Diary Sophia (II)

After more than a week of trying to potty train her, we think that she is not fully ready. She only 60% diaperless. here is why;-

- She didn't tell us she wanted to pee, instead we had to asked her everytime.

- She only tell us whenever she wanted to poop because she thinks its gross to do the business there and then. Funnily she cried after seeing her poop.

- Mak ros thinks that she is doing ok, never wet at all. I think its due to the fact that she has extra hands, and her two daughters are with her now and the daughters keep asking Pia to go to the toilet every 10 minutes, while Mak ros herself got to do something else at the same time.

- I failed because, i was busy cooking and baking and have 'neglected' her for a while and that was the time Pia decided to pee on the floor.

- Pia, the smart one will cry afterwards, afraid that we will scold her like mad. (yeah we did -__-" )

The conclusion

1) Pia will be diaperless during the day at Mak Ros and until before bedtime. We brought her to the washroom to pee before she went to bed and wear her a diaper. Every morning we found that either the diaper was fully dry or have a very minimal wet.

2) During weekend, she will be diaperless whenever Mr husband are around, or if he is not around until i am free from doing the housework.

3) It takes two to tango. Pia need to co-operate. I know it takes time but its okay. She better takes her own sweet time afterall she is just 22 months. I am not gonna put high expectation and would not expect he to be as good as Sarah's.

Potty Train Needs Patience.

To date marked around 10 months ++ we’ve potty trained Sarah and saved about RM800 from her being diaperless.

The idea of to potty trained her came from Mak Ros, the babysitter. She thinks Sarah was ready that time, at the age of 18 months. Sarah has a very limited vocabulary at that moment but she understood a few sentences like what 'o-ok' ( to poo) and 'chiching' (to pee) very well. I thought it was kinda early to start potty trained her but Mak Ros assured me that the earlier, the better.

Like many other toddlers, Sarah did pee on her pants during first 2 days, and Mak Ros was patiently and diligently wiping the 'mess'. You may think I was lucky for having someone else to do this, but it is actually a teamwork between me and the babysitter. Because during the night, she will be with us and I need to continue with the routine. It's like a homework to us because if we didn’t continue then the idea of potty train her would be failing. During the first 3 nights, we asked her to pee before going to sleep and we still wear her a diaper just in case she leaks. To our surprise, it was dry as new on the next day. So during the fourth day, we didn't wear her a diaper anymore but we placed a rubber mat underneath her bedsheet just in case. And everytime she woke up at nights for her milk, we will ask her to pee afterwards.

And to motivate her with the routine, praises were given and she would be smiling and happy all the time with our praises, knowing that she’s doing well. Kids are actually very easy to please.

The only problem at that time was when we took her out to the mall. We still wore her a diaper because we thought it would be hard to run for public toilet and she better pee on diaper but how kesian when she actually holding it back. She doesn't want to do it there and then because she feel so gross to wear something 'watery' underneath her pant. So since then whenever we arrived at mall, toilet is our first pit stop and I will estimate the time for the second toilet visit, so on and so forth.

It doesn't take long time (around 1 week ++) for her to adapt to the new routine. Sarah has been diaperless since then. To date, she will woke us up at nights if she wants to pee. But occasionally she still peed on her pants and that made us angry because she is so active jumping around here and there and would run for bathroom when she is really about to leak. And as she growing up and has so many things to say, it is actually hard for us to ask her to pee because this girl is so intelligent. Whenever I asked her to do so, she will reply with "Dah". And when I keep asking her to do so, she will even reply with" Dahdahdahdahdahdahdah.................." with her high pitch tarzan-like voice, and run away.

Now I get what Mak Ros meant when she said "the earlier, the better". Because when she was small, she is so good, would obey us and that would be easy to teach her. And now this little girl has so much in mind and knows how to manipulate us, the adults.

So mommies, whatever age you want to start potty train your child the key is 'Patience'. Yes it would be hard for a first few days but eventually they will adapt. You may use whatever method i.e giving reward, the soft way or even the 'hard' way because we mothers know our kids well and by all means do it!

Happy potty train your kids and good luck.