid. She hates the pull-ups, but it's not her fault. Tiny bladders at that age.

Yours will get it. I know that helps, oh, probably not at all... but she will. She seems like a smart cookie :)

Take heart, though... having her in diapers eliminates the need to RUN to public restrooms when little bladders suddenly decide they're going to PEE. RIGHT. NOW!

Erin said...

Oh I both FEEL for you and am AFRAID to know more. Because I FEAR POTTY TRAINING. It has gone exactly NO WHERE in our house with my almost 3yo. I don't know exactly what we plan on doing. We have no potty training plan. NONE. Yikes.

This will cheer you up: My 3yo packed up a bag with his superman toy, his teddy bear, and a toy helicopter and said to me, "I'm goin' to college, mommy. I'll miss you. Bye!"

Where do they GET this stuff?

Astarte said...

Preschool did it for my son, who was determined to never use a potty. The minute he learned that he would not be welcome to be with his friends if he didn't get it together in fairly short order, voila!

nonsoccermom said...

I haven't stopped by in a while so I'm playing catch-up.

Anyway, I had to commiserate. My son was just past his 4th birthday before he was reliably day-trained. SO. STUBBORN. It became a power struggle, but when I finally just gave up - POOF! He trained himself. He was actually night-trained long before that, he woke up dry every day starting at around 18 months so that has never been a problem.

So my point is, it WILL happen. Unfortunately, it may be on Addy's timetable, not yours...

nonsoccermom said...

Oh! I meant to add, the pee-training came long before the poop. GOOD LORD. I did begin to freak out about that by around 4.5 years old, but one day he seemed to get the idea (finally!!) and that was that.