wwyd re: potty training
We are only day 10 into potty training and I'm wondering if DD is just not ready. She loves wearing her big girl underwear, but she treats them just like a diaper, especially with BMs. We talk all.day.long about keeping her underwear dry and asking her to tell me when she has to go. I ask her a billion times a day if she has to go and will make her sit on the toilet every hour or so. She doesn't get upset about having to sit on the toilet and most of the time will go. We reward her for going in the toilet and don't make a big deal about her having accidents (expect to remind her another million times that she needs to go in the potty and keep her underwear dry.) She gets excited when she goes on the toilet but doesn't care if she goes in her underwear. I feel like after 10 days we should have made some progress. I'm not expecting her to be accident-free by any means, but I thought she'd at least start giving signs that she needed to go, even if they weren't verbal signs.
For those that have experience with potty training, do you think I started too soon or do I just need to keep going and be patient? At this point, she is not frustrated (if anything, she is just completely indifferent towards it all) and I do not want this to become a power struggle. TIA!
Re: wwyd re: potty training
Jennie
Thank you for this insight!! I needed it. @Kabel- I have no tips as we aren't there yet... but thanks for posting this thread!
We were in the same spot, with the same questions not so long ago. I completely stopped suggesting the potty to her at home. She still would sit on the potty and sometimes go while at her preschool, but no one insisted on it at all. I just followed her cues after that. She wasn't ready at the time, and I think it was stressful for all of us. After awhile, she started asking to go every now and then. We praised her if she went, and didn't make a fuss over her wearing diapers. In the past 2 weeks, something clicked, and she is now in underwear all day long, and is doing so well. And, there is no stress on anyone this time around.
My thoughts, having experienced what you are going through, is that if it is stressful on you or your DD, or if you question her readiness, she isn't quite there yet. Give it a few weeks, offer the potty, or just let her decide when she wants to go. One day soon, she will have you pleasantly surprised that potty training is happening, and no one is struggling with the idea of it.
One piece of medical information I can pass on is that nervous system maturity in the brain and spinal cord has to be complete before any child can be fully potty trained. You might Google myelinization of the spinal cord and potty training for all the details about that, as I have already typed a mini novel here. Usually this starts to occur around age 2, but some kids are older before it happens. The cord maturation is what allows the child to sense a full bladder and make the connection in the brain that it is time to go, and also it controls the sphincters that give the ability to control their bladder and bowel. They just cannot train until this nervous system maturation occurs. No worries, she just may not be physically ready yet, and that cannot be hurried along.
My DS didn't start potty training until he was over 3.5 years old. The best advice I got from someone was "Very few children get on the school bus in a diaper. No worries. You still have plenty of time." It made me laugh at my worries, and all turned out just fine...when he was ready.
This is my biggest fear (with potty training!) Thanks for your suggestion!!
Now 2.5 months after starting training she takes herself to the potty and does the whole routine on her own - all the way down to washing her hands.
We went straight to underwear with using diapers only for nap and nighttime.
You will find a wide variety of opinions on potty training (oh my - imagine that! A lot of different, passionate opinions on a parenting issue with everyone thinking theirs is the right way! That never happens). You'll find everything from the school of thought that says kids will put themselves on when they're "ready" to those who practice elimination communication with infants. The vast majority of Europeans still begin potty training at the 1st birthday and complete it by 18 mos. But in this country I can tell you when we assess children for the presence of developmental delays, potty training is considered delayed if it is not *completed* by the 4th birthday.
When old-school cloth diapers were the norm children were potty trained much, much earlier than they are today (usually between 18 and 24 months). With the invention and convenience of disposable diapers and high quality cloth diapers plus the number of dual-earner households many parents put off potty training. Plus movement to more child-centered parenting has delayed the age at which children in the US potty train.
If it's any interest to you - this is a discussion of a meta-analysis of different studies on potty training prepared for the US Dept of Health and Human Services. The discussion includes both typically-developing, middle- to upper-class children as well as children with special needs. They compared the outcomes for several different methods/approaches to potty training from very rigid parent-centered ones to child-centered ones. The results indicate that for typically-developing, healthy children basically any method will get the job done. Some do it faster but in the end they are all pretty much successful. Evidence of long-term problems of encopresis or enuresis are about 2-3%.
So do what you feel comfortable with because chances are about 97% that whatever you choose to do will ultimately be successful.