I want to thank all our readers for comming out of the woodwork to offer suggestions about how to deal with our toddler's new found freedom to be naked. Neither of us have too much issue with kids wanting to be naked, we just have issues cleaning up the elimination mess that they don't seem to notice. :(
Saturday morning we took the bull by the horns and hit the potty big time. I bought treats and stickers and all sorts of motivating goodies. Instead of putting a diaper on we did go right to undies. I had undies here for a while, so my Barnie, Scooby Doo, Curious George, and 101 Dalmation girl undies were highly motivating for Livi. I admit that I don't have as much variety for Taylor, but I do have Thomas the Tank, and that was enough. I super surprised at how proud they were to wear them on their bottoms. We even took a photo of Taylor showing off his "Tank".
The rest of the morning was pretty much spent in the bathroom. On and off the potty, treats, and a little bit of changing wet undies. They didn't actually having any sucesses, but the day was not a waste. Livi wet her big girl pants three times during the day... that is it. I had this vision of changing wet undies all day long and doing loads of undies. So, we learned that it was more managable than we expected. Secondly, Livi did not like being wet... she told us right away the first time it happened, and continued to tell us all day long. So I hope that she is learning the cues so that she will be able to tell us before it happens soon. And Taylor, who I really didn't expect to learn at this point, he only wet his big boy pants twice, but he was less bothered by the wetness and did not tell us when it happened.
So overall, I think it is going ok. I hope we see some bigger successess soon, so we can motivate them with praise.
We also are using cloth diaper pins to keep their backward pjs on at night... it is working so far. As for naps, we tried putting them in pull ups, which they quickly learned how to take off by rippind down the sides... a trick they excersized almost immediately. Jon checked on them several times during their nap yesterday, and he either found naked babies, poop, or both. Somehow it doesn't feel as bad just being during nap time, but still something we need to work on.
So thanks again for all the advice... keep it coming! I feel a little bit more like we can do this... can't wait for some real successess though!
1 comment:
Oh, I wish I had something to add.. Hmm... I really don't know what worked on Grant except when he decided that he was done with diapers, he was done and that included night time also. He told me that he wasn't a baby anymore. Being green, I really tried hard with him early on. He was going potty from 9 months (number 1) when I sat him on the toliet and turned on the water for his bath. The other was very hard for us because he had such loose stools that I never saw him doing it. So I had no way of getting him to the potty when he was doing it. But even with us trying so hard and working with him everyday, he really just did it when we sat him on the potty and did it all other times in his pants. He really didn't "train" early. It wasn't until he was about to turn 3, that he was potty trained. So it didn't really matter if I wanted to stop filling landfills.. Grant really decided when he was ready and not until then.
What I do think helped - plastic pants.. we always knew when he had gone in them.. he had a disgusted look on his face. Also, we played Elmo go potty on the sesame street website.. basically you have to hit a button so Elmo can go the potty.. M&M's did not work for us. He just didn't care. But when we bought a candy dispenser machine (like a gumball machine), he loved turning the knob to get a candy. I also think it helped to see bigger boys go potty.. His cousin is a year older and when I had him over, I talked about how Reese was such a big boy for going potty.
Good luck.. This was one of my more stressful parenting experiences. Somehow, we all made it through without being traumitized.
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