Little Men of Mine
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Cautiously Optimistic
I'm almost afraid to say anything, but I think we may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with this potty training thing. We've been working on this with Teddy for quite some time now, with quite a few setbacks.We had some minor success in the spring. He attended a month-long free daycare that our local high school students run every year so they can practice what they've learned in their childhood development classes on real little kids. For that month, he wore pull-ups every day, and while he was rarely dry at home, he did manage to stay dry at school. We grew bold and purchased underwear, but after that month, he announced to us that there was no need for him to give up diapers now that school was over.
We tried again a few weeks later, and were making some progress. But then he had an accident with his older brother's bike that severed the tip of his thumb. With a giant dressing and bandage on his hand, he couldn't pull his pants up and down, so we abandoned the whole idea for another month while he healed (yeah, that was lots of fun).
For our next attempt, my husband decided to take a hard line and just put him in "unders," skipping the pull-ups. One Saturday, he wet at least four pairs, and when I discovered him with a giant lump of you-know-what in the fifth pair, he looked at me and said, "NOW can I have a diaper?"
So it was time to pull out the bribes. We promised M&Ms, lollies, Scooby Doo movies, cupcakes, you name it (mostly junk food--the kid loves to eat). We'd have some good days, with lots of cheering and rejoicing over his little contributions in the potty, but we had plenty of bad ones, too. Then one day, I hit on it. Since bribery wasn't working, how about some good old-fashioned deprivation? The idea didn't exactly occur to me like a thunderbolt--I more or less stumbled upon it out of frustration.
When he had yet another setback (not crazy about the word "accident"), and told me for the umpteenth time with NO conviction in his voice "I'll go peep on the potty toMORrow, Mommy," my eyes came to rest on the beloved "Cars The Movie" Happy Meal toy he'd been carrying everywhere for days. Since nothing else seemed to matter to him, I told him he had one more chance, but if he wet another pull-up that day, he had to hand over Ramone. He could earn his car back the next time he used the potty if his pull-up at the time was still dry.
Needless to say, Ramone was mine about an hour later. I felt terrible as he cried and flung himself at the refrigerator, trying to knock his beloved car off the top where I'd put it out of reach. But my husband and I resolved to stand strong. Unfortunately, my poor baby wasn't dry for the rest of the day, so Ramone had to get used to his lofty perch. He earned him back for a few minutes the next day, and then it was right back on top of the fridge.
Over the next week or so, other beloved toys joined Ramone up there as we decided to put on the pressure. I think losing his "kiki" was the final straw. He's like Linus with that blanket, and one bleak afternoon, my husband took it away. I couldn't stand to look. That night, my older son consoled him by offering his own blankey, and I found the two of them in bed together when I went to check on them.
The next morning, the first thing I did was make sure he earned back that blanket. And that day he earned back everything else, completely on his own! At the end of his first entirely dry day, he finally got to watch that Scooby Doo video we'd been dangling, and from there on out, we never looked back.
He's still wet in the morning, but I'll take my victories where I can get 'em. When I suggested underwear because he's been pretty much doing everything on the potty during the day, he told me, "When school starts, I will wear them." I think we have a deal!
Posted by Jennifer @ 11:24 PM