Parenting Catch-all

Gravey wrote:

Potty training.

I feel like this last year has been pretty easy. Our daughter (do we not do the DD/DS/etc abbreviations here? Good) started eating solids a year ago, and that was about the last big change we had to work at. She's started feeding herself and generally gotten a lot more independent, but between 1 and 2 it's like there's been this big break from the parenting side. No more tummy time. No more sleep training. No big changes or transitions. Even going from two naps to one happened naturally (or at least arbitrarily, but without complaint).

But now she's 2, and this past year of idle, indulgent status quo is about to be shattered in the next few months by potty training, and moving to a toddler bed (she can already escape her crib, though typically doesn't—she just lies on the rail like monorail cat, saying "Don't faw down! Don't faw down!").

So how did you go about it? She's undressed herself once, though has a lot of trouble with her pants, especially when she's wearing cloth diapers. And she's really interested in sitting on the toilet, though of course never when she actually has to go. And she doesn't yet tell she has to go before she goes.

I understand potty training happens best when the kid is ready and willing, and mine seems to be about half-way there (got the latter but not yet the former). We've already got a drawer full of stickers squirreled away. Any best tips, tricks, or cheats?

We're going through the same thing right now. We took a two pronged approach. First we bought a portable potty that she can move around, that lives down stairs. Then in the upstairs bathroom we got a step stool and a potty seat that fits inside the grown up toilet seat. For a while now when she has to poop she'll find a secluded spot and pop a squat. For the past few weeks she's been doing it in the same spot in the living room so we just put the portable potty there. She has started using it, although for now she keeps her diaper on and just sits on it when going. She's also fond of sitting backwards on the potty which we will have to address sooner or later. For now though we're just easing her into it.

Potty training.

I feel like this last year has been pretty easy. Our daughter (do we not do the DD/DS/etc abbreviations here? Good) started eating solids proper food [edit: the memory isn't what it used to be] about a year ago, and that was about the last big change we had to work at. She's started feeding herself and generally gotten a lot more independent, but between 1 and 2 it's like there's been this big break from the parenting side. No more tummy time. No more sleep training. No big changes or transitions. Even going from two naps to one happened naturally (or at least arbitrarily, but without complaint).

But now she's 2, and this past year of idle, indulgent status quo is about to be shattered in the next few months by potty training, and moving to a toddler bed (she can already escape her crib, though typically doesn't—she just lies on the rail like monorail cat, saying "Don't faw down! Don't faw down!").

So how did you go about it? She's undressed herself once, though has a lot of trouble with her pants, especially when she's wearing cloth diapers. And she's really interested in sitting on the toilet, though of course never when she actually has to go. And she doesn't yet tell she has to go before she goes.

I understand potty training happens best when the kid is ready and willing, and mine seems to be about half-way there (got the latter but not yet the former). We've already got a drawer full of stickers squirreled away. Any best tips, tricks, or cheats?

We basically used this approach with our three kids. It worked out really well all things considered. The only issue we've had and still have is kids just being too busy playing to realize they need to go. Even when they're potty trained you typically need to recognize the signs (ie. the pee-pee dance) and remind your kid for a good long while.

Oh, we had our kids in pull ups while sleeping for at least some months after they were potty trained during the day. The key I've found to having them make it through the night is to just cut off liquids 90 minutes before bedtime and have them go potty as the last thing before getting into bed. On days when that doesn't happen for whatever reason, I take the kids before I go to bed. Just pick them up, plop them on the potty, then put them back in bed. They generally don't even really wake up. This may or may not be necessary for you, but it has been for one of our kids, and doing the midnight potty trip is far preferable to dealing with the chance of a wet bed at 4AM. And just in case, we have multiple layers of fitted sheets on the bed with the washable waterproof pads between, so worst case I can just pull off a fitted sheet and pad and put the kid right back into bed.

Oh, we have these seats on all the toilets now, and it's made things a lot easier. In a small bathroom, it can be difficult to find a place to put a kids' potty seat when it's not in use. The kids' seat connects to the main seat via two little snap in pegs, and these tend to wear out to the point where the seat doesn't stay snapped on after maybe 6-12 months of heavy use. That sucks, but I haven't found any similar seat that's designed better.

Thanks for the responses! Just talking to my co-workers and getting the same range of strategies too. We've got about a month of nice weather and not much work for my wife, so it looks like we should give it a go soon.

With both of my girls, once they started being able to hold it reliably during the day and let us know, I would also do the midnight trip to the bathroom.

And candy bribes. Little box of chocolates next to the toilet/potty, and if they went, they got one.

When ours got older, we talked about their 'wee cups'.

I explained that as they eat and drink, their bodies keep adding the left over water to their wee cups (cue props for the demonstration, a cup, and jug of water).

As I talked I added a bit of water each time to the cup, until it was full.

Then I went to the toilet, and emptied my wee cup.

I then started again, but this time, I mentioned we were 'going out'.

"What should I do? My wee cup isn't full yet, but what if the toilets are broken at the shop, or we're in a really long line to pay for our groceries?"

"We could empty our cup now, so it can hold the most when we're out"

Worked a treat, and I've only had to leave a grocery cart at the service desk once while we made a dash to the toilet, and I was partly to blame for that (didn't remind them before we left the house).

Potty-training or no, I need to work the term "wee cups" into my daily lexicon. It's too damn good to not use.

Aren't wee cups what Scots say to refer to a shot?

sometimesdee wrote:

Aren't wee cups what Scots say to refer to a shot?

The technical term is "a f***ing wee cup, ya wee raj"

Boy did we have a close call this week. My wife and youngest daughter (Vivienne, 5 months old) caught a cold last week. On Monday we noticed that Vivienne had a wheeze to go along with her cough. We figured we would play it safe and ended up taking her to urgent care, figuring that we'd probably get sent home when they discovered that it was in her nose, not lungs.

Didn't quite go that way. The doctor listened to her, watched her breathe and said "You need to take her to the hospital right now. Would you like an ambulance?"

O_O

In the time it took us to go from the doctors office to the hospital (5 blocks away, which is why we drove instead) her breathing had become obviously labored. They took her in the ER and started monitoring her O2 saturation. The numbers were in the high 80's when they SHOULD be 96 or above.
They swabbed her to check for RSV and then took some chest Xrays.

Luckily, both came back clean. Then they gave her some breathing treatments (the inhaled steroid) and we watched her numbers go back up. After the treatment, they thought the numbers would stay up, but they didn't. They went right back down into the 80s.

So they admitted her.

Long story short, almost 30 hours of observation and she kicked whatever she had. Her O2 levels are back to normal, and her breathing is no longer labored. When we took her home, they rented us a machine to administer the treatements should we need to, but so far we've not used it.
I'm attaching a picture of her time in the hospital. Nothing gets this kid down.
IMAGE(http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i227/Sephirotic/039771b8-745d-446d-888f-3b63516f69b3.jpg)

RSV is no joke. I'm so glad things worked out, Toddland. PS. she's super cute!

We had a similar thing happen to our 2 year old a couple of weeks ago, he started wheezing, and had very labored breathing. I was stuck working, so my wife took him to the ER for a breathing treatment. He perked up, but needed several more over the next day or two. Nothing like watching your 2 year struggle to breathe, to make you feel absolutely terrified. Glad your little one is back home, Toddland:0

How scary! Glad she's okay, and apparently enjoying the hospital being adorable and all

I told my son that the glowing toe was a bionic toe that they implanted on her so that they could monitor her oxygen (it glows red when she's OK). When he got to the hospital, the first thing he did was remove her sock. Because of the red LED, her whole toe was lit up bright red. Maxwell stared at it, and then stated "That is the most awesome toe ever. Can I have one??"

I'm glad she's OK! She looks like she tolerated the oxygen monitor really well. My daughter has needed it a few times and HATED IT.

Vivienne looks like a real trouper!

Glad she's doing well now, Toddland! My eldest had a similar scare when he was six weeks, he ended up in the hospital for ten days on O2, so I know what that was like. (And mine hated the O2 monitor too, to say nothing of the line they started).

A good buddy of mine just linked me to Robot Turtles, a boardgame for teaching programming concepts to kids.

I'm putting it on the backburner for now, as Olive isn't so much into boardgames as a 5-month old, but I'll be picking it up later at the appropriate time. Those of you with 3-8 year olds though, it looks super cool!

My 4 year old loves Robot Turtles, largely because of the LASERS. and you can melt ice towers. With lasers.

It is a cool implementation, teaching process and outcome. He's up to doing 5 cards at a time to guide the robots. It even uses functions, where cards can call to a pattern of cards so you can do more moves with fewer cards. It's really clever.

Cross-posting from the self-indulgent parent thread...where I thought I was. Dads. We get confused.

We actually talked to a child psychologist before our second child was born and we found it really, really helpful. Both my wife and I had f'd up childhoods, so we're a bit worried about any of that coming out. Apart from giving as equal attention as possible, making our older one a part of things (like getting to feed the baby and such), reading books together about being an older sibling helped (they all have the theme "look at the cool stuff you get to do that baby can't yet).

But the biggest thing for me, as non-intuitive is what i mentioned many, many pages ago now. Not trying to erase your kid's feelings to make her feel better. If she's jealous...well, I would be, too. Don't erase that. If she's frustrated, or angry, or whatever...that's okay. Accept that as part of the process. Trying to constantly "make it all better" is an easy trap to fall into.

So i had to suck it up (since my wife was on lifting restrictions), and say, "Okay, if you want to stay with diapers for now, and have daddy hold you like I hold your brother, let's do that."

My daughter's favorite phrase for months was, "Hold me like a baby." And she was the one who wouldn't let us spoon feed her after 12 months old...she insisted on doing it herself.

It's hard for them at first. But that's okay. The more you can relax about it the better, which is why i'd say one session with a child psychologist who knows what the heck they're talking about...is a good plan. Even if nothing changes but you feel more comfortable (that you won't seriously f*ck it all up...). Which you won't. But man it feels good to have someone officially tell you that.

Thanks for the advice, Roo. I'm all for expert opinions when it comes to this sort of stuff.

It's nice to read how positively you and your wife are trying to raise your children when you feel your childhoods were crummy. Goal number one for me is to do some things better than I got as well.

Good luck as you proceed!

About potty training: my son is proceeding along well enough when it comes to peeing in the potty (with lots of encouragement), but he has never pooped in the potty. For a couple of reasons, I really think he doesn't know how to tell when he has to poop. Suggestions? He's behind in terms of language, so I have to keep that in mind. He is 4.

I just saw this today and thought I would share: Guide to Your Most Shame-Filled Motherhood. Please substitute parent for mother!

My own experiences today:

The most calories my children have had today have come from generic Froot Loops.

I used my loudest voice today when I told my daughter: "Stop standing on the iPad!"

Ugh. Standing on stuff. The hell?

Since they've been able to stand, they've been trying to stand on things. Books especially. In fact, not 2 minutes ago I watched Aria knock a book off the shelf to stand on it.

Babies. The hell, babies?

Yea, I don't get the standing on stuff either. Granted, that's not nearly as bad as peeing on stuff; my younger son ruined an $800 laptop by taking a leak on it.

oilypenguin wrote:

Ugh. Standing on stuff. The hell?

Since they've been able to stand, they've been trying to stand on things. Books especially. In fact, not 2 minutes ago I watched Aria knock a book off the shelf to stand on it.

Babies. The hell, babies?

At least your kid is standing on semi-stable things. Things I've seen Mal use to try and stand on (and therefore "help" him to climb onto the couch):

1. Toy car (didn't work that well)
2. Stationary wheel thing (also no go)
3. Stuffed animal
4. the dog
5. the cat
6. Remote control

Keep in mind there are plenty of empty boxes all over the room that he could very easily stand/climb on. Instead he just picks them up and throws them around.

...Babies are weird, man. Also, I kind of regret that his favorite book is this pop up book, because now when he's playing with anyone he tries to find their belly button.

It's like you guys don't even remember what it was like to be a baby!

Roo wrote:

But the biggest thing for me, as non-intuitive is what i mentioned many, many pages ago now. Not trying to erase your kid's feelings to make her feel better. If she's jealous...well, I would be, too. Don't erase that. If she's frustrated, or angry, or whatever...that's okay. Accept that as part of the process. Trying to constantly "make it all better" is an easy trap to fall into.

I was the oldest of the three and I still remember my jealousy. Still, no scars left (I think at least) and I have wonderful relationships with my two brothers. So I was not really considering ironing the occasional jealousy out with our two kids. Now they are 5 (boy) and 3 (girl) and boy do they love each other. My daughter often proudly proclaims "That's my man!" of her brother and son, on the other hand, takes care of and protects his sister. Although two years ago he was pretty jealous.

oilypenguin wrote:

Ugh. Standing on stuff. The hell?

"If it's not the floor, we don't stand on it!"

If I had a dollar for every time I've said that to my boys (who are 5 and 7), I'd have a lot of dollars. A LOT.

huh, we've had no "standing on stuff" phase.

What's not a phase, that I wish my son (aged 5) would stop, is this:

When presented with any choice A or B (even if that's "Do you want pizza or spaghetti?") he always asks for some C option that was not mentioned. Every freaking time. Starting to seriously get on my nerves, although I know that will only prolong this fun pastime of his.

Have any of ya'll had this one? Thoughts?

Offer 2 fake choices and hope he suggests what you actually wanted? Or after he offers Option C try Option D?