There's been a lot of talk around our house about potty training lately. You see, we are gearing up to Potty Train Emily, who will be 3 in September. This is slightly earlier than we PT'ed Kate, but Emily will need to be PT'ed to go to pre-school in September.
Have you heard about the 3-day method? There's an e-book available online and that is the method we followed for Kate. The author of the method (a Mom of 5 or 6 children) suggests that 22 months is the ideal age to PT. Really? 22 months? I have to admit that I am a little bit skeptical of that.
Kate was in no way ready at 22 months. Even at almost 3 (just shy of a few weeks), she expressed absolutely zero interest in going on the potty. None. But within a day or so, she had the pee thing down. #2 took a couple of extra days but she got it. She never fought me. There was no power struggle. Kate was definitely more socially immature than her peers at that point, so I do wonder if that played a part. I have friends who waited until 3 or beyond.... and my own non-scientific observation is that for the most part, waiting beyond 3 does lead to power struggles.
But on the flip side, I also think pushing the issue...i.e. at 22 months... isn't helpful either. My own personal experience is that the child needs to be able to effectively communicate that they've got to go. I don't know about you, but we are a busy family. It would be awful to have children having accidents every time we were out somewhere. I've preferred to wait, as long as possible, to do the PT'ing-- but well within the window of normal of PT'ing-- when the child can effectively communicate to me that she has to go, before she grew out of the size 6 diaper, but before going on the potty becomes a power struggle.
Again, my own unscientific observation of PT'ing before age 2? There are regressions. And difficulty "getting it."
With all of that said, we will be PT'ing Emily in early July. 2 months before she turns 3. She's got a great vocabulary. She is showing some potty awareness (she doesn't like having #2 in her diaper for instance) and she's definitely, definitely able to hold her pee. She is clearly afraid though, of sitting on the toilet, so like Kate, we will bring out the little potty for a day or two before we move to the regular potty with a potty ring-- after all, restaurants, etc. do not have little pottys for the children to go on!
Now.. nighttime PT'ing? A whole different animal... a topic for another day!
Today's positive thought:
Today I will live in the moment. Unless the moment is unpleasant, in which case I will eat a cookie... ~ Cathy Thorne
We'll be doing the 3 day method with Ben in August. With Liam, I started introducing the potty before the age of 2, and he wasn't ready. He was poop trained first. I used to just stick him on the potty anytime I caught hiim pooping and by 3 years 4 months, he would come tell me when he had to poop. For Liam, pee training was harder. We did the 3 day method at 3.5 years old, but he peed his pants 1-6 times a day every day until he turned 4. Right around his 4th birthday, it was like a light went off and we have had only a handful of accidents since then....except at night. i don't think honestly he'll be able to night train within the next 2-3 years.....and I think night training will take some sort of medical intervention/ bed alarm or something. Becuae of my experience with Liam, I am in no hurry to train Ben, but figure I'll give the 3 day method a shot before he starts preschool.
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