Sunday 4 September 2011

Adventures in Potty Training

Sometimes I really miss our lovely old wooden floors from our old flat but then I realize if we did have wooden floors they'd be ruined by now. They'd be black, rotting ruined excuses for floorboards by now because Blondie Boy pisses everywhere. Part of it I think is he is just little and part of it I think is that he just likes pissing on stuff like Nathan from "Angry Boys."

He knows he shouldn't do it; he'll soak the coach and then point at it "bad bad bad." That's great you know you aren't supposed to do it, but how about not doing it then? I know you are thinking" why don't you just stick a diaper on the kid and call it a day?" Ahh if it were only so easy.

Blondie Boy has eczema and right now it's taken up residency on his ass. It's pretty horrible so we try to let him run around commando as much as possible to keep it from being ever redder and angrier. It also allows us to put some hydrocortisone on it as needed as you can't put that on and then cover it up.

I understand he's little and his attention span and multitasking skills aren't going to be highly developed at 20 months, that's okay. My plan today was to take him to the toilet every 30 minutes and have him sit. Before I hit the thirty minute mark I'd already taken him three times; each of those times he'd started pissing on something first: first some sprinkles on the floor, next he climbs up on the couch and I feel something warm on my leg and thirdly he climbs up on his plastic chair to begin a monster pee which puddles and pours off the chair from both sides in a urine waterfall.

I'd say I gave up, but it was his bedtime so he got creamed up and a diaper on for bed but in reality I don't know how much longer I could have kept it up if it wasn't. Does anyone have any stellar tips they can share? He is more than happy to sit on a toilet or potty and pee in both. He knows Mom and Dad go on the toilet and told me that Daisy Duck uses the toilet (good for her). I know getting them to sit/use the toilet is often a big problem so I guess maybe we are half way there, but how do I stop him from peeing everywhere? Or am I doomed to a future of damp couch cushions and wet marks on the floor where I'm just happy he drinks so much water it doesn't stain?


11 comments:

Melaina25 said...

I potty train difficult to train children as a part of my job.
I have a few thoughts.  1 He is young, he is not ready.
2 He doesn't know what to do while he is on the toilet other than sit.  

So you can just wait until he is older.  Since you have the airing issue I would you might try since he is not wearing anything on the bottom anyway.

1 Make the toilet an ok place to be, have toys, books and such around for him to look at play with while he is sitting.
2 Pour warm water over his lap while he is sitting on the potty or toilet which often makes kids pee and if it doesn't at first it makes the noise of pee when the water hits the water in the toilet.  
3 Repeat as you have been doing every few minutes.  
4 When he does go reward!  Praise and physical reward of sticker or treat.  

Melaina25 said...

Oh he totally pees on the potty or the toliet no problem! He just usually pees on the floor, couch, me first :) He's completely happy on the toilet and LOVES to flush it.

Melaina25 said...

Oh I feel for you. And your floors and furniture :)  We potty trained our boys fairly eary (26 months and 18 months), there was defnitely the period in the beginning when I started thinking that I had given birth to dogs instead of children - they peed on everything in sight.  Thankfully for us that period was only about a week or two.

Melaina25 said...

I didn't train both of mine until 2 1/2. Lucas was really easy but tyler not so much. He has mastered the piddling, he stands up to do it. That was a huge turning point for his with him. He used the toilet training balls and it worked a treat. You can see my posts on potty training they might help. The pooping bit he is not for doing it other than his pullups. Good luck x

Melaina25 said...

You have a beautiful family! Congratulation!

Melaina25 said...

I there.  ON the eczema front, we were told that you can put steroid cream on and cover it, but to leave it 10 mins before you do so. Also I found that reusable nappies were much gentler on the sore area rather than disposables.  Maxi still gets it on his butt, as he told the GP this week and we were told that using the steroids was the lesser of the two evils. leave in 10 mins and them moisturise over the top

Melaina25 said...

Thanks. We tried pull-ups for a while but he wouldn't pull them up or down. Well he'd pull them down but then they had to come all the way off and he couldn't get them back on, lol.

Melaina25 said...

If it was just pee I could handle it. It's the code browns that are too much.

Melaina25 said...

We've had to put some hydrocortisone on it this week while he's been commando. I think we will have to go back to cloth nappies for a bit. We used them exclusively (except overnight) when he was younger but as his poop got nastier we sorta stopped. Real food poops in a cloth nappy just gross me out. If it's better on his poor butt though we'll go back although I'm not sure if the creams are all okay with cloth? I know some cloth you aren't allowed to use nappy creams with right?

Melaina25 said...

I would get the eczema uNder control first with hydrocortisone and emollients, then put nappies back on until he is ready to potty train. My son showed no interest in potty training until a couple of weeks ago then decided he was done with nappies and we haven't looked back.
Nice blog!

Melaina25 said...

Thank you! He will sit on the toilet and pee no problem, but he just doesn't remember to do so 90% of the time :)