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Sunday, October 21, 2007

U is for Underwear

So I finally decided I was going to do some "hard-core" potty training. A week of just wearing panties during the day time, unless we had to go some where, or if she was taking a nap.
Well that was a few weeks ago, and I failed miserably. I have to admit that my baby got sick that week and I spent more time dealing with a sick infant and left the pull-ups on, and just increased my asking if she needed to go. But sometimes I feel like I am no farther in my potty-training than I was before.
If I ask her if she needs to go, she always tells me no, even if she is moments away from going. If I let her wear big girl panties, she somewhere got the impression that means she wears them on the toilet. We have even tried letting her see Mommy or Daddy go. She understands what we are doing, she just doesn't seem to be able to do it her self.
One thing I did learn though is that my daughter is under the impression, that she has to have something covering her bottom to use perform those functions. I took her to the bathroom one day, I had her sit on the potty. We read stories. She just sat there. She said she was done. We put her pants back on her, there was a knock at the door, so I went to answer it. By the time I got back to the bathroom, there was a mess on the floor and wet pants on the girl.
We read somewhere that to help with preparing your child for potty training, you should take messy diapers and in your toddlers presence dump the contents into the toilet and tell them that is where that stuff goes. So we tried that. My daughter now messes her pants, takes them off, and dumps the contents into the potty.

So am I doing something wrong? Is my child just not ready for this step? Or do I just need to persist further?

3 comments:

Rose said...

Everyone potty trains differently, you just need to find the right way for your daughter! Some of the methods you used might work GREAT for your son!

I haven't potty-trained Jorden yet, but I'll tell you what I've done so far with him...

The first thing I did was I taught him how to pull his pants down. He is currently able to pull his pants and his pull-up down easily (actually, so is Cadence)! He can pull them up pretty well too (Cadence can't do that yet).

When I first introduced him to the potty, I walked him through it step by step. I had him open the door, turn on the light, lift the lid to the potty, drop his pants and pull-up, and then sit on the potty in a "do this... now do this... fashion." Now whenever he wants to sit on the potty... he does all of those things.

Sometimes, he'll run into the bathroom, do all those things, sit on the potty... and then later come out declaring "all done!" There's nothing in the potty. We still have to work with him on knowing to go to the potty PRIOR to do something in his diaper (I think he always heads there right after).

I think that taking her pants off and dumping the mess in the toilet is a good thing. It's not the thing you want her to be doing all the time... but it's a step in the right direction. It teaches her where those things go, and eventually, she'll learn that it's better just to put them there in the first place... rather than putting them in her pants, and then putting them there.

I've heard that it helps to sit your child on the potty once every hour, but I haven't tried that yet.

Her watching grownups use the bathroom is good too... if you have to use the bathroom, go ahead and take your daughter with you, and tell her what you're doing... (i.e. I'm pulling down my pants and underwear... see how I'm not wearing underwear and my bottom isn't covered? Then tell her what you're doing in the potty... tell her what you're doing with the toilet paper... before you flush... show her the contents on the potty...)

If she's showing interest in the potty... then I wouldn't completely back off the potty training.

Sorry for the long post! Hopefully it gives you some ideas! :)

Rose said...

This site might be helpful.

http://www.babycenter.com/toddler-potty-training-advice

Adam & Brandi said...

Hey girl, how are you? I read something about potty training last week actually. And something that really stood out to me was that you could use some food coloring in the toilet. Little kids like to squirt it in the toilet. Remember though, I don't have children I just babysit. And the girls I watch, everytime they go they get a princess sticker and do a little potty dance. We REALLY make a big deal out of it. Let me know if either of these work.