Imperfect Organization: Children's Dressers

I have 3 boys, 2 cats, and a fish.  I am so glad that the cats and fish don't wear clothes because I can hardly believe how many clothes 3 little boys can go through.  Manasseh seems to think he needs to wear 2 outfits a day (before and after nap) and a pair of pajamas at night (which he takes off before he goes to sleep).  We have cloth diapers, wet underpants, blankets... laundry, laundry, laundry!  Some days I feel like I just can't keep up with their dirty clothes.

A few weeks ago, while folding laundry and watching them play, I got brilliant.  See, I hate folding laundry.  It might be my least favorite household task.  I also have some high dislike of putting folded laundry away.  I looked at my capable preschoolers and decided that they are able to put their own laundry away.  Unfortunately, putting their own laundry away means that some of it gets unfolded while it gets dropped into the dresser.  I have to decide not to control their dresses.

*BING* That's organization point #1!  My kids can put their laundry away - that takes away one organizing task for me each day.

The next solution came later that day when Cassius (then 2) was trying to get dressed - because if they can put their clothes into the dresser, they can take them back out.  He was confused about which dresser was his and which drawer had shirts/pants/underwear.  He was overwhelmed by the long stack with 12 drawers. 

I fixed it. 



Now each dresser is color coded - Green for Manasseh, Red for Cassius, and Blue for Azariah.  The clothing pictures follow the color scheme and the words on the drawer are also printed in their favorite colors.

*BING* #2 - The boy's dressers are labeled and color coded.  Cassius now can confidently go to HIS own dresser and get out whatever article of clothing he is instructed to get (this also helps with putting clothes away).  

We have increased independence and responsibility by making these 2 incredibly simple changes to the boy's bedroom.

How do you organize your child's personal space to allow for more independence and responsibility?  

Our Nighttime Potty Problem & Pull-Ups

We have a 4.5 year old and a 3 year old (almost).  They are both "potty trained" - mostly.  You see, Manasseh has been in underwear during the day for over 2 years, but cannot quite get the sleep time problem under control.  Cassius has been in underwear during the day since August 1 (my birthday present to myself), but also can't get the sleep pottying figured out.  We have been through a number of solutions.  The stores offer quite a selection of options.

Pull - Ups

We tried waking Manasseh in the night before we went to bed so he could use the restroom.  This worked sometimes.  We tried letting them sleep in their "day time underwear" in hopes that wetting would wake them and they would learn to get up before that happened.  We tried cloth training pants, but did not have enough to get through more than 1 or 2 nights.

Pull-Ups

Cassius loves the designs on Pull-Ups training pants.  Both of the boys love the wetness indicators.  Each morning when they wake up, they check to see if they have wet.  I love that they can see their success immediately, and that because Pull-Ups wick the wetness away from the body, they usually sleep through the night.

 

Because Manasseh is a slim guy, both boys can wear the same size training pants.  He loves the "Mater" prints, Cash loves "Lightening McQueen" because he is red.  As we are teaching our boys to be independent, it is helpful to have training pants that they can put on themselves.  We found that it is easiest to keep them on a shelf in their bedroom so that as they dress for nap and bed, they can grab the print of their choice to snuggle up in.  

 

We love that we can buy them at Walmart with their "rollback" prices (online and in the store).  We bought just over 100 training pants for about $40.  That is almost 2 months worth of sleep times with 2 boys!  

While it is not the "greenest" solution for our family, Pull-Ups seem to work best for our boy's at this point.  We gladly continue to use them as our boys increase in independence and ability!

Tips about potty training.

A potty training story.

Check out Pull-Ups on Facebook and Twitter.

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Mommy Lesson #3: Go outside

The moral of this lesson: When Mr. (or Miss) 2 year old is throwing a tantrum, walk away.

Tonight we had a fantastic dinner of spinach & feta hummus with veggies for dipping.  (Great recipe, I'll have to post it sometime).  It was a nice evening, and we enjoy sharing our meals as a family outside on nice nights.

Monkey and Crackers were both running (or crawling) around in their underpants with no pants on.  I gave Monkey - remember he's ALMOST 3 - his pants and told him he needed to put them on before going outside.  Wow.  Who would have thought that this would become a power struggle.  Monkey wanted help to put them on.  We know he is fully capable of doing it himself, but he's been very needy the last few weeks and refusing to do things for himself.  Mama insisted that he dress himself and the fit began.

Daddy stepped in and tried to reason with Monkey (reasoning with toddlers rarely works).  Monkey continued to have a tantrum, screaming, crying, insisting that he have help to put on his pants.  We both kindly arranged the pants in front of him on the floor at different times so they would be easy to slide on.  I chose elastic waisted pants so they would be easy for him.  He refused to do it himself. We both tried to help him hold the pants in his hands and pull them on to no avail.  He wanted us to put his pants on for him.

Finally, wise mama, said to daddy - we need to just go outside and  leave him inside until he puts on his pants.  And we did.  We went outside with the food and with Crackers and began our meal.  Monkey ran through the house crying, then he got quiet... and then cried some more.  After about 10 minutes he came to the door with his pants on and asked to come outside.

Yep, it worked.  We walked away, refused (finally) to argue about the pants, and he eventually chose to do it on his own so he could have some yummy food.

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!