Potty Training & Advice

NOTE: I apologize to any of my readers who aren't parents or who just don't care about this kind of stuff. You can always check out The Writing Blog. :)

We have made a great big step in potty training this week. William is consistently pooping in the potty and hasn't had any accidents of any kind in almost a week. Trust me, a week is a long time in Potty Training Land.

When I started potty training (and I say the rest of this as someone who's still in the thick of it, this stuff ain't over by any means) I did a ton of research about when to know your child is ready and how to go about it and all that jazz. And the one thing I saw repeated over and over is to trust your instincts.

There are some other basics to getting started. Like:

A. Be sure your child can communicate well. There's a lot of explaining that needs to be done. Your child should be able to understand you and vise-versa.

B. Persistence  Once you start, don't give up. Take breaks if you need to, if you or your toddler is just too stressed out by the whole thing. But don't give up.

C. And as I said, trust your instincts. You know your child better than anyone else. You'll know when they're ready and you'll know what strategy will work best to help them learn.

The strategy we've used for Will has been pretty straight forward. In the beginning I had (still have) a potty seat in the living room and I'd make him sit on it ever half hour or so. Every 15 minutes kind of drove me crazy. We also spent a few days running around commando so he didn't have the security of going in his pants.

Once he went in the potty properly we celebrated and rewarded him with cookies. Will loves cookies. After a while he began to understand that going potty=cookies and began to go as often as possible.

Learning to poop took a little longer. We began using a chart to mark when he went potty and when he had accidents. I think that was more for me than him, but he likes getting stars. And then I began not letting him do anything in the morning until he pooped in the potty. Again he went pantless. Will loves his TV time in the morning and was willing to do whatever it took to get his TV.

It did not take long. Within a day he got the idea and being rewarded with TWO cookies after pooping is the best!

So now, my next step is to get the potty seat from the living room to the bathroom. Will's going to miss being able to watch shows and potty at the same time, but that's what books are for!

In other kid news, Jacob now has two teeth and is this close to walking on his own. I'm kind of freaking out about having two little ones walking around. Things were easier when Jacob couldn't move much.

And that's what my life has been consumed with lately.

Thanks for reading! Happy Thursday!

I'm Not Dead

Hello dear readers! I know, I've been gone for a while. It's my own fault really and I'm sorry. You see, my laptop and I got in a little fight. He did something really stupid, I got mad and then he had to go away for a couple weeks. It was a rough time for both of us, but I think our relationship is stronger for it now.

He knows to do what he's freaking told and I know to be nicer to him. He's a lot more fragile than he looks. ;)

Anyway! Not much has been going on in the Kricket household. Still working on potty training the Toddler. Some days are better than others, but overall, he's getting better at it. Baby is everywhere now. He's really fast and gets into everything. He can now say "Mama!" and "Dada!" and he still doesn't have any teeth.

Other than that, my life has been pretty boring. I've got a couple topics I'd like to cover in the next couple weeks and a book review that will pop up soon on the Writing Blog. So look forward to those.

Until then, have a happy Wednesday and thanks for reading!

The Joys (?) of Potty Training

Oh potty training. We started training Will two weeks ago. I thought I was prepared. I thought I had a plan, but within the first couple days it all went down the toilet, so to speak. ;)

I originally planed to do this every 15 minute thing. Where you load him up on salty foods and water or juice and then make him sit on the toilet every 15 minutes. Well that didn't work. William would just wait until I put his pants back on and then to pee. So then I tried something that people had suggested to me a few times but I was scared to try. I just let him run around half naked for a couple days.

And yes, there were some wonderfully epic accidents, but it worked. Will learned it was better to go in the potty then face Mommy's wrath. Cookies helped enforce that. :)

So he's got going pee in the potty down well, and only in the last couple days has he figured out that it's better to poop in the potty than in the pants.

He's a smart kid and I knew he'd get it, but that first week was rough, for me. I was convinced that he'd get it within the first day or two, so when that didn't happen I started stressing out. Like a lot. I took his slow learning to mean that I was a bad mom in some way. I know now that was stupid thinking, but at the time it was really eating me up.

But now things are going really well. He's starting to use the potty without even telling me until he's done. We haven't tackled night time stuff yet. I figure we need to get the routine down for day time before we go there. So for now he's still sleeps in pull ups.

I know we're not done training, but he's making good progress and that makes me happy. Now the next step is getting this kid to sleep all night and not try to get into bed with us at 3 in the morning. But that's another post for another time.

Life, it's like, life.

I'm actually updating on time.  And I'm not doing this to procrastinate the cleaning that needs to be done, not at all.  :D

Life has been pretty good lately.  Things are relatively normal around here.  I'm now 31 weeks along in this pregnancy.  9 more weeks to go seems pretty surreal.  People have asked me for pictures of my big pregnant self, but I just haven't had the time, or honestly really care, to take any.

Will is getting smarter everyday.  We're starting to work on letters and I'm sure he learns at least one new word everyday.  I'm hoping to start potty training him in the next week or two.  It'd be nice to have him out of diapers by the time this new baby arrives.  So does any one have any suggestions for books or techniques on potty training?

And now to pimp myself. :P  Daniel came up with a great idea for a blog and we got it all put together on Saturday.  Siemens Bottling Co is a blog about building little model ships and putting them into bottles.  Daniel builds the ships in bottles and takes the pictures while I do a lot of the writing and the actual blog managing.  We'd love it if you'd take a look and even leave a comment. *hint hint nudge nudge*

Well, that's all I have for today.  Happy Monday/President's Day!