On life in the Bathroom...

Several people have asked me to share our method of potty training, so here we go. I wanted to wait a bit before posting this, because I wanted to make sure it "stuck". W had one day of regression (but seeing as I was laid up with a back injury, I can hardly blame the child)and she got right back on track the next day. But before I go into the details of What we did, I first want to give the Why's.

We started potty training based on the signs that she was giving us. She was ready, she just didn't know she was ready! We'd been taking baby steps towards it for months. First teaching her how to pull down her own pants, then her pull ups. Teaching her to throw away her pull up and put a new one on. After a while she started to do that herself, without us needing to tell her every time. We decided to definitely potty train when she started to try to take offer own (mushy) poopy diapers. There was an incident with poop on my couch and trailing on the floor. Nuff said. So we knew that even though she didn't seem to understand the words and concepts of pee and poop, she could recognize when she did those things and she finally had gotten to the point that sitting in her own waste was no longer entirely comfortable.

So potty training was scheduled for my Spring Break from my classes, so I could devote my life to it. On the Sunday night before she went to bed, we put her in her last diaper ever. When she woke up on Monday, we sat her on the potty for about 10 minutes. Then we put her in unrwear and drove her over to BCA. See, this is the nice part....I had a few hours every day to spend with my son before entering the world of the toilet. But at 11:30 her shift at BCA was over and I joined her in the bathroom. That first day she spent from morning till night in the bathroom. Ten minutes on the potty, five minutes off. Her five minutes off the potty were still spent in the bathroom, she just played with some toys that we had set up in there. We fed her salty snacks and juice all day so she kept having to pee. The more she peed, the more likely she was to pee in the potty, consisting the amount of time she aaas on it. And when she peed in the potty, OH the big fuss we made! The clapping and cheering and prizes! She caught on pretty quickly- peeing in that porcelain thing is good, it's what makes everyone very excited! Sure there were times she peed on the floor, but we didn't make a big deal over it. Just had her help us clean it up and simply told her that we pee in the potty. We called it quits when she started falling asleep on the toilet.

Day 2 was much of the same. Day 3 was where it got exciting. By this point, you are fairly sick of the bathroom and think that your child is going to never figure this out. I know, you're thinking "oh, that's only a couple of days, what is she talking about?" Spend hours and hours with a kid in a small windowless room and tell me that you don't feel a distorted sense of time. So by this point I'm developing a twitch, but something amazing happens. Diva Girl hits her stride. In the course of the day she pees 8 times....and all of it goes in the toilet. Angels sang! After 6 in a row, she moves to 5 minutes on the toilet, 10 minutes off. Day 4 is successful as well, so we move to the next phase. Leaving the bathroom.

Friday, we allow her to go into the room next to the bathroom. By that point, Diva Girl is so used to her strange new life she seemed almost resistant to leaving the bathroom. But after a while she gets very excited about it. And then she had a bunch of accidents. But fear not! Some of them she had while running towards the bathroom. And sometimes she actually initiated the bathroom trips. Once she was successful 6 more times, we started to let her further from the bathroom and time the potty trips out more. At this point we still initiate 75% of trips to the bathroom, but she is starting to get better about that.

This worked for us. I imagine that it would work for a lot of kids. But I know that no one way of potty training is perfect for every kid out there, so if you don't think it's for you I certainly won't be offended. The main things with this method are that there is no turning back...once you take the diapers away, do not give them back. Because, believe me, you will want to give up at some point. But I know for my kid, if we'd given her her diapers back (and trust me, she wanted them...for days we knew when she was about to pee because she would yell "diaper!! Diaper change!!") she would have thought that if she peed on the floor we'd give her the comfort of her familiar diapers back. Another thing with this method is finding the right motivator and praising like crazy. At first we used all kinds of things, but we actually discovered that praising her while she went and giving her a sticker was the best way to encourage her. No shaming or attention for "misses". And you have to go into it willing to put in the time. We did Nothing but potty train for a week. And I mean NOTHING. I sat with her, in that bathroom, or the adjacent room, the whole time. Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention earlier...when she was off of the potty, we had her check and see if she was still dry. We'd ask "Diva Girl are you still dry?", then have her pat herself to check, then tell her "you are dry, you are doing such a good job!"

Ok, I'm not sure if I've left anything out or not, I'm a bit sleep deprived. But if you have any questions about what we did, just ask! I'm happy to share. Diva Girl is doing great, and even uses public restrooms just fine when we are out. It's been two and a half weeks since we started all this, and she has been considered "potty trained" since day 6!

Say Never...I Dare You!

You folks know the saying, "never say never". Seriously, don't say it. Because before you know it, you will be eating your words.

Or maybe it's just me.

Back before I had kids, I had these ideas. You know, I thought I knew stuff back then. Then I had kids and discovered I was actually a moron. Here are some of the highlights of my claims.

Ideal: "My kids are not going to watch a lot of tv. And no tv before two years old, because that's what the American Academy of pediatrics recommends."
Reality- My daughter knows how to access Netflix on her iPad. she knows every word to every episode of Wonderpets ever made. And my 13 month old baby boy thinks that tv is the best thing ever, and watches it with his mouth hanging open in awe and wonder. I would probably never shower or get any schoolwork done without the magic of tv.

Ideal- "I will never let my daughter become a part of the Disney Princess Cult. I'm a member of the Campain for a Commercial Free Childhood, for goodness sakes! Buying a Made in China, plastic, inporportioned princess doll is just not something I would ever do."
Reality- At this moment, she is playing happily with her mini Belle doll. We also have 3 different Ariel dolls, a bigger Belle doll, princess white boards, a Tinkerbell doll, a weighted blanket with Ariel print on one side and Tinkerbell on the other, a backpack, a lunchbox, and I'm sure many other things that I am forgetting. Oh, and her potty seat. Can't forget that. So yeah, I'm a big sell out. But I am still just thrilled with the fact that it is something that she enjoys that is age appropriate, encourages her imaginary play, and is just so NORMAL. But I draw the line at wall decorations and bedding (I have to draw it somewhere, it makes me feel better).

Ideal- "My kids will not eat a bunch of processed junk. Organic food if we can, plenty of veggies, and homemade all the way!"
Reality- She has collected every toy in the happy meal line up in the last few months. Nuff said. I'm still hurting over the loss of this ideal, I can't talk about it....

Ideal- "I'm going to spend sunny days frolicking outside with my kids! We'll go on walks and have picnics and play ring around the rosie in the grass!"
Reality- Just getting out the door with all of our stuff is exhausting. Within a few minutes outside I'm hot, annoyed, and worried about Diva Girl running away from me. I'm allergic to grass anyways.

Ideal- "I would never force my child to do ______ (fill in the blank here, there are too many things to list). If they're ready, they'll do it on their own. I would never Train a child, they're not dogs!"
Reality- I just potty trained Diva Girl. And it was intense and strict and probably goes against some tenent of Attatchment Parenting. I got some raised eyebrows over the method we used. But I am beyond happy that we did it. My little girl is using the potty!! No diapers at all!! And this method was perfect for her, in all her stubborn glory. No regrets.

So yeah, I should probably never say never. Eating my words doesn't always taste good. But ya know, how was I supposed to know? Maybe I would have been that parent if I had given birth to some angel fairy children. But my kids are a mess and I am a mess and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Awareness

This week I got involved in a little online discussion. I'm on a cloth diapering forum (yeah, I am that much of a nerd, or whatever you call someone who is obsessed with what goes on my baby's bottom) and I usually stay away from the Parenting Talk area. Too much drama, too many "mommy wars"...I like to stick to the cloth chatter. But this week, probably because I wanted to avoid doing homework, I wandered over into that dangerous land. And of course, when I saw the title of a thread that read "Autism?" I had to click. I HAD to. And then, when I read what people wrote...well, I just HAD to respond.

A woman had said that her son has speech delays, and that their speech therapist "randomly" mentioned that she thought the boy may be on the autism spectrum. The mom was suprised, and when she listed the reasons that the speech therapist had given she clearly thought that they were not good enough reasons. So she ended the post "asking" if it seemed like her son has austim, or if her speech therapist is just crazy.

And then there were the responses...

"Does he smile? laugh?"
"Is he affectionate?"
"Does he ever look in your eyes?"

The stereotypes were trotted out. And it made me feel so sad. So I just had to step up and let this lady know that she was being handed a whole bunch of ignorance. I had to let those other ladies know that what they were asking is not only ignorant, it's offensive.

So that's what I told them. I told them that those were stereotypes and that there is this wide spectrum and that those questions were not accurate ways to rule out the possibility of autism. And I also told them that as the mother of a beautiful, happy, affectionate little girl that gazes into my eyes, what they wrote was offensive to my senses. Because the implication is that kids with autism are sad. And you know...I'm sure there are kids out there on the spectrum that don't smile much, but I sure haven't met them. In fact, the kids that I know are a bunch of giggling smiling little imps.

So I started to think about Awareness. That seems to be the thing for any cause or disorder or illness. People post stupid things on their facebook in the name of Awareness. I hear people drop the phrase all the time "trying to spread Awareness of...". Here's the thing- most of the time, when I see people spreading awareness, they are simply stating facts of the prevelance of their chosen disorder. Very rarely do I see anyone spreading helpful information. And what is the result? A society that knows that more boys than girls have autism, but still walk around thinking that these children are all sitting in a corner, crying, and completely cold. They don't even know that they don't have a clue.

I don't care if you are Aware of the existence of autism if you never bother to learn what it is and what it isn't.

So, if you are reading this because you know me from way back when, or maybe Diva Girl is the only autistic child you've been exposed to, you might want to read a bit about autism sometime. I found this page to have a pretty good overview (disclaimer: I haven't read everything on their website, so I'm sure there may be stuff somehwere on there I disagree with, but this page has one of the best overviews that I could find that wasn't completely depressing)

Spread some real awareness! Especially since the ladies responded that those were questions asked to them by pediatricians, so apparently even doctors are spreading misinformation (don't even get me started) It's up to us, folks.