Sophia usually wakes around 6:30 or 7am, when Ben transfers her from her bed in his office to our bed with me. Sometimes she goes back to sleep with me, but never for more than 30 minutes. Well, this morning Ben left for work around 6:30 and Sophia and I slept in. In fact, she didn’t get out of bed until just after 10am! I think all of this potty-training is taking a lot out of her. When I finally got her up, I let her play for 5 minutes in her diaper before I caught myself and made us change her out of the diaper and into her panties. She was happy to do it. She had pooped in her diaper, so that lent a certain urgency to the change.
I’d wanted the goal for today to be for her to announce to me earlier on in the flow of the pee that she needed to go potty. Instead, after her first pee of the morning she looked down and said “that’s okay, that’s okay, Sophia. That’s okay.” So I repeated that back to her and then we got her a fresh pair of panties and wiped her legs with a damp cloth. Do I need to be firmer? Do I need to start saying “oopsie!” when she pees on the floor? I’m so afraid of making this time traumatic that I I’m afraid that I’m not giving her enough guidance, or setting boundaries for her in a helpful way. I mean, for her whole life, I've been telling her what to do and when -- even giving her words to express her fears and delights ("are you nervous about the slide?" or "this peanut butter is good stuff, man!"). I wonder if she's expecting me to guide her at the same time that I'm expecting her to guide me/us.
After she peed on the floor -- and I assumed she was empty -- we got her dressed and in the stroller and went to the coffee shop across the street (we get free drinks there because Ben works at their other location at school) to get me a coffee and then came straight back home. Today is the warmest day we’ve had all year, so I thought a cool bath was in order. She took a long bath (I encouraged its length as we were both blissfully unaware of her pee while she was in the water), and when it was over I put a diaper on her in preparation for her nap. But I’d forgotten that since she slept in so late, she wouldn’t be ready for a nap at the regular time. So I let her play around the house in her diaper for an hour before she went down for her nap (in her diaper). That was bliss. I felt like I had her back for a while…
I’m totally glad that we used cloth diapers – no regrets at all. But I have to say that I’m no longer convinced that cloth diapers will make potty training any easier. I think it probably makes the whole process harder. For Sophia’s entire life, she’s been peeing on cloth and feeling the wetness against her. So now, when she pees in panties, it doesn’t bother her at all. As far as she knows, she’s just wearing poorly-performing diapers.
...
Ben's putting Sophia to sleep now. I'm thinking about the day, trying to identify something, anything, that I learned from today's messes... I am so ready to give up. The only thing that went into the potty today was a bit of poop that landed there after having come out into her panties. I noticed that all of sudden she'd stopped talking or moving and was sort of shaking, so I asked her if she was pooping. “No.” I told her that I thought she was and that we should hurry to the bathroom so that we could get some poop into the potty. She wouldn’t budge, so I carried her there. She let me pull down her panties and she tried to sit, but by then I saw the poop and didn’t want it smeared all over everything, so I helped her to sit on the potty. It fell off in there and she stood up and said “all done!” She was so proud of herself. So I celebrated her and told her that I was so proud of her, too. Then she wanted to dump it into the potty. Smeary, gooey poop got all over the place.
Eventually, though, we got all cleaned up and a fresh pair of panties on. I decided to give her a smartie (candy) as a reward. Only 2 days ago I thought that was bribery with food and therefore a terrible idea. But I was spent. I was willing to try almost anything in order to get even a small sense of accomplishment. I told her that I had a special "pooping treat" for shen she pooped in the potty. She was really excited and kept saying "treat! treat for Sophia! treat for Sophia pooping in the potty." She hated the smartie. She spit it out and wanted to flush it down with the poop. Oops. I’m pretty sure we’re regressing here. So I think we should stop. We’ve given it three full days and we’re farther back than where we started. I am relieved, though, that she didn’t want to put on a diaper tonight to sleep in. She still wanted her panties. It didn’t take much to get her to lay down for her diaper, but still… I’m glad she still likes panties. We’ll see how we feel about it all tomorrow, but I’m ready to be done with this. Maybe we can start again after she turns 2 – that’s only 2 months away.
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