Number One Son has finally overcome his fear of potty and is now voluntarily pulling his jogging bottom and pants down after fetching the potty himself and before sitting down for a wee. Every time he does this fills us with pride whereas every time he still poos his pants fills us with fear. It is a messy life and one has to have rags and disinfectant ready all the time.
The final change came after his nursery stopped taking him to the potty hourly. He fought this practice to the mutual frustration of both parties. It took about a week for him to settle down after a continuous struggle against the pot but then he started to make real progress. Now he collects an occasional star at the nursery when he manages to go to the potty or alert the personnel using his own initiative. He does not still speak properly but his take on the crossed feet is recognisable to those with the ‘know’.
Number One Son even uses both his potties, which means that we can use the smaller one ‘on the go’. He still loathes normal toilet bowl that is visibly too high for him. He occasionally wees standing there but he has now taken his cues from his peers and is sitting down. He just cannot keep his balance and the sight of a baby toilet ring makes him scream.
The most problematic issue is that he still does not go to the potty when he needs to poo but just ‘lets it go’. I chatted with a fellow mum when on a play date and her daughter is exactly the same. It apparently hurts to poo and the children find it VERY uncomfortable and do not wish to sit. They also know that the parents will clean up...
Additionally, poor Number One Son keeps getting confused every now and then and it is totally our fault. It has been the celebration season with the Jubilee, not to mention the ongoing birthday season in the nursery, with parties in both public places and private houses. There has also been occasional baby gym over the half-term. You cannot expose other people’s carpets or ball pits or bouncy castles full of other children to the unreliable spurts of poo or wee. It is totally unacceptable and unhygienic. Thus, sometimes you have to put a nappy on. Afterwards you risk a few occasions of random peeing and pooing either as a protest of changing standards or as a sign of confusion.
Before I had Number One Son I never thought I would write a series of posts about potty training but it is hard work! It was something we did not know absolutely anything. Now we know that potty training is different for every child and succeeds at different ages. Maybe this blog will be read by somebody that is or will be in the same position as we were – totally clueless mature parents – and will find solace that they are far from being alone in this. Another fellow mum admitted that potty training her daughter took a long time and it was not necessarily straight forward. And girls do it earlier and quicker normally! Naturally, it does make you look infantile, mundane and downright unsavoury to an outsider, i.e. a childless person, when you are chatting away with other parents about nappies and potties but alongside any work trip or ghant chart for your plans it is something to juggle in a parent’s everyday life. Certain responsibilities come with parenthood – your fridge and fruit bowl cannot be left empty as it could be when there was only one or two of you.
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