I have an October birthday, and this month I’ve decided to treat myself and Rosebud to a deluxe baby carrier. My sis-in-law introduced me to the ERGO baby carriers when Doodle was 15 months old. I liked it a lot, but didn’t feel I could justify spending the money since he was already walking and would be wanting to walk more and more rather than being carried. Continue reading
Category: For Moms (Page 3 of 3)
Last night, our local homeschool group had a mom’s meeting. Our special guest, who let us pick her brain, was a mom of 4 who started homeschooling 25 years ago. She had met Raymond Moore (author of Home Grown Kids and Better Late Than Early) and was friends with the home schooling developers of the Konos curriculum. Here are some of the highlights of what she shared: Continue reading
OK, ladies. If you’re like me, you have a sort of phobia about the car, the computer, the lawnmower, weedeater… I’m always afraid I’m going to damage something in trying to fix it myself. What if I make the problem worse?
Knowledge is power. But getting too much at one time – especially when it is concerning an unfamiliar topic – is not good. Also, there’s the problem of losing what you don’t use. We don’t often get our heads under the cars, so when a crisis arises, there’s the fear of not remembering what we’d once learned. So…for those of you like me, I’m not berating you. I’m sympathizing with you.
My mom came to visit for the boys’ birthdays this week. As she was leaving to return home, the brake fluid light came on in her car. I took her to our local mechanic, but he wasn’t in. We then headed to Wal-Mart’s tire & lube center but didn’t get any help from them. They are not certified to deal with brakes. So, even though they had employees who knew how to check such things, they could get in legal trouble for doing so. (Thank you, big government.) Continue reading
Marathon’s sister recently sent me an article of homeschooling tips by homeschooling pioneer Mary Pride. The 2 most helpful to me were the following. Continue reading
Hey Friends,
With B’s permission, I’ve put her e-mail message here. We can use this page to share ideas concerning potty training. All the posts will be in one place, and we can easily respond to others’ comments/ideas.
Here is the question she asked:
hello moms!
I’m sending out a plea for help to those of you who have experience potty training a boy!! We have begun potty training with B (my oldest, 2 1/2 years old) this week and there have been some ups and downs. Any tips? Advice? Anything that worked great for you? Please share! I feel like I’m making this up as we go! Here are some of
the issues we are facing…
-B tells me he is going – not before – but as he is going or even after. Could this mean he is just not ready?
-Sometimes he will sit on the potty for several minutes – reading books or whatever, nothing happens. He gets up, we put his pants back on and a few minutes later, he’s wet. We are using the Gerber cloth training pants. Should I go back to diapers? Or just press on? We do use diapers for naps and bedtime still.
-Sometimes he is fine when I tell him to sit on the potty. Sometimes he lays down and cries. I’m just not sure if I should continue through this tough time (when does it get better? Will we ever be able to leave the house again?) or if I should
put if off for another month or two or three.
If anyone could offer any helpful hints or advice, I would be so grateful!!
Thank you!!
Potty-training challenged,
B
Here is my response to her.
Dear B,
In my experience, at 2 1/2 years, my boys have not been able to tell me when they need to pee. They were, though, able to urinate when I asked them too. So, I had to proactively take them to the potty every hour or two. My 2 1/2 year old (who I call “doodle” on this blog) has been able to pee in the potty for a year now, but he still doesn’t tell me in time. He seldom empties his bladder in his pants, though. He’ll squirt in his training pants, then come and tell me he has to pee and then put the rest in the potty. We’ve tried to get him to TELL me when he needs to…and I’ve decided that he’s just not able/ready. (He always tells me when he needs to poop though. More on that later.)
Here’s how we got my oldest (known on the blog as “Carman”) familiar enough with his processes so that he could pee on command. I spent 3 mornings in a row on the kitchen floor with him and had him drinking juice or whatever he liked so that he would drink a lot. If drinking slowed down, I’d give him a salty snack so he would drink more. Whenever the pee would come, I’d say, “Pee pee, Carman” and try to catch it in the potty bowl. If, together, we could get even a drop in the bowl, he’d be rewarded with a piece of candy (candy corn or dried fruit.) (Until that day, Carman had never had candy, so he was very motivated to earn more. I have not been as diligent with Doodle about withholding the sweets, and consequently he has not been as motivated by the candy.)
After 3 days of this, he knew what it felt like to release those muscles and was able to pee when I asked.
A reinforcement we used with the boys was letting them pee outside on a leaf. They loved it, and we’ve had enough backyard privacy to be able to do that. I have a friend who would float cheerios or fruit loops in the toilet and let her boys aim and pee. Big fun.
As they got better about producing on command, I’d offer a reward (dessert, a bike ride, or a park outing the next day) if he could stay dry all day long.
Have you heard of elimination communication? I used it loosely with my older daughter “Sudoku” and Doodle and it made producing on command much easier for them. Also, they were willing to poop in the potty for me at a young age and could communicate that well, but Carman was resistant to pooping in the potty for a long time. I think the elimination communication method has a lot of merits…but that too is not easy.
It’s great that B (your oldest) is telling you when or after he goes. At least that way you can learn his patterns and try to take him to potty proactively. He might be uncomfortable (not relaxing) on the potty. Maybe he’d be comfortable doin it outside?
I think keeping him in training pants or cotton diapers is a good idea. You want him to feel the wetness, you know?
Just some ideas. Good luck!
Hope you all are well. Your children are beautiful, B.
-Milkmaid
Recent Comments