I'm sorry for this long post, but I really just needed to get it all out.
I seriously need to stay away, FAR away, from any posts about potty learning. They are making me cry. I saw one today about someone's much-younger-than-DD child who was going pee pee in the potty. That was the title. I should NOT have clicked on it, but I did... and not only did the OP have an early-pottying child, but so did several of the respondents. And I cried, and I don't know why.
DD is only 21 months. She's not ready. I KNOW this. I've read Diaper Free Before Three and tried those methods and they don't work for us. I know that 21 months is still young to be doing any pottying outside the diaper, but I still cry about it, thinking that she'll probably be 10 and still in diapers, irrational as that thought is.
I still talk to her about the potty and she watches me go and she watches me put her poop in there (we cloth diaper) and says bye bye when we flush. She doesn't care if her diaper is wet or dirty. She never has. If she never gets uncomfortable in a wet/dirty diaper, then how will she ever get her own self-motivation to want to potty train?
I have two sisters and no brothers, and it doesn't help matters when my mom tells me that she had all 3 of us trained by the time we were 18 months old. Thanks, Mom, for giving me such an impossible goal to live up to, and for making me feel guilty about not reaching it.
We even have some cute pink trainers that I inherited w/ a clothing hand me down bag, but I just know that DD is going to outgrow those before she is ready. I also know that my whole post is going to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy and she really WILL still be in diapers when she's 10.
And I'm crying about it. I don't know what's wrong with me.
If you got this far, thanks. I hope I get some replies... the other couple of times I've posted about this... I barely even get any views, much less replies.
ETA 11/7 - It is SO hard to just keep a relaxed attitude about this, and not do any kind of PLing at all. Especially since I've now noticed a pattern with her. She wakes up w/ her diaper absolutely SOAKED to the core, but about 5-10 minutes after I get her out of bed, she pees again, a LOT. So much that her diaper can't hold it all and she makes a puddle in the kitchen while I"m getting her breakfast ready. lol. I just make note of it and tell her that one day the pee will go in the potty, and she can identify both my potty and hers, but if I set her on my potty she cries (I think she feels unstable on it even though I don't let go of her at all), and if I have her sit down on her potty, she gets up after about 15 seconds.
At this point, I am thinking that if I can just get even one of those morning pees in either potty, then she will start to maybe get an idea of that's where it's supposed to go, but if I'm going to keep my "not potty learning at all" attitude about it, then I just need to put a doubler in her morning diaper instead.
In all of her diapers, really, since she'll occasionally and randomly throughout the week pee through her diaper too, but not as heavily (i.e. not enough to make a puddle). It's enough to run down her leg and make her notice and say "wet?" though.
*sigh* I just want to fast forward about 3 years so that this'll all be behind me. Hopefully. Surely she'll be PL'd by 5 yrs old, right?
ETA 11/20 - So I'm thinking that she has the skills to start/stop peeing at will, b/c the other day her diaper was wet and I didn't notice, and she was standing by her changing table looking down, and when she walked away there was a small puddle on the floor. Literally 2 seconds later, she was standing right in front of me in the hallway and did the rest of her peeing right there. I told her that she was peeing and when she was done I took her to change her diaper. (I need to get more BBLPs so I can have them every 5-10 steps, LOL.)
Then two days ago, we're in the living room, and she all of a sudden says "potty??" and points to the bathroom. I followed her in there and she sits down on her little potty and...... does nothing. lol. And it wasn't even imminent, either, b/c 10 minutes later she was still dry.
Whenever she wakes up from her nap or wakes up for the day, the first thing I do is change her diaper. She used to say things like "good morning" or "hi" or "blanket" to me whenever I went to get her, but a few times this week she has said "change diaper." I don't know if she is really aware that she needs it changed or if she's just saying it b/c it's part of the routine, b/c she does not say it at all during the rest of the day.
I'm debating putting her in training pants so that she can be more aware EACH time she goes. I have about 7 or so that I inherited w/ some hand me down clothes (which means that if I do this, I'll be washing them every day, LOL). I won't be making any changes until probably right after Christmas, though, b/c of a crazy schedule w/ traveling and stuff from now until then. BUT... if I put her in the trainers and really start actively telling her every time that pee goes in the potty, and maybe even having enough potties so that she doesn't always have to run to the bathroom if she needs one, then maybe she'll start to understand. I think I have gotten to a point, mentally, where if it doesn't click with her, then I will still be calm about it and just put the trainers away and try again at another time. I was thinking of trying 2 weeks of PLing and then taking a month off, a schedule sort of like that. I want to take a more active approach than just 100% waiting on her, but also stay relaxed at the same time and be OK if it doesn't happen right away, b/c for every story I hear of a 3.5 year old who "just trained themselves w/o me doing anything" I also hear of the 4.5 year old who will NOT go in the potty at all, and while I would LOVE it if DD trained herself, most of my internal drama comes from worrying that she will be one of those children who never trains.
But anyway I did say I had a question, too. lol. If she takes a bigger interest in the potty during any of those 2-week times, I was thinking of bribing her w/ panties. I found a mama that makes custom infant/toddler underwear of CUTE CUTE fabric and bright colors and I was thinking of showing them to DD and telling her that if she goes in the potty all day then she can pick out some panties. lol. It's a bit of a delayed-gratification bribe, so I don't know if it's a good idea or just a pipe dream. What do y'all think?
Update 2/27/09 - So I have another mini update, lol. Since my last post, we've decided to just do a "nothing" method of potty learning, where we don't even talk about it or anything unless she brings it up. (Or if she's complaining about being wiped after a #2, then I let her know that it's easier to wipe her after she potties as opposed to after she uses her diaper.)
Today, Lydia asked me to change her diaper, and also mentioned the potty. I started to change her, and she said that her diaper's dry. Sure enough, it was completely dry, so I put the same one back on and told her that Mommy only changes wet or dirty diapers. I sat her down and she started crying, so I told her again that we're not changing her diaper right now but if she wants to go sit on the potty we can do that.
She pondered that for a minute and then wanted to go sit on the potty. I took her diaper off in the bathroom and sat her on the potty. I had to put my hands behind her to support her, but she wasn't nearly as "clingily fearful" (like she was scared she'd fall in) as she was last time she was sitting on there. DH sat with her too, briefly, when the oven timer went off. lol. After about 5 minutes or so, she said "All done potty" and wanted down, and I put her diaper back on. She hadn't done anything at all in the potty, but wanted to flush it anyway, lol. I said that we only flush when there's pee or poop in there and she went to the living room to play.
5/6/09 - Three months since my last update, and my subconscious apparently won't "let" me do the "do-nothing" approach.
2: I've been talking about it more and more w/ DD, telling her that one day she'll wear big-girl panties like mommy, and put her peepee and poopoo in the potty instead of in her diaper. I even ordered the potty training video from the Pull-Ups site and watched it the other day, and bawled through it. It listed out about 6 or so signs of readiness and said that if your child has at least two of them, then they may be ready to start potty training. DD has only ONE of those signs (ability to follow directions), but it's the one that she's had for months and months. She's not close at all on any of the others.
I don't know how to stop this cycle that I get myself in. I get so stressed about thinking that it'll "never" happen, then I come post about it, and sometimes people will talk me off the ledge (although w/ no replies from either of my last updates, I don't know what'll happen w/ this update). They'll say things like "your DD is only XX months old, she's still young, don't worry, it'll happen" etc. And eventually I do calm down some, and stay calm for a few months. But when there's absolutely zero change in DD's self-awareness in those months (like there has been since I first started this post back in SEPTEMBER, seriously there has been NO CHANGE AT ALL), I find myself dwelling on it again.
I inherited a second bag of cloth training pants, so now I have enough to last a whole day instead of just a few hours, lol. And one of my blogging friends posted that she had some extra diapers/pullups coupons, so I got some pullups coupons from her and bought some yesterday. I showed them to DD and had her put them on and off (w/ me putting them over her feet first) and she did OK with that. Then I put them away and told her that they're only for big girls.
At church this quarter, I am one of the teachers for the 4 & 5 yr old class, and at mid-quarter, we had a teachers' meeting to see how things were going. The teacher of the 2 year old class (and it's just two year olds, 12-23 months) mentioned that one of the challenges of teaching that age was that they don't speak English (LOL) and that several of them ask to go potty, sometimes multiple times in one class. So her peers are definitely in the process of training already. She doesn't notice, doesn't care, doesn't want to, doesn't doesn't doesn't doesn't.
And late last night, we got home from being out, and she peed on the changing table, sans diaper (while I was getting a fresh diaper from the as-yet-unfolded pile in the living room). So I told her that THAT'S what needs to go in the potty. She had another few drops come out even after I dried her off, so I asked her if she had more that needed to happen and if she wanted to put it in the potty, and we sat on the potty last night, but w/ no results. (I think she was really empty after all.)
And this morning, I went to get her up, and her nighttime diaper wasn't completely dry, but it was a lot less wet than it usually is. (Most mornings, I could wring it out, lol.) So I was talking to her and asked if she wanted to go sit on the potty and try to put her peepee in there, and she was agreeable. So we went and she sat on the potty, but then she wanted down after only about 5 minutes, w/ nothing happening. Twenty minutes later, her diaper was soaked.
A bit later, I announced to DD that I was going to go potty, and she was like "I'm going to go potty too!" all excited like she usually is. She wants to be around me and do what I'm doing (but she sits on her potty w/ her diaper on and does nothing). But this time I did something different and it might have been the wrong thing, I don't know. But I closed the door and didn't let her come in with me.
: Then afterwards, I had her come up to me and I explained that when I "go potty" I don't just sit there like she does, I actually let the peepee or poopoo go into the potty. I closed up my little speech with "just think about it for a while" and let her go back to playing.
So that's my "update" for today. Overall, it seems like I'm talking to DD about it more and more, but there's still so much that she doesn't understand. Like all of it. LOL. She doesn't understand the feeling when she's about to go, when she's actually going, OR after she goes. She doesn't understand that "going potty" means so much more than just sitting on the toilet. She doesn't understand that big girl panties exist and that one day she'll wear them like mommy. She doesn't understand how much mommy wants this for her, lol.
5/10/09: We had some pee in the potty today!
When I woke her up from her nap, she was dry-ish (her cloth diapers are heavy anyway so it's hard to tell if they're wet or not, lol), so I asked her if she wanted to go sit on her potty. She said "Want to go sit on Lydia's little potty??" and I said yes, and she was agreeable, so I sat her down on the floor and she walked to the bathroom and sat down. I sat down on the big potty (closed lid) and waited with her. After less than a minute, I heard some action. 
: I got excited and said "Wow, Lydia, that's peepee! You are putting peepee in the potty!" She stopped briefly and got a bit of a worried look on her face, but I kept being excited for her and cheering her on and she got into it too. Then I asked her if she had any more to put in there, and I heard a little bit more go in and I cheered for that too. Then we went to get daddy and show him what she had done, lol. She's of course not potty trained w/ just this one event, and I still don't expect her to be potty trained soon or anything, but I was still excited so I had to come share. 
5/11/09: Well, the "success" of yesterday was short-lived. Today, every time I suggested she sit on her potty w/o a diaper, she cried like the world was coming to an end and insisted that she get a "new clean fresh diaper" on. I don't know where to go from here now.
5/12/09: Late yesterday, after DH came home, he was able to get her to sit on the potty w/ only minimal fussing (like 3 seconds, lol). I went into the bathroom after he did this and found her peacefully on her little potty, bottomless, w/ a book. But the just-removed diaper was soaking wet, so I knew that there would be no potty action. She did easily sit down on it a few other times throughout the evening for me, though.
But after she went to bed, I did some serious self-reflection to try and figure out why I am so stressed about this, and I've come up w/ several "reasons" lol. I think part of it is peer "pressure" like when I hear of people either online or IRL who have children the same age or younger than DD who have already had great success, easily, w/ PTing. Another factor to my worry is that DD was on the very late end of normal for her other physical milestones, and I was hoping that she'd be in the "middle normal" instead of late normal w/ PTing. And part of it is for her physical comfort, since she doesn't like it when I clean her bottom after a dirty diaper (but I obviously can't just leave her dirty, which is what she'd prefer). And I think that not having a deadline is contributing to the problem. We're planning on homeschooling, so there's not even kindergarten that would be a deadline for us, and I just keep fearing that since she "can" be in diapers until 5 and beyond, she "will." And one more, I wonder if she'll live up or down to my expectations of her, and if I DON'T expect her to potty train anytime soon, then she won't ever get any internal motivation from anywhere. We have an open-door policy for now w/ regard to bathroom usage, so it's not like she lacks for an example, but I don't think she understands yet that she is getting bigger and will one day leave her diapers behind.
People on another board assure me that eventually she will train herself, but I have yet to believe that w/ my DD. Even so, I'm going to enter the "resting phase" of my stress cycle now. DD is talking to herself in her crib now, and while I'm changing her diaper, I'll mention to her that she is a big girl, and big girls wear panties and put their peepee and poopoo in the potty, and when she wants to do that, then she can let me know, but until then, I won't be asking, suggesting, etc. that she sit on her potty either right after a long-dry diaper or at regular intervals. And then every so often, I might mention the panties again, but other than that, no more PTing for me. I'm thinking of revisiting taking a more active approach in September since I'll be having a break from one of my WAHM things then, but I'll also be 8 months pregnant, so I may just stay in my "I'm giving up" phase indefinitely.
Thank you everyone for your support thus far. If you continue to have any suggestions, I'll of course welcome them.
5/17/09: Just wanted to share a funny potty-related scenario from yesterday. And a note first... we have not done any potty role-play at ALL (like by taking a doll or bear or something and putting them on the potty). DD came up w/ this all on her own.
She had a large doll, and she was in her play kitchen with it. She had the doll sitting on the sink and was saying that it was going potty. She kept jabbering a bit about that and then in a minute said that the poopoo was coming out. There were a few more minutes of chatter and then DD said "You need something to read for the potty... I'll go get a book." The "book" that she came back with was a single-page menu that had been left as advertising on our door a few days ago.
The whole scene was just so cute.
I'm not sure what it "means" as far as our potty learning journey, but it was related, so I thought I'd share it and at least give someone a smile.
5/21/09: Yesterday morning, I woke up DD, and asked her if she wanted to go put her peepee in the potty. She burst into tears so I put a diaper on her. This morning, I asked her the same thing but also said she'd get a jelly bean if she did. She wanted the jelly bean, but not enough to want to sit on the potty for it, and burst into tears again. So apparently she not only doesn't have any internal motivation, the external motivation will not work either.
6/10/09: Just as a reminder, we use cloth diapers, and when we're at home, we don't use a cover. Sometimes she will leak through her diaper. She seems to be becoming more aware of when this happens, and notices AS it's happening rather than right afterwards. The other day, she leaked through her diaper and she recognized it as peepee, and I changed her. About 10 minutes later, she did it again! (Where did all that pee come from? lol) This morning, she peed in her diaper and did NOT leak, but seemed agitated at it. It was pretty full, though.
7/6/09: So yesterday, I thought about putting her in trainers today, just for fun, with no expectations whatsoever, to see what she would do. I usually go run errands on Monday but I was able to run them early while DH and DD were still asleep, and she woke up right when I got home. I put her in some trainers. She kept calling them diapers, and when I told her they were panties, she then called them "diaper panties" lol. She wet in all of them, and never did notice (except for the one time that she went enough so there was a puddle on the kitchen floor). After she'd been dry for a while, I tried to have her sit on her potty, which she did (pulled down her own trainers and everything), but nothing happened in there. Each pair of wet trainers went into the diaper pail. About 10 minutes ago, she was wet again, so I had her change panties... then she wouldn't STOP changing panties, lol. She would put a new pair on, and put the previous (yet still dry) pair into the pail. She continued doing this until she was down to the very last pair, which is what she's wearing now. So those are the results of my "experiment" lol. She only noticed the one time that she pee'd enough for it to overflow her trainers, so I think that when/if I ever DO make a "real" effort to train her, I'll have to do so with just regular panties instead of trainers, since she didn't even notice anything different with those at all.
7/10/09: I think I have it all figured out now. No, really, I do! I figured out my head and really, truly, WHY I am constantly thinking about this. A bit of background... I didn't get on the internet until I was 18, and the first message board I got onto days later was "MomsOnline." Throughout high school, I'd get library books about mothering/pregnancy/birth and similar topics, so finding a mom's message board was the next step for me, even though I was nowhere NEAR ready to be a mom at that point. The topics interested me, and so I read about them. I migrated around to other random message boards over the years, all w/ similar content to my original "home." When I finally DID become a mom 10 years later, I considered all the reading/message boards/etc. to have been "research" to try and prepare myself. I had an epiphany tonight, and realized that I am doing the SAME thing with potty training that I had done in the past w/ the motherhood "group" of topics. I am just doing research! Off and on since DD's birth, I've been thinking about it and reading about it and posting about it (more frequently in the past year). I have some books waiting for me at the library, even. LOL. But really, it's just research. It's not stress. I am so relieved to realize this. Just like when I was 18 and nowhere near ready to be a mom, at this time in my and DD's life, I don't think either one of us is ready for potty training. But I can still read about it and file the info away for later... much later.
8/8/09: Wow, almost a month since my last update. Since I last posted anywhere about this, I've decided to do the one-day method (a la Foxx and Azrin) but give it three-ish days. I'll probably do it a week from Monday since that'll be when my seasonal job ends and I can fit it into my schedule.
Meanwhile, though, I wanted to share something random that DD did today. We were out today at someone's house for a potluck. There was a little hallway that she kept going down that had one room w/ a video game system that some older kids were playing (and Lydia would go watch). The other room had a gate in front of it b/c there was a rabbit and a gerbil in there. When we got ready to leave, the last place I saw Lydia was running down towards that hallway, so I went there looking for her. I didn't see her standing at the gate or in the other room. Then I noticed that there was also a bathroom down that hallway, and I found her in there. She had pulled down her shorts and her diaper cover and was in the process of pulling down her diaper, and she wanted to sit on the potty. I knew she wouldn't do anything on it, but I picked her up and sat her on it anyway. About a minute later, she said she was done and reached for some paper. She took off a piece of paper and "wiped" and then put the paper into the toilet. And when she put it in the toilet, she put it WAY down in there, right on the water, instead of dropping it in from above. lol. Maybe this random event means she's ready to learn or maybe it just means that she's imitating me. She was still dry even after the 35-minute drive home, so I know that she didn't need to go... she had apparently just seen the potty and wanted to do the "potty thing."
9/30/09: So... never did do the one-day/three-day method. But she did pee in the potty twice today. I have to share the story b/c she's such a character.
Oftentimes when I'm changing her diaper, she'll "disagree" with me when I go to put the new one on and instead insist that she needs to go potty first. So I let her go sit on her potty and a minute later she gets up with no results, but goes ahead and wipes and flushes anyway.
Well this morning, she was sitting on her potty and I went to the laundry room to throw some diapers into the dryer. She came into the kitchen a minute later and I asked if she was done, and she said no and ran back to the bathroom. Then another minute later, I hear her holler to me that she "found" some peepee. ("found" lol.) So I'm like "You did? Let me see." And I start towards the bathroom, but then here she comes, running down the hallway, CARRYING her little potty (which has a substantial amount of "results" in it) so that I could see, lol. She didn't realize that I would come to her and she didn't have to carry the whole thing down the hallway to me. So I took it back into the bathroom and dumped it into the toilet and had her wipe, etc.
Then I put a new diaper on her and we went about our day. A little later, I changed her diaper again, and she wanted to sit on the potty again, but this time she didn't do anything at all. I put a new diaper on her, but then within 5 minutes in the living room, she was saying that she "found" some peepee in her diaper. Sure enough, she had gone, so I took her back to the bathroom again and suggested a dry diaper, which she disagreed with. She wanted instead to sit on the potty again, and I let her, wondering if she still had a little bit to come out, even though her diaper was pretty full. I stepped away briefly to update my FB status w/ this new development, lol, and heard a noise from the bathroom. I went back to check, and she had peed a little more in her potty and then dumped it into the big toilet (and this time she did spill some, so I asked her to please let mommy do the dumping from now on, lol).
11/5/09: Saturday, DH got DD to pee in the potty about 5 times, including a potty out at Barnes & Noble. Then she came home and had an accident.
Today, I got brave and let her wear some panties and she peed in the potty twice (and also later had an accident, after sitting on an empty potty only 30 seconds prior).
All of these times were heavily prompted by DH and me. I am not brave enough to continue this. Especially after today. For her second pee, she was motivated by a reward of a frozen strawberry, and went and sat on the potty and peed w/in about 10 seconds. When I see that in combination with her later accident... she sure knows how to get my hopes up and then dash them to pieces, lol. (Not on purpose, though.)
I seriously need to stay away, FAR away, from any posts about potty learning. They are making me cry. I saw one today about someone's much-younger-than-DD child who was going pee pee in the potty. That was the title. I should NOT have clicked on it, but I did... and not only did the OP have an early-pottying child, but so did several of the respondents. And I cried, and I don't know why.
DD is only 21 months. She's not ready. I KNOW this. I've read Diaper Free Before Three and tried those methods and they don't work for us. I know that 21 months is still young to be doing any pottying outside the diaper, but I still cry about it, thinking that she'll probably be 10 and still in diapers, irrational as that thought is.
I still talk to her about the potty and she watches me go and she watches me put her poop in there (we cloth diaper) and says bye bye when we flush. She doesn't care if her diaper is wet or dirty. She never has. If she never gets uncomfortable in a wet/dirty diaper, then how will she ever get her own self-motivation to want to potty train?
I have two sisters and no brothers, and it doesn't help matters when my mom tells me that she had all 3 of us trained by the time we were 18 months old. Thanks, Mom, for giving me such an impossible goal to live up to, and for making me feel guilty about not reaching it.
We even have some cute pink trainers that I inherited w/ a clothing hand me down bag, but I just know that DD is going to outgrow those before she is ready. I also know that my whole post is going to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy and she really WILL still be in diapers when she's 10.
And I'm crying about it. I don't know what's wrong with me.
If you got this far, thanks. I hope I get some replies... the other couple of times I've posted about this... I barely even get any views, much less replies.
ETA 11/7 - It is SO hard to just keep a relaxed attitude about this, and not do any kind of PLing at all. Especially since I've now noticed a pattern with her. She wakes up w/ her diaper absolutely SOAKED to the core, but about 5-10 minutes after I get her out of bed, she pees again, a LOT. So much that her diaper can't hold it all and she makes a puddle in the kitchen while I"m getting her breakfast ready. lol. I just make note of it and tell her that one day the pee will go in the potty, and she can identify both my potty and hers, but if I set her on my potty she cries (I think she feels unstable on it even though I don't let go of her at all), and if I have her sit down on her potty, she gets up after about 15 seconds.
At this point, I am thinking that if I can just get even one of those morning pees in either potty, then she will start to maybe get an idea of that's where it's supposed to go, but if I'm going to keep my "not potty learning at all" attitude about it, then I just need to put a doubler in her morning diaper instead.
In all of her diapers, really, since she'll occasionally and randomly throughout the week pee through her diaper too, but not as heavily (i.e. not enough to make a puddle). It's enough to run down her leg and make her notice and say "wet?" though.*sigh* I just want to fast forward about 3 years so that this'll all be behind me. Hopefully. Surely she'll be PL'd by 5 yrs old, right?
ETA 11/20 - So I'm thinking that she has the skills to start/stop peeing at will, b/c the other day her diaper was wet and I didn't notice, and she was standing by her changing table looking down, and when she walked away there was a small puddle on the floor. Literally 2 seconds later, she was standing right in front of me in the hallway and did the rest of her peeing right there. I told her that she was peeing and when she was done I took her to change her diaper. (I need to get more BBLPs so I can have them every 5-10 steps, LOL.)
Then two days ago, we're in the living room, and she all of a sudden says "potty??" and points to the bathroom. I followed her in there and she sits down on her little potty and...... does nothing. lol. And it wasn't even imminent, either, b/c 10 minutes later she was still dry.
Whenever she wakes up from her nap or wakes up for the day, the first thing I do is change her diaper. She used to say things like "good morning" or "hi" or "blanket" to me whenever I went to get her, but a few times this week she has said "change diaper." I don't know if she is really aware that she needs it changed or if she's just saying it b/c it's part of the routine, b/c she does not say it at all during the rest of the day.
I'm debating putting her in training pants so that she can be more aware EACH time she goes. I have about 7 or so that I inherited w/ some hand me down clothes (which means that if I do this, I'll be washing them every day, LOL). I won't be making any changes until probably right after Christmas, though, b/c of a crazy schedule w/ traveling and stuff from now until then. BUT... if I put her in the trainers and really start actively telling her every time that pee goes in the potty, and maybe even having enough potties so that she doesn't always have to run to the bathroom if she needs one, then maybe she'll start to understand. I think I have gotten to a point, mentally, where if it doesn't click with her, then I will still be calm about it and just put the trainers away and try again at another time. I was thinking of trying 2 weeks of PLing and then taking a month off, a schedule sort of like that. I want to take a more active approach than just 100% waiting on her, but also stay relaxed at the same time and be OK if it doesn't happen right away, b/c for every story I hear of a 3.5 year old who "just trained themselves w/o me doing anything" I also hear of the 4.5 year old who will NOT go in the potty at all, and while I would LOVE it if DD trained herself, most of my internal drama comes from worrying that she will be one of those children who never trains.
But anyway I did say I had a question, too. lol. If she takes a bigger interest in the potty during any of those 2-week times, I was thinking of bribing her w/ panties. I found a mama that makes custom infant/toddler underwear of CUTE CUTE fabric and bright colors and I was thinking of showing them to DD and telling her that if she goes in the potty all day then she can pick out some panties. lol. It's a bit of a delayed-gratification bribe, so I don't know if it's a good idea or just a pipe dream. What do y'all think?
Update 2/27/09 - So I have another mini update, lol. Since my last post, we've decided to just do a "nothing" method of potty learning, where we don't even talk about it or anything unless she brings it up. (Or if she's complaining about being wiped after a #2, then I let her know that it's easier to wipe her after she potties as opposed to after she uses her diaper.)
Today, Lydia asked me to change her diaper, and also mentioned the potty. I started to change her, and she said that her diaper's dry. Sure enough, it was completely dry, so I put the same one back on and told her that Mommy only changes wet or dirty diapers. I sat her down and she started crying, so I told her again that we're not changing her diaper right now but if she wants to go sit on the potty we can do that.
She pondered that for a minute and then wanted to go sit on the potty. I took her diaper off in the bathroom and sat her on the potty. I had to put my hands behind her to support her, but she wasn't nearly as "clingily fearful" (like she was scared she'd fall in) as she was last time she was sitting on there. DH sat with her too, briefly, when the oven timer went off. lol. After about 5 minutes or so, she said "All done potty" and wanted down, and I put her diaper back on. She hadn't done anything at all in the potty, but wanted to flush it anyway, lol. I said that we only flush when there's pee or poop in there and she went to the living room to play.
5/6/09 - Three months since my last update, and my subconscious apparently won't "let" me do the "do-nothing" approach.
2: I've been talking about it more and more w/ DD, telling her that one day she'll wear big-girl panties like mommy, and put her peepee and poopoo in the potty instead of in her diaper. I even ordered the potty training video from the Pull-Ups site and watched it the other day, and bawled through it. It listed out about 6 or so signs of readiness and said that if your child has at least two of them, then they may be ready to start potty training. DD has only ONE of those signs (ability to follow directions), but it's the one that she's had for months and months. She's not close at all on any of the others.I don't know how to stop this cycle that I get myself in. I get so stressed about thinking that it'll "never" happen, then I come post about it, and sometimes people will talk me off the ledge (although w/ no replies from either of my last updates, I don't know what'll happen w/ this update). They'll say things like "your DD is only XX months old, she's still young, don't worry, it'll happen" etc. And eventually I do calm down some, and stay calm for a few months. But when there's absolutely zero change in DD's self-awareness in those months (like there has been since I first started this post back in SEPTEMBER, seriously there has been NO CHANGE AT ALL), I find myself dwelling on it again.
I inherited a second bag of cloth training pants, so now I have enough to last a whole day instead of just a few hours, lol. And one of my blogging friends posted that she had some extra diapers/pullups coupons, so I got some pullups coupons from her and bought some yesterday. I showed them to DD and had her put them on and off (w/ me putting them over her feet first) and she did OK with that. Then I put them away and told her that they're only for big girls.
At church this quarter, I am one of the teachers for the 4 & 5 yr old class, and at mid-quarter, we had a teachers' meeting to see how things were going. The teacher of the 2 year old class (and it's just two year olds, 12-23 months) mentioned that one of the challenges of teaching that age was that they don't speak English (LOL) and that several of them ask to go potty, sometimes multiple times in one class. So her peers are definitely in the process of training already. She doesn't notice, doesn't care, doesn't want to, doesn't doesn't doesn't doesn't.
And late last night, we got home from being out, and she peed on the changing table, sans diaper (while I was getting a fresh diaper from the as-yet-unfolded pile in the living room). So I told her that THAT'S what needs to go in the potty. She had another few drops come out even after I dried her off, so I asked her if she had more that needed to happen and if she wanted to put it in the potty, and we sat on the potty last night, but w/ no results. (I think she was really empty after all.)
And this morning, I went to get her up, and her nighttime diaper wasn't completely dry, but it was a lot less wet than it usually is. (Most mornings, I could wring it out, lol.) So I was talking to her and asked if she wanted to go sit on the potty and try to put her peepee in there, and she was agreeable. So we went and she sat on the potty, but then she wanted down after only about 5 minutes, w/ nothing happening. Twenty minutes later, her diaper was soaked.
A bit later, I announced to DD that I was going to go potty, and she was like "I'm going to go potty too!" all excited like she usually is. She wants to be around me and do what I'm doing (but she sits on her potty w/ her diaper on and does nothing). But this time I did something different and it might have been the wrong thing, I don't know. But I closed the door and didn't let her come in with me.
: Then afterwards, I had her come up to me and I explained that when I "go potty" I don't just sit there like she does, I actually let the peepee or poopoo go into the potty. I closed up my little speech with "just think about it for a while" and let her go back to playing.So that's my "update" for today. Overall, it seems like I'm talking to DD about it more and more, but there's still so much that she doesn't understand. Like all of it. LOL. She doesn't understand the feeling when she's about to go, when she's actually going, OR after she goes. She doesn't understand that "going potty" means so much more than just sitting on the toilet. She doesn't understand that big girl panties exist and that one day she'll wear them like mommy. She doesn't understand how much mommy wants this for her, lol.
5/10/09: We had some pee in the potty today!
When I woke her up from her nap, she was dry-ish (her cloth diapers are heavy anyway so it's hard to tell if they're wet or not, lol), so I asked her if she wanted to go sit on her potty. She said "Want to go sit on Lydia's little potty??" and I said yes, and she was agreeable, so I sat her down on the floor and she walked to the bathroom and sat down. I sat down on the big potty (closed lid) and waited with her. After less than a minute, I heard some action. : I got excited and said "Wow, Lydia, that's peepee! You are putting peepee in the potty!" She stopped briefly and got a bit of a worried look on her face, but I kept being excited for her and cheering her on and she got into it too. Then I asked her if she had any more to put in there, and I heard a little bit more go in and I cheered for that too. Then we went to get daddy and show him what she had done, lol. She's of course not potty trained w/ just this one event, and I still don't expect her to be potty trained soon or anything, but I was still excited so I had to come share. 5/11/09: Well, the "success" of yesterday was short-lived. Today, every time I suggested she sit on her potty w/o a diaper, she cried like the world was coming to an end and insisted that she get a "new clean fresh diaper" on. I don't know where to go from here now.
5/12/09: Late yesterday, after DH came home, he was able to get her to sit on the potty w/ only minimal fussing (like 3 seconds, lol). I went into the bathroom after he did this and found her peacefully on her little potty, bottomless, w/ a book. But the just-removed diaper was soaking wet, so I knew that there would be no potty action. She did easily sit down on it a few other times throughout the evening for me, though.
But after she went to bed, I did some serious self-reflection to try and figure out why I am so stressed about this, and I've come up w/ several "reasons" lol. I think part of it is peer "pressure" like when I hear of people either online or IRL who have children the same age or younger than DD who have already had great success, easily, w/ PTing. Another factor to my worry is that DD was on the very late end of normal for her other physical milestones, and I was hoping that she'd be in the "middle normal" instead of late normal w/ PTing. And part of it is for her physical comfort, since she doesn't like it when I clean her bottom after a dirty diaper (but I obviously can't just leave her dirty, which is what she'd prefer). And I think that not having a deadline is contributing to the problem. We're planning on homeschooling, so there's not even kindergarten that would be a deadline for us, and I just keep fearing that since she "can" be in diapers until 5 and beyond, she "will." And one more, I wonder if she'll live up or down to my expectations of her, and if I DON'T expect her to potty train anytime soon, then she won't ever get any internal motivation from anywhere. We have an open-door policy for now w/ regard to bathroom usage, so it's not like she lacks for an example, but I don't think she understands yet that she is getting bigger and will one day leave her diapers behind.
People on another board assure me that eventually she will train herself, but I have yet to believe that w/ my DD. Even so, I'm going to enter the "resting phase" of my stress cycle now. DD is talking to herself in her crib now, and while I'm changing her diaper, I'll mention to her that she is a big girl, and big girls wear panties and put their peepee and poopoo in the potty, and when she wants to do that, then she can let me know, but until then, I won't be asking, suggesting, etc. that she sit on her potty either right after a long-dry diaper or at regular intervals. And then every so often, I might mention the panties again, but other than that, no more PTing for me. I'm thinking of revisiting taking a more active approach in September since I'll be having a break from one of my WAHM things then, but I'll also be 8 months pregnant, so I may just stay in my "I'm giving up" phase indefinitely.
Thank you everyone for your support thus far. If you continue to have any suggestions, I'll of course welcome them.
5/17/09: Just wanted to share a funny potty-related scenario from yesterday. And a note first... we have not done any potty role-play at ALL (like by taking a doll or bear or something and putting them on the potty). DD came up w/ this all on her own.
She had a large doll, and she was in her play kitchen with it. She had the doll sitting on the sink and was saying that it was going potty. She kept jabbering a bit about that and then in a minute said that the poopoo was coming out. There were a few more minutes of chatter and then DD said "You need something to read for the potty... I'll go get a book." The "book" that she came back with was a single-page menu that had been left as advertising on our door a few days ago.
The whole scene was just so cute.I'm not sure what it "means" as far as our potty learning journey, but it was related, so I thought I'd share it and at least give someone a smile.
5/21/09: Yesterday morning, I woke up DD, and asked her if she wanted to go put her peepee in the potty. She burst into tears so I put a diaper on her. This morning, I asked her the same thing but also said she'd get a jelly bean if she did. She wanted the jelly bean, but not enough to want to sit on the potty for it, and burst into tears again. So apparently she not only doesn't have any internal motivation, the external motivation will not work either.
6/10/09: Just as a reminder, we use cloth diapers, and when we're at home, we don't use a cover. Sometimes she will leak through her diaper. She seems to be becoming more aware of when this happens, and notices AS it's happening rather than right afterwards. The other day, she leaked through her diaper and she recognized it as peepee, and I changed her. About 10 minutes later, she did it again! (Where did all that pee come from? lol) This morning, she peed in her diaper and did NOT leak, but seemed agitated at it. It was pretty full, though.
7/6/09: So yesterday, I thought about putting her in trainers today, just for fun, with no expectations whatsoever, to see what she would do. I usually go run errands on Monday but I was able to run them early while DH and DD were still asleep, and she woke up right when I got home. I put her in some trainers. She kept calling them diapers, and when I told her they were panties, she then called them "diaper panties" lol. She wet in all of them, and never did notice (except for the one time that she went enough so there was a puddle on the kitchen floor). After she'd been dry for a while, I tried to have her sit on her potty, which she did (pulled down her own trainers and everything), but nothing happened in there. Each pair of wet trainers went into the diaper pail. About 10 minutes ago, she was wet again, so I had her change panties... then she wouldn't STOP changing panties, lol. She would put a new pair on, and put the previous (yet still dry) pair into the pail. She continued doing this until she was down to the very last pair, which is what she's wearing now. So those are the results of my "experiment" lol. She only noticed the one time that she pee'd enough for it to overflow her trainers, so I think that when/if I ever DO make a "real" effort to train her, I'll have to do so with just regular panties instead of trainers, since she didn't even notice anything different with those at all.
7/10/09: I think I have it all figured out now. No, really, I do!
I figured out my head and really, truly, WHY I am constantly thinking about this. A bit of background... I didn't get on the internet until I was 18, and the first message board I got onto days later was "MomsOnline." Throughout high school, I'd get library books about mothering/pregnancy/birth and similar topics, so finding a mom's message board was the next step for me, even though I was nowhere NEAR ready to be a mom at that point. The topics interested me, and so I read about them. I migrated around to other random message boards over the years, all w/ similar content to my original "home." When I finally DID become a mom 10 years later, I considered all the reading/message boards/etc. to have been "research" to try and prepare myself. I had an epiphany tonight, and realized that I am doing the SAME thing with potty training that I had done in the past w/ the motherhood "group" of topics. I am just doing research! Off and on since DD's birth, I've been thinking about it and reading about it and posting about it (more frequently in the past year). I have some books waiting for me at the library, even. LOL. But really, it's just research. It's not stress. I am so relieved to realize this. Just like when I was 18 and nowhere near ready to be a mom, at this time in my and DD's life, I don't think either one of us is ready for potty training. But I can still read about it and file the info away for later... much later. 8/8/09: Wow, almost a month since my last update.
Since I last posted anywhere about this, I've decided to do the one-day method (a la Foxx and Azrin) but give it three-ish days. I'll probably do it a week from Monday since that'll be when my seasonal job ends and I can fit it into my schedule.Meanwhile, though, I wanted to share something random that DD did today. We were out today at someone's house for a potluck. There was a little hallway that she kept going down that had one room w/ a video game system that some older kids were playing (and Lydia would go watch). The other room had a gate in front of it b/c there was a rabbit and a gerbil in there. When we got ready to leave, the last place I saw Lydia was running down towards that hallway, so I went there looking for her. I didn't see her standing at the gate or in the other room. Then I noticed that there was also a bathroom down that hallway, and I found her in there. She had pulled down her shorts and her diaper cover and was in the process of pulling down her diaper, and she wanted to sit on the potty.
I knew she wouldn't do anything on it, but I picked her up and sat her on it anyway. About a minute later, she said she was done and reached for some paper. She took off a piece of paper and "wiped" and then put the paper into the toilet. And when she put it in the toilet, she put it WAY down in there, right on the water, instead of dropping it in from above. lol. Maybe this random event means she's ready to learn or maybe it just means that she's imitating me. She was still dry even after the 35-minute drive home, so I know that she didn't need to go... she had apparently just seen the potty and wanted to do the "potty thing."9/30/09: So... never did do the one-day/three-day method. But she did pee in the potty twice today. I have to share the story b/c she's such a character.
Oftentimes when I'm changing her diaper, she'll "disagree" with me when I go to put the new one on and instead insist that she needs to go potty first. So I let her go sit on her potty and a minute later she gets up with no results, but goes ahead and wipes and flushes anyway.
Well this morning, she was sitting on her potty and I went to the laundry room to throw some diapers into the dryer. She came into the kitchen a minute later and I asked if she was done, and she said no and ran back to the bathroom. Then another minute later, I hear her holler to me that she "found" some peepee. ("found" lol.) So I'm like "You did? Let me see." And I start towards the bathroom, but then here she comes, running down the hallway, CARRYING her little potty (which has a substantial amount of "results" in it) so that I could see, lol. She didn't realize that I would come to her and she didn't have to carry the whole thing down the hallway to me.
So I took it back into the bathroom and dumped it into the toilet and had her wipe, etc.Then I put a new diaper on her and we went about our day. A little later, I changed her diaper again, and she wanted to sit on the potty again, but this time she didn't do anything at all. I put a new diaper on her, but then within 5 minutes in the living room, she was saying that she "found" some peepee in her diaper. Sure enough, she had gone, so I took her back to the bathroom again and suggested a dry diaper, which she disagreed with. She wanted instead to sit on the potty again, and I let her, wondering if she still had a little bit to come out, even though her diaper was pretty full. I stepped away briefly to update my FB status w/ this new development, lol, and heard a noise from the bathroom. I went back to check, and she had peed a little more in her potty and then dumped it into the big toilet (and this time she did spill some, so I asked her to please let mommy do the dumping from now on, lol).
11/5/09: Saturday, DH got DD to pee in the potty about 5 times, including a potty out at Barnes & Noble. Then she came home and had an accident.
Today, I got brave and let her wear some panties and she peed in the potty twice (and also later had an accident, after sitting on an empty potty only 30 seconds prior).
All of these times were heavily prompted by DH and me. I am not brave enough to continue this. Especially after today. For her second pee, she was motivated by a reward of a frozen strawberry, and went and sat on the potty and peed w/in about 10 seconds. When I see that in combination with her later accident... she sure knows how to get my hopes up and then dash them to pieces, lol. (Not on purpose, though.)
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