The three day potty training method is fairly popular in internet land. The people who have tried it promise 3 awful days, but a potty trained kid by the end. The author of the particular ebook that I bought firmly believes that any child from the age of 22 months can be toilet trained.
Day 1 - Addie was great at holding her wee and we caught the poo in the nick of time. The wee never made it in the potty but there were lots of encouraging start stickers to go around. A very exhausting day, but no pain no gain.
Day 2. Lots of catching Addie and putting her in the potty and it resulted in a poo and wee at the same time. Lots of star stickers and telling anyone we could about it. The rest of the day resulted in long wee holding sessions, and big wets on the floor.
Day 3. Not so much wee holding today, and poos in undies. Ewh. The stress is starting to really wear me down and there are tears.
Day 4. Still bravely persisting, but not getting anywhere. Feeling like I'm going insane by staying at home ad watching Addie's bum for 4 days. Lots of wee. Lots of tears [mine still].
Day 5. Make a command decision that this is not going to continue in this manner.
Make no mistake, potty training has not ended, but has morphed. More on that next time.
I think the 3 day method has some wonderful strengths. Addie is showing some great improvement now and I'm sure that the intensive start has helped, but given the combination of our personality types it wasn't fully working for us, despite our best efforts. Addie was at the front door the past two days crying and saying "Car, shoes, pram, shops". We couldn't go anywhere because it would wreck the program. That just doesn't gel for us. She missed her friends, I missed my friends. Tiny was missing out because I was spending every second on Addie and nothing NOTHING was getting done in the house for fear of missing a wee. Its not all doom and gloom and I reckon its a great method for heaps of people, and I learned so much about potty training from it. Stay tuned for part 3!
Read about our first attempt The Trials of Potty Training here.
We were recommended during childcare studies that it's better for everyone to wait for signs that the child is ready and starting to recognise the feelings of needing to go. I don't know where Addie's at with that. Children get to this stage at different times. I don't think it hurts to wean them into big kid pants instead of going whole hog. But I haven't looked into the various opinions.
ReplyDeleteMy uni course also recommends NAPLAN style testing which I strongly disagree with [my point is that just bc it is taught in a course, it doesn't necessarily have to be true/right 100%] . I'm going to write about the "signs" and where Addie fits in, and according to most theories she has enough of them for this to work. This method is about helping the child interpret their body signals as far as 'urge' goes. Its popular to wait longer, but we use cloth nappies, and they just can't hold up to the huge gushes that Addie does when she holds for ages. For that matter the disposables cant always cope either, and I have ethical issues about using disposables as a regular nappy. I'm actually really 'over' the amount of people who have told me to wait until she's ready without actually first finding out if she is, or what that might mean for us.
ReplyDeleteI take my hat off to you Tab (you know if I had a hat on)... Kalinda
ReplyDeleteDidn't know other's had suggested that too. Sorry if my comment annoyed you. If Addie's got the signs anyway then hopefully she'll just start clicking onto the connection as you try different techniques with her. She sounds stubborn holding on for so long. Actually I'm quite impressed that she can. And if you can get her out of nappies sooner rather than later that means quite a bit less washing for you I imagine. As long as she does her business in the toilet.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience (with one fully trained and one training) I find that child led potty training is best. With my oldest, I was continually frustrated. I felt the pressure from other mums training their kids. Mine just wasnt ready which led to many frustrating months! and she's only just come out of night nappies at her own request.
ReplyDeleteWith the youngest who is currently 'in training' i find leaving the nappy off when she decides works best. She knows what to do, its just a matter of her doing it. I remind her often when she has her nappy off and she knows when she needs to go and when she doesnt. Its just too hard to do the 'all or nothing' when we have a whole lot more running around to do. Last thing I want is to have to clean up wees and poos in a crowded shopping centre. They all get it in their own time!