Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Thanks

Thanks for your nice comments on the last post. Don't worry mom I only had a few moments of self depreciating thoughts! I really came to terms with believing that I'm the authority on my kids when Brooklyn would not eat more than four ounces at her lunch feeding today and when I forced the 6 on her this morning she spent the next two hours spitting up pools of formula. I'd much rather deal with constant comments of 'My your daughter is tiny' than worry about finding her drowned in a pile of spit up. I am not going to force 40 oz on her and I'm hoping my own doctor agrees with me on Thursday.

Oh, quick potty training question for all ya moms. We've brought out Isabella's potty and she's even peed on it once already!! How fun is that. She now pees in her diaper and then informs us that she's peed. So we take her to the bathroom and change her diaper and have her sit on the potty for a couple songs just so she gets the routine of it. My question is, is it my job to help her get to the potty before she pees in her diaper, or my job to be patient and let her get from the post pee potty sitting to the pre pee potty sitting? We're not in a rush or anything, just wanting to make sure we do our job while she does hers. I'm reading some books on it, but always looking for real mom advice. The current book I'm reading actually says: "Around three months of age, some infants can distinguish these sensations, while many toddlers have great difficulty sorting them out. {them being the urge to pee and poo}. Since disposable diapers mask wetness and obscure the cause and effect relationship between elimination and dampness, children may lose touch with their bodies over time. Start potty training your next child when he's a baby or infant." This book being The Everything Potty Training Book which I didn't think would propogandize one method but is clearly an advocate of Baby-Track Method which operates along the same idea of Pavlov's dog. If you place a basin under a baby's bum while eliminating said child will learn to eliminate only when on a basin. You can begin this method at birth so as to avoid the disposable/cloth debate. I honestly wonder where you have to live and what kind of lifestyle you have in order to make that plausible! Funny, funny times.

Thanks again for all your support! And if your child ever has to have a catheter remove urine from their bladder, leave when the nurse tells you that you can. That being said I must go attend to Isabella who has come down with a rather nasty head cold and needs an IV drip of juice. I kid I kid.

6 comments:

the Haazens :) said...

For us with G it was the 'be patient and let h[im] get from the post pee potty sitting to the pre pee potty sitting'. Everybody told me that he'll just go when he's ready and he did...sortof. We did kick start the whole process by sitting him down on the potty pre-pee and gave him both his milk and water till he had to go. We made SUCH a big deal out of it at that point that he wanted to go again. I'm sure this only worked though cause he was totally ready...if he hadn't been it wouldn't have stuck! (We actually had the potty for months and when we first got it he did pee on it a couple times too, then lost interest till now).

Best advice given to me was to not stress about it. Let it happen.

For me, that's really hard to do, but in this case it proved true...and I really can't take any credit for it. He was just ready!

Tara said...

I am not a mom but I see a lot of children being potty trained and we are a big part of that at work!! and I totally agree with what tanneal says....and as for the book that you read saying that at three months..they can distiguish in some cultures they believe that but really if you watch the pattern you have really trained yourself and not the baby and through that the child is not really potty trained compleltly at all and you end up having to do the training later on not to the same extent of going from just diapers but you still have to do it!!! When you know your childs faces and body actions you can see when the pee or the pooh is coming and on average the child generally pees just before eating or just after and then pees again after sleeping and sometimes before, and in most of those cultures they have it timed each child is different but they go every 20-40minutes usually timed on an eating scheduel!!! Anyways that is my rant on that!!!!! some children are geniouses but most of them don't have the muscles to hold in the pee or poo until they are 20-24months some don't have that muscle until 30months!! it is called the sphinkter muscle or something like that!!! It is a very rare child that has the muscle before that time!!! usually they will know the feeling but will not beable to hold it!!!!

Tara said...

I just finished updating myself on your blog and your life!! I am sorry to hear about the doctor trauma!!! I haven't heard in a long time of a doctor flipping out about a baby at the bottom of the charts....maybe it is because they are so used to seeing children in the top 150th percentile and off the charts!!! YOu are a great mom a well educated mom who loves her girls!!!
I am glad to hear that you have an OEC that is what they call them there right?? I want something similar to open here!!! but it will come with time!! I hope you enjoy your time there seeing your girls explore interact and grow!!!! What an amazing tool to have!!!!
well I want you to know that I love you and your family and I will be praying for you!!! let us know how the appointment goes

Anonymous said...

I can't believe your last post! Ignore the doctor COMPLETELY! My boys were both high in the weight percentile, and while Emily is TALL, she's only 50th for weight. My doctor just looked at her and said that though it looks weird on paper, she's obviously HAPPY. As is Brooklyn. If every baby was in the 95th percentile...that would become the 50th! That doctor needs a flaming bag of poo put on his doorstep. :)

As for potty training, Graham was 3 before he would even entertain the idea, and when he was ready, it happened in a day. I can't offer much advice in that department :)

Marla said...

though i don't have kids, i once heard some mild advice that i hope i can adhere to one day when we have kids...have you ever seen a normally developing 16 year old that isn't potty trained? i say don't sweat it.

miss you guys!

Anonymous said...

Excellent point, Marla!!

Every kid IS different. You trained yourself in a day when I was out cold with my wisdom teeth and Grammie and Aunt 'Shell refused to notice your wet diaper and change it immediately - Maybe Belle needs to have to stay wet a while or maybe she just needs to experience the joy of peeing in the potty and not in the diaper. William, as with most boys, was much harder to train as he became too engrossed in whatever else he was doing to recognize the need to get the to bathroom in time so he often was running to the bathroom while peeing. Clearly he has managed to allow the need to overcome anything else stealing his attention. Deanna, well she is another story and I sincerely thank the daycare people for all the work they did helping her learn to use the potty!

I think it requires a combination of Belle's readiness and your intuition - for a little while. Like when she gets up from a nap, take her to the potty for a story or two, or if you think it has been a long time since she went, ask her if she wants to. BUT most importantly, don't make it an argument with her - she may rebel and stop using the potty for a long time.

I think the hardest thing is what to do when you are out and she decides that she needs the potty!? What do you do - if you put her on a big, strange toilet for the first time, it could scare her off even the potty; if you tell her she has to go in her diaper, she may think its ok to keep doing that at home too. So, to circumvent that, may I suggest you start asking her if she would like to try the big 'potty' soon after she starts getting to the little one before peeing. You may have to buy one of those flat 'potty' seats and add it to the diaper bag too. Just a thought for you to add to your other thoughts on the subject.

Oh, did I ever tell you how your great-grandmother (my Mom's Mom) dealt with her hundreds of foster kids on this issue? Sort of like that book that says 3 months is the age to start. She would hold them over newspaper on the kitchen floor after every meal and nap until they went. She swore the kids were toilet trained by 6 months. When my Mom told me that I wondered if Grandma thought they were like puppies and needed paper training first.

Oh, the fun I am missing!!!!!!

Take care and check your email. I'll type up your weight history for you to take with you Thursday.