The Toilet-Training Chronicles

I have to say I am not one for toilet training. My philosophy with most parenting stuff is to let kids figure it out on their own, rather than push. This works well with most things but apparently not with toileting. I kept waiting for my kids to give me a sign they were ready, to show interest like the books said they would but nada.

When A. was 3 yrs old, I decided that I had waited enough and just put her in underwear. To her credit she figured it out in a day or two.

That attempt was also the first of many attempts to train Y. He did not figure it out then or in other subsequent attempts over the years. I kept saying, when he is 4, 5, 6, he will be clean but it was not happening. Partially because he was not ready, partially because I was not consistent enough with him. For the past year or so he is being taken to the bathroom consistently on schedule at school. It seemed to be working okay, so last Tuesday, about 10 days ago,  we took the plunge and put him in underwear.

It has been a rough ten days, made harder by the fact that the boys were home this whole week. I have a very hard time remembering to take him to the bathroom every 30-45 minutes (hello annoying timers) and he often resists it. I would like to say we have made progress and we have, but we are not quite there yet. He will not request to go , so we are still taking him what feels like all the time. As long as we stay on schedule, we are usually okay. If I forget or he refuses to go, we have accidents. There has been a lot of laundry going on around here. I have been tempted to give up many times but at this point I feel there is no turning back. It would undo all the work we have done. My special needs support group is cheering me on and telling me to give it a good 3 to 4 weeks to really click. That seems like forever to me but I am still trudging on. We are almost at the two week mark and once he is back at school, they will be in charge of this aspect for a large part of the day.

Like I said, M and Y were both home from school this week and we were stuck at home (ie near a toilet) anyway, so I decided to be really insane and put M. in underwear too. Thank goodness he caught on right away and is doing well, although still averaging about one accident a day. Maybe I should tell Baby AY that his time has come too? Or is three months a bit too ambitious? I guess if at the end of the week I have one toilet trained child, I should call it a success, right? I just wish it was the other child.

As a motivator to get moving on the training, I had bought myself a jdeal- a 60 minute massage plus reflexology treatment to be redeemed when Y is fully trained. I told my husband, that even though Y. isn't totally there yet, I think I have earned my reward already.

It has been a LOOONG week keeping everyone entertained, happy and most of all, dry. A. I am looking forward to a, hopefully, restful weekend followed by back to school for everyone on Monday.
Stay tuned for more fun potty updates. Baby AY wishes you a wonderful shabbos.