Back when it was round one and potty training was a lot less slippy.
If you have shares in Pampers now is the time to sell them, as Hamish... has decided... to potty train himself. Ta-da! All of a sudden on the weekend there he was, sat on the potty, and that was that. Second time around he decided he would try it from a standing position and even managed to perfect the male art of dribbling pee on the floor. I couldn't have been prouder!
First time round with Orla I read up on what I should do, not do, etc, and took advice from all and sundry. I even read...shh...Gina Ford's 'Potty train in 7 days' or whatever it is. And then ignored it. And if I happened to have one of those parenting magazines that I was addicted to for it's gripping mix of birth horror stories and nappy sack reviews, well if there was anything on the cover referring to how to 'Potty train your child without having to get involved', well I was right on it.
The best advice I got was to just wait. If you hang out with a group of mums whose children are the same age as yours there's always someone who potty trains quite early and then all you can think about is when your child will get to grips with it. Orla wasn't too bad, and to be honest I couldn't really complain about having to wash a million pairs of peed knickers as she doesn't drink much. Easy peasy!
I tried the 'chocolate button for every success' method, until I realised she wasn't motivated by chocolate. Success came when I worked out that what she wanted more than anything in the world was a magic wand and some fairy wings. So if she did a wee-wee in the potty she got the wand, and if she did one in her knickers I took it away. Was that really mean?
With Hamish I am wondering how I manage the whole potty training thing with him at nursery half days. I don't think they change nappies that much so I don't get the impression they'd be that keen on keeping up with his frequent toilet trips. He's going to need about 10 pairs of trousers just to get through a morning. Perhaps I will need to get some chocolate buttons imported and motivate the staff into helping him.
When Nipper was at nursery they had a corner sectioned off which housed several potties. They would take the kids who were potty training in there about every 30 minutes and would sit them on the potty with a book to read. Seemed to work quite well. Does Hamish's nursery do anything similar - they must have been through the whole potty training lark many times before?
ReplyDeleteAh, ha! Well, it's about 7 or 8 kids (at best!) to one adult here, so they don't have a lot of attention to give compared to the UK.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think I need to improve my German a bit in order to explain what he needs. Plus, Hamish needs to be able to say he needs the toilet in a way that the staff will understand him. Orla has already wet herself because they didn't understand that she was asking to leave the room.
He looks happy enough without the bribes... definitely the nursery staff you need to work on!
ReplyDeleteI did stickers. But neither potty trained until they were happy to do so. We had too many false starts. Best to wait, I reckon.
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