and I love her with all my heart...but this potty training business is just about to make me lose my mind! Overall, I would say parenting has been an incredibly humbling experience. I'll admit I was critical of poor parenting prior to becoming one myself and I must say, it looks easier when you're on the outside looking in. For me, potty training has become the most humbling experience of all.
After weeks of bribing, regularly scheduled potty breaks, pull-ups, big girl panties...you name it...as of last week, we were no more closer to being potty trained than when we started. I can't tell you how upsetting this is when you have a child with a seemingly limitless vocabulary not be able to tell you when she needs to go to the potty! I have a new found respect for any parent who has ever potty trained a child...it's a battle & my hat is off to those who have fought & successfully won this battle!
This weekend I reached by boiling point...a big part of our problem is that Ruth Ann wears real panties at our house and pull-ups or diapers at my in-laws house...a tactic which I plan on changing this week. During my time off this week I changed my strategy. I had been putting Ruth Ann in big girl panties and a t-shirt...no bottoms. She wasn't the least bit bothered by wetting her panties...but this week I made her wear shorts...and not just any shorts, jean shorts. This led to immediate discomfort when she wet her panties and then I made her stay in her wet clothes for a few minutes...big improvements started to be made. Then on Saturday morning she wet her pants, I made her go to the bathroom but she came out a few minutes later naked from the waist down. I cleaned her up, changed her clothes and literally 10 minutes later she wet her pants again. I was seeing RED! This was first time since potty trained where I felt like a serious scolding was needed. I scolded her and walked her back to the potty only to discover she had pooped in the potty on her own...for those who haven't potty trained a child...pooping is the Holy Grail of potty training! I felt terrible...here was my child in tears & me yelling when I discovered she had pooped on her own for the first time...GIANT parenting fail!
The good news...Ruth Ann has been dry all day as of 7:30pm. If this holds up until bath time she gets to open one of her new Barbies! Please Lord, let this be the light at the end of the potty training tunnel!
2 comments:
I don't even want to THINK about potty training...I admit it terrifies me. Hang in there! Sending up a prayer for that light :)
UGGGHHH!!! Don't even get me started on the whole pottytraining thing! I have become a lazy parent with second child syndrome these days. But one thing I have learned about AK is if she has a pull-up on she will pee all day in it. If I put her in underwear she will hold it until I take her to the potty, but she won't consistently tell me she needs to go. The difficult part is school does not allow her to wear undies until she is consistently going poop in the potty so I think we've got a ways to go before that. I do feel like that is slowing things down since what she is wearing is not consistent all day. Anyway just know she won't go to kindergarten in diapers and it will eventually happen. I know that is hard to accept at this point, but I had to ease up on everything to keep my sanity.
Thanks for the offer of monogramming if we were close by! I picked up that dress literally the day before we were leaving and didn't have time for it to be done. :)
HANG IN THERE!!!
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