I make deliberate effort not to compare my child to others. Sometimes I do ok and sometimes I fall flat on my face. But I do try. Hard. And if I screw up, it's never on purpose. Usually, I'm just sticking my foot in my mouth.
I mean, I know what it feels like to be the mom in the room whose kid is different from the others.
I've removed myself from conversations about height and weight and abilities from time to time.
Sure, it still gets under my skin a little sometimes. And then I come hear and rant about it...which feels great, by the way.
And that's why I hope I didn't come off crappy the other day when I was talking about what Playette is doing these days.
I mean, I don't take credit for any of that. It was more of an opportunity to give a shout-out to my amazing husband who is made of caramel or Reese's peanut butter cups or funnel cake or whatever it is that I happen to find fabulous yet completely unlike me at the moment.
Feeling inadequate, much?
Which brings to mind:
For those of you that have been there/done that, how do you know when a child is ready for potty training exactly? What did that look like to you?
I have articles printed out and I even have a DVD that I ordered free from Pull-Ups or wherever that probably explains this a little, but I'd love some real talk on this, since we're apparently we prefer winging it over here.
We're not trying to force anything on her and I just really need to know if we're causing psychological damage with this whole, "Playette, meet Potty" thing. I mean, she seems to like him (I just decided, it's a him) and if it saves us a few diapers, I'm all for it.
When we came home from the Cardio appointment yesterday, I had to go and thought, "Hey, maybe she does too," and put her on the pot. A couple of minutes (max) later we had #1 and #2 and she didn't seem stressed out by the process at all.
I'm not saying it's impossible for a child with Ds to be potty trained this early because I know it happens. But in this case, we weren't even thinking about Ds. We were just thinking about what comes next and in the midst of a trip to BRU, we grabbed a cute little pot and then one day sometime after that we decided to test it out.
I just want to make sure we're not screwing our kid up.
And honestly, there's this one part of me that is afraid that this is going to end up being her thing. Like, she'll be potty trained at 2 and then never speak/read/write.
That's real talk.
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9 comments:
Well, here's my 2 cents, for what it's worth. (it's Canadian 2 cents even so probably not much! LOL)
I say forget what the "books/DVD's/so-called-experts" say, go for it. She's not fighting you, and she's having success. You and your DH know YOUR daughter best, books and experts don't. I don't think any kid has ever been traumatized by potty training.
I forget how old she is, so you'll have to remind me, but I guess you can kind of look at things this way. If she didn't have DS would you be questioning it? There's this "stigma" (for lack of a better word) that we all seem to fall into that kids with DS will be late potty trainers. While that may be true for some kids, it's not a set in stone rule. Remember, there are typical kids who potty train very late as well. Don't assume she is too young, or not ready, until she proves too you she is too young and not ready.
As far as readiness signs, with all of my kids (Kaia included), I sort of went with what there age was. I felt they should be trained by the time they were 3, earlier if they were really showing me they wanted to. I never thought Kaia would train when she did (she was 1 month shy of her 3rd b-day) because all I knew that kids with DS don't train until at least 5, but she started taking off her diaper all the time, and I had a good chunk of free time available (ie no outside of the house appointments) to concentrate on training her, so I went with it. She couldn't verbally tell when she needed to go, but she would just drag me to the bathroom, or have this specific look that I reconized that would prompt me that she needed to go. (And you know, my boys never could tell me for the first month or so either). After a few months she had learned the word "pee" (from hearing us say it so much) that she just started saying it.
Long story short, I say go for it! I think it's awesome that she's doing it!!!
You are not going to screw her up. She's not going to turn into a 10-year-old with no words that likes to sit in the bathroom all day. Logically you know this (you just need a little confirmation...). It sounds to me like she's ready, but I'm no expert. I've also only potty-trained boys, so I don't know if that's different in any way. For Evan, we started putting him on the potty before his bath,and he was good-natured about it, so we kept it up. He eventually started going consistently before his bath, then a few months later we hit it full force. He is doing great now (2 months later) and is wearing undies all the time with very few accidents. Still sleeping in Pull-ups.
I'd skip the Pull-ups video info if I were you...it is probably skewed to keep your kid in Pull-ups longer than you need to. Everybody's out to make money, even off of pee and poop.
I know what you mean about talking about how well your child is doing. I walk this fine line between wanting to talk about it but then not wanting to make someone whose child might not be there yet feel bad. It's hard to know just where that line is sometimes.
HEY if she's ok with it, run with it! Seriously! Don't miss your window! Who CARES what every other kid out there (Ds or not) is doing... if you can be diaper free, YAY for you! LOL (And I've never seen a study that links potty training to not reading! hehehe)
that is AWESOME!
I'd say if you put him (the potty) out there and she seems interested, just encourage it but don't stress out or put pressure on playette (which I can tell you are SO not doing which is great!)
I think your approach is going to work out great for Malea...it already is!
Way to go Malea :)
If she likes it - KEEP IT UP!! If it seems stressful or she's not disinterested ... well, let her lead. If she needs a break from it, she'll let you know.
And you are SUPPOSED to brag about her here - that's why we're reading!! That & to listen to you rant ... isn't that the point of blogs? :)
yeah, we just bought Archer (at 19 months) his first potty. he successfully used it the first time we dropped his butt on it but has only peed a couple times in it since then. he likes to sit on it, though, and we figure it can't hurt. I'm with Lacia, why buy into the stigma? your kid will do what your kid will do at the age she wants to do it. good luck!
What they said!! And I LOVE to hear about Playette's skills!!
I agree with all the other comments. If she knows what to do when you put her on the potty then I would start now. I missed the opportunity for Morgan (she was excited about it when she was 3 but we were moving and I was having a baby and didn't want to deal with it at that time) and a year later she had lost her enthusiasm and it has been an ongoing battle. Morgan will be 7 in Sept. and she is mommy-trained but doesn't initiate the potty on her own. From what I have heard from all the moms in our Ds playgroup--it takes about a year of being 'mommy-trained' before it clicks to go on your own. One mom in our group started last Aug. with her 3 year old daughter and it took her about 8 months and is totally independent with the toilet (and almost potty trained through the night too). The best thing for me was to have a chart that I wrote down when she went potty and poopies on it. It was something her school gave us to do. We put a 'U' on the time slot if she urinated and "B" if she went poopies. If she had an accident we put "UX' for potty accident and "BX" for poopy accident. It helped me with being consistent and keeping track of when it was time to take her to the toilet. We put her in underwear and first started with taking her every 30 mins. then stretched it out to every 60 mins. and now try to take her every 90 mins. She spent a lot of time just in a tshirt and underwear because it is so much easier to wash wet underwear than pants too. I wouldn't even bother with pull ups (unless we are going out of the home...then I put a pull up on on top of her underwear) because it makes potty training so slow when the child doesn't feel wet when they have an accident. Good luck and use lots of praise and rewards (m-n-ms for Morgan) in the beginning so it is a fun exciting thing that they want to do more and more.
I am writing a post about starting potty training with Bridget on Bridget's Light. If you're interested check it out tomorrow...
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