Yep. I’m really doing it this time.
Potty training started this week in earnest. After six months of procrastinating and at least that long of considering my training options – because, as you know, I’m terribly indecisive – I decided to follow the same plan I used for Sarah Kate. Which is to say, not really a plan but more like house arrest for as long as it takes.
I did a little research on different methods, both for typical kids and kids with Down syndrome, and discarded the “toilet training in one day” for a variety of reasons but mostly because I don’t think Nathan would give a good hot d@mn about a peeing doll or a potty party. I also did some research on what age is appropriate to potty train a child with Down syndrome and the range I found was 18-84 months. So anywhere from a year and a half to…second grade?
Not. Helpful. At. All.
So I picked a week that we were mostly not doing a lot of stuff away from the house and brought the potty to the living room and I’m sitting his booty on it every hour all day long until it sticks. It was a little challenging when we had to go to Publix but I was a seriously speedy shopper so all was well.
I had hoped when we started cloth diapering that potty training would be easier because the claim is that cloth-diapered kids can feel when they’re wet and all that jazz. But…we had to give up the cloth diapers a few months ago because Nathan was peeing through them every few hours. So…whatever. I made it almost three years exclusively cloth, so…WIN.
And yes, I know that pull-ups are basically just like diapers and kids really should go straight into underpants but OMg I can not deal with Cold Turkey Underpants so pull-ups it is. For now. I’m struggling mightily to overcome the fact that I have a Potty In My Living Room (!!!). A mom who’s not as sweet as she used to be (Hello, 43!) can only handle so much, amiright?
We started first thing Monday morning.
It went mostly poorly but he didn’t fuss about sitting on the potty so I figured that was a win. We watched Potty Time
Day 2 (Tuesday) was something of a respite day for me – Nathan had preschool for four hours where he was somebody else’s Potty Problem, and I went to dinner with friends Leaving Mr. Andi To It for the last couple of hours before bed. A few more pees in the potty, so…WIN.
Day 3 (Wednesday) started off great – three hours, three pee-pee potties. Woot! And he even stood up when he was done…signaling that he is, in fact, “getting it” at least a little. Double Woot! But I started to realize that perhaps I made a crucial miscalculation in my potty non-plan. Over the weekend, as a warm-up to the main event, I encouraged Nathan to sit on the potty several times. He was born with ants in his pants so getting him to stay still more than a few seconds was a challenge. Books merely delayed the inevitable by a few more seconds.
Enter the iPad.
Like I said, by Day 3 of Potty Boot Camp, things were going pretty well in terms of pee-peeing and being willing to sit on the potty. Unfortunately, Nathan now asks for the iPad every time he sits on it. So instead of a well-trained preschooler I may come out on the other side of this week with a Little Old Man With a Morning Constitutional.
Even that will be something to work with more than the current state of affairs! Well done 🙂 Progress.
Wow, brings back all the memories of (not so) exciting potty training days…. I had to laugh about your discomfort with the potty in the living room. Ours was in the kitchen…. Where I PREPARED FOOD for our family… 🙂
What finally worked for me (although it took months) was to take him to the potty every 30 minutes. I had a timer on my watch that I would reset after each potty trip. Then we increased to every 45 minutes and then every 60 min and one day I noticed he had started to go by himself or tell me when he needed to go. In comparing stories with other moms, it just seems that every child is different and what works for one may not work for another… I never thought of using the iPad – that is genius! Good luck… Sounds like it is going well so far.
We bought the potty watch when we bought the Potty Time DVD. We haven’t used it yet, but I’m going to start tomorrow. It does basically what you said – you can set reminders for 30, 60, or 90 minutes and it’ll beep to remind the child to go potty. You don’t have to reset it each time – it resets itself.
Of course there is a potty watch and of course someone else is making millions off it… (sigh). Why do I never think to commercialize my ideas? 🙂
Good luck! Hopefully Nathan will have a better attitude than my son did. He would rather have peed in his pants (and did on several occasions) then submit to peeing on a schedule…
Good luck Andi! We love Potty Time :-). I also know all the songs by heart. I have been working on potty training my boy since October. He is 4 and has CP, is non-verbal, and is about a year behind developmentally. But he makes progress all the time so I keep on pushing on 🙂