Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Learning with two

As I write this blog, I am wearing a hard hat.  Not because the subject is messy (but it is.. REALLY messy).  I am wearing it because my sweet 2 year old thinks it's a good idea to wear hats this morning.  He is gaining so much independence these days that it's hard to keep up with him.  I'm not sure where it started, getting the milk out of the fridge, turning on the upstairs light, picking out his own clothes... this boy is his own man!

Independence is only a small part about what I set out to write about today.  I really wanted to write about potty training with 2.  I suppose a lot of people do it, but many of them have twins, I don't.  When Monkey was a baby, I told him that as soon as he started walking, we were going to start using the potty.  He started cruising at 7 months and decided not to walk until he turned a year old.  I'm convinced it was just because he didn't want to sit on the chair!  Now he's 2.5 and we're still working on it, more consistently now than we were even half a year ago.  He wears underpants all day, every day.. and refuses to leave a BM in the potty.  Normal, I know.  Messy and annoying also, I know he can do it, he was doing it 4 months ago, then he got sick and a well-intentioned mother put him in diapers while he was sick, so he stopped.

Crackers just turned 1, he doesn't walk and is not really motivated to learn right now, he really does not even care to stand very long.  (His therapist is pretty sure it wears him out and wants to get orthodics to help with that).  Anyway, I decided that I would work earlier with him, we started putting him on the potty for a few minutes at a time when he was about 9 months old, and wearing cloth diapers more.  That's a silly statement, maybe, but we've done cloth off and on since Monkey as tiny, and I really prefer it, I just get lazy sometimes.  Also, from everything I've read, it tends to be easier to potty train cloth wearing babies than disposable wearing ones.  Crackers likes to sit on the potty and play.  He's even had BMs a few times on the potty (which makes mama REALLY happy).

Monkey is mostly using the potty, as long as mama reminds him.  Crackers loves to sit on it, but mostly doesn't use it.  I'm okay with that, like I said, he JUST turned 1, we don't expect the same independence.
Pottying is hard work!

What worked, or is working for you?  Do you have any funny stories?  Monkey decided to try standing the other day, he stood on top of the potty and went.. what a mess!

4 comments:

  1. i think it might just be a thing with boys in general... i still have to remind both of mine to go :)

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  2. both, huh? lol I had to remind our big boys of that too all the time when they were with us

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  3. I do infant potty training. I usually start when they can sit up. They get used to a toilet with no fear and I had more poos in the toilet than in a diaper. I had more problems with per than poo. Kaitlyn wad cooing in the toilet at 6 months. About a week after we started. Caleb at 8 months, about 2-3 weeks after we started. I'll start Joel in about 1-2 months. He's only 4.5 months old and don't have a consistent bathroom schedule. It should even out when he starts solids. Even with starting so young, I still wouldn't say they were independent until they were 2-2.5 years old( I still helped wipe until they were big enough and old enough to reach) . The biggest thing to remember when doing IPT is to never get mad when they can't hold it. They have tiny systems. You have to put them on schedule and be excited when they take initiative.

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  4. I don't really expect little man to go at all, just want him to start to get used to it and have some happy accidents... I usually put him on when he wakes up from bed or nap.

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