Thursday, January 10, 2008

Potty Training – The beginning stage


One of the goals we set as a family for 2008 is to potty train Coconut a.k.a. Secondo. She’s 2.5 years old now and that was the age we started potty training Danielle. Back in 2002, as a first time mom, I didn’t know how to go about it and the suggestion that I liked best back then was to going from diaper to underwear. Pull ups are great but the child don’t feel any wetness so the process takes longer. Danielle got the hang of it within 2-3 weeks with major support of her pre-school teachers. I remember packing 5 sets of clothes for school in anticipation of many accidents and on the 1st day, I called and checked in on her during the day and the teacher told me that she was doing well. When I picked her up that afternoon, I found out that she did not pee all day when the teachers sat her on the potty. Before I picked her up, she had a big river type accident.
We are not as brave 2nd time around by going direct from diaper to underwear for the following reasons
1. Coconut’s care taker isn’t fully on board with my proposal
2. Coconut’s personality is very different than Danielle so the time it takes her to get the hang of it may be longer
3. It was stressful when we had so many accidents (#1 & 2) that I’m traumatized and don’t want to go there again
With Coconut, she had her first success this pass Sunday. She told me that she pooped so I checked her diaper and it was clean so I sat her on the potty and she took a dump on her little potty. We cheered, celebrated by giving her a candy & sticker. I said “ I’m so proud of you Coconut” She said “I’m so proud of you mama!” I also gave candy to Danielle and she said “ Why are you giving me candy? I didn’t poo in the potty?” I said “ You’ve been helping Coconut potty training so you deserve a candy too.” She seemed happy and proud and she has been prompting her sister to go potty every since.
This week, coconut has peed in the potty when we asked her to do so at home but still goes in the diaper at the sitter.

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