M is still in diapers. Yep, she's 3 & 1/2
Her biggest obstacles to mastering this milestone are communication and fine motor control. She knows when she needs to go, although the time between realization and execution is short. She has gone in the potty hundreds of times when we put her on it at the right time, but she has NEVER said she needs to go. And even this has started to decrease in frequency as she doesn't want to be bothered with the potty. To complicate this further. She is delayed in fine motor control so it's really difficult for her to get her pants down on her own. We have to help her do this.
Last week I read an article on Baby Center about a 3 day method that sounded similar to one successfully used by a friend with her daughter who also has ACC. It's not expected that the child is fully trained in 3 days but it provides a focused, clearly defined beginning. In short it involves no diapers (except at nap/bed time) at all during the day. Also, no pants, training pants, or underwear during the day either unless you need to leave the house and this is strongly discouraged for the first 3 days. After that time the child wears lose fitting pants when out of the house as underwear or training pants often feel similar to a diaper and may cause confusion. Potty chairs must be readily accessible by the toddler at all times while in the house. And someone has to be watching the child at all times to facilitate a quick move to the potty when needed. Not fun, but typically after the first long weekend a child is able to get to the potty and go on their own without being watched. It is recommended that the child be bare bottomed when in the house for 2 to 3 months afterwards.
Our downstairs family living area is small and all hardwood floors so we are really set up for this type of thing. We rolled up the rug in the playroom. We decided we'd include Isla for the weekend too, just to see how she did. So after an early breakfast downtown on Saturday we returned home to remove the diapers, place potty chairs in various areas and explain to the girls that pee/poo needed to go in the potty.
Maryn really surprised us. She went pee in the potty EVERY single time. And after the first couple of times she did it all on her own. Isla was making progress and would often go (where ever she stood) when we were praising M for her accomplishment. Isles was making a connection, but really wasn't quite ready.
Here is where we went wrong. Yep, we, as in Mike and I messed it all up.
They recommend not leaving the house at all the first day. The 2nd day, if the kid appears to be grasping the concepts you wait until just after she goes and then put on L-O-O-S_E fitting pants and go to the park for an hour then return home. The thought is they should be able to make it the hour without needing to go and you start the "training" process of ... we go before we leave the house.
We decided she was doing so well we'd try it in the afternoon of the first day. MISTAKE! So, I'm putting some shorts on her -- they weren't as loose as they should have been in retrospect. And she pees, right away. Right then and there. Now remember she had recently gone ... but now she clearly gets the feeling she can go whenever and it won't matter. I put on loose fitting pants and we go. We're at the park about 20 minutes and she goes again. I change her into another pair of loose fitting pants. Yep, she goes again. We return home. Put her in her diaper because now it's nap time. The rest of the day she does well. She missed one trip to the potty later as she started going before she could get there and slipped in her own pee. But besides that, she was going to the potty on her own without a word, sitting down and peeing.
Day 2. Mike is feeling stressed. He has a busy month at work. We all want to get out of the house for a bit and plan to go to IKEA to pick up a few things and see my sister's new house. Both girls are in diapers for a lot of the afternoon as we're out of the house and don't want to deal. Yep, maybe this wasn't the best time to try this. But when we get home is when it really starts to fall apart. M is mad that she can't have her diaper after her nap. She asks for her diaper, Mike says no and she proceeds to leave the room and poop on the floor when he isn't watching.
Day 3. We do the routine in the morning and decide to go to downtown Chicago after lunch. Both girls back in diapers and both parents agreeing that the next time we do this we will be committed and on the same page.
Oh, well.
We did learn that M is capable, which we hadn't realized before. If you remove the pulling down of the pants and her having to tell you -- she's very capable. Who knew?
So, today I'm home and have decided to continue the routine while we're here. For therapy and pre-school she'll be in diapers and we'll give this another shot sometime soon.
