Just when I think I have the boys figured out, something changes and I have to start all over again. I mentioned the other day that our potty training efforts and our bedtime efforts are not going very well these days. Fast forward a couple of days and, surprise, the boys are both doing better with potty stuff. Amazingly better. And I didn't do much of anything. Who would have thought.
Basically our situation was that nothing had changed with Nick since I last reported on this. He did great during our three day potty training exercise and even for a couple of days afterwards but, when all the excitement wore off, he was much too busy playing to bother with going to the potty and he could not care in the least if he ran around in dirty pull ups. He also put up a big fuss if I asked him to sit on the potty and try to go. I was really at a loss of where to begin again with him.
Ben was still doing a great job of pooping in the potty but he was using his pull up for peeing more and more often. I have had several people tell me that it would be easier to train two at the same time because, when one wanted to do it, then the other would to. Not. Don't believe this. It actually worked just the opposite in our house. Ben was trained to the point where he hardly ever had any kind of accident. Then he saw how Nick was not going to the potty at all and that seemed to work for him and he had more play time (or so it seemed), so he decided to start using his pull up for peeing also.
I really felt like I would be starting over again, for the most part. Only this time, they would kind of already know the drill and the excitement of the newness of it all would not be there. So, I was really dreading this when, all of a sudden, Nick decided to start using the potty for pooping. Boom! Just out of nowhere. He just decided. Isn't that nice? And, after I had a talk with Ben, he has decided to start using the potty all the time now, instead of peeing in his pull up. He wants to wear big boy pants again and I told him he could after he showed me he could go all day without wetting his pull up. He did that today with no problem.
So, it looks as if they may be getting to a point where they want to be potty trained. It will be so nice not to have to worry about pull ups, wipes and diaper bags. I can't even imagine it. Hopefully it will happen soon.
I think tomorrow I will take them shopping to buy some new big boy pants and see if that adds a little more incentive to the mix. Maybe if I let them pick them out, they will really want to wear them. I am hopeful that is all we need to get Nick back on the potty bandwagon.
As for our bedtime issues, we have had a very hard time keeping Nick in his bed at night. At nap time, they both usually do very well. They are so tired that they normally fall asleep within 10 minutes or so. We have had such a hard time with them at bedtime that we have now moved out bedtime a half hour. It used to be that we started getting ready at 7:30 and we tried to have them down by 8:00 but then they would play and get out of bed for about 30 minutes before they finally started to settle down around 8:30 and then they would both normally fall asleep between 8:30 and 9:00.
So, we have move out their bedtime a half hour so that they are going to bed at 8:30. We just recently did this so it is still a bit too soon to tell if it is going to help. They did settle down pretty quickly tonight though, I think. Sometimes it is hard to tell because Nick has figured out that if he walks softly we can't hear him. So I think he probably gets out of bed at times when we don't know it.
The dad was on the night watch last night and he ended up putting Nick in the next room for a short time, so he could see/understand what it would be like to be in that room by himself. We have been telling him that, if he doesn't start staying in his bed, we were considering moving him to his own room and he would be in there all by himself. He is a very social kid so I know he would definitely not like this. So hopefully it made an impression on him and he will start staying in his bed now.
If not, we'll try something else. You just keep trying until you finally find something that works or they finally grow out of whatever it is they are doing. Before I became a parent, I never knew how difficult it could be....but also how rewarding and joyful it is:).
I'm back to working on the lifebooks and I am so close to being done that I can taste it. I can't wait to finish these. It will be such a relief to have it done and to have books that the boys can look at and we can read to them. The lifebooks cover birth through coming home. I can't believe it has taken me this long to do this. They are really coming out nice though. I am pleased with the results. I just hope that Kinko's can copy them and put them in a bound book so the boys will each have a copy they can look at anytime without worrying about ruining the original.
In other news, our post placement report should be finished tomorrow. I still have to make copies of the pictures, although I have them ready to go. I will review the post placement report and, if everything looks good, I will probably plan a trip to OKC next week for the apostilles and then I will mail it off. After that I will do a happy dance because we will only have to do this one more time next January and then we will be done. Yay!
I have also contacted a lawyer to help us out with our readoption here in Oklahoma. This is not required, although it will make it much easier for the kids if they need to order more copies of their birth certificates in the future, since they will be issued an Oklahoma birth certificate. I have to gather up all of the paperwork and then I meet with the lawyer next Friday. I'm glad to finally get started on this because we have always planned to do it but it somehow fell to the bottom of our priority list.
Sounds like they are asleep and, as far as I know, nobody got out of their bed this time. Yay!
4 comments:
I potty trained my two together, my daughter is seven months younger than my son, but everyone says that girls learn faster, so it seemed like it would work. I wasn't in a hurry, because I have a bad back and didn't want to be lifting them onto public toilets all the time when we were out. (also, I hated cleaning out those little potty seats at home!)
After spending several months practicing (using the toilet, but
still wearing pullups), we did a "potty bootcamp" weekend, where we stayed home and did nothing but play games and use the potty all weekend. I told them that as soon as they had dry pullups for seven days straight, they would get some really cool undewear, and seven days later, my daughter had her underwear. (and she never had a single accident, day or night, for
two years after that).
When she got her underwear, my son kind of lost interest in the whole thing, and I didn't push it. (I think it was partly a competition thing, and partly that he really wasn't physically ready.) More than a year later (!) he still was wetting his pullups, and I finally decided to just put underwear on him (he doesn't like to be wet). That seemed to do the trick, but he was 4-1/2 by then! Even now (he just turned 6), I still carry spare clothes (including socks), because he occasionally has accidents when he is under stress.
So, I guess I'm trying to say that your N (my son is also named N) will do it when he's ready, and
it will go a lot more smoothly if you let him pick the time.
Sue B
whatever happened to that 3 day potty training? did you email her lateley and tell her it has been months and you want your money back? lol. I think Olivia is there. Now if we can only get Kevin on board.
cute pics from christmas btw
Thanks Sue, that is very helpful. I'll have to tell my husband about your story because he is asking if I am going to do the three day thing again and I'm thinking it won't help N but I could be wrong. I don't know what to do but waiting until it is the right time for him sounds good to me.
MMrussianadoption: I wrote this to you in an email but I will post it here too, in case others are wondering the same thing.
Unfortunately I did not follow all of the instructions of the 3-day method. I modified it a bit to better fit (I thought) training two at the same time. I did not do everything exactly as she said, although I am not really convinced that even if I had that N would be trained. Both boys did an excellent job during the actual three days of training and, by the end of it, they were both using the potty very well. I probably did not follow through quite as well as I should have either after the three days were up.
This may very well rank up there at the tippity top on the list of things do not like to do - potty training.
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