Leave Me Alone!
Oct 14 '00
My daughter was three years old before she decided that the time had come to abandon her diapers. She knew the function of the potty and she knew she would one day use it but I believe that there was a short circuit between the "knowing and going" function in her brain. Just as she one day began talking, one day she became potty trained.
I don't lie when I say it was really a two day process and within a couple of weeks she was dry at night as well. I had cried many tears over her unwillingness (now I believe inability) to potty train. I felt as if it were something I, as her mother, should be able to train her to do, and I was failing at it miserably. If you had asked me on her third birthday what her first day of kindergarten would be like I would definitely have told you that she would be going to kindergarten in diapers. I would become so frustrated that I would try for a day and give up. Well the day it "clicked" for her there was no looking back.
Now I am in the same situation with my two and a half year old son. He goes sometimes (which my daughter refused to do) but is quite content to go in his diaper. My grandmother tells me regularly that I don't work with him enough (always moms fault isn't it?)and at one time I would have believed her but now I know that it doesn't make a darned bit of difference what I do. He is going to cooperate when he is both willing and ready. To me it honestly makes more sense to have a few day or few week process of potty learning rather than argue and butt heads with him for six months or more. It isn't healthy for either one of us.
I hear regularly (when talking to the older generation especially) about how much earlier children used to be trained. An older woman actually informed me in the pharmacy the other day (upon hearing my son say something about his diaper) that her NINE month old great granddaughter was almost completely trained. I said "well, good for her". I refuse to be bullied about it. If the truth was known that child is nowhere near potty trained, the mother just has been lucky when sitting her there.
I stand by my belief that even if a child is purposely not using the potty, there is probably a reason of some kind. Whether it be stubbornness, a new baby at home, apathy or physical inability a child will train when they are ready and should never be punished in any way. And when you see a mom struggling with her child in this way, the last thing you should do is to make her feel badly, for it is beyond her control.
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Epinions.com ID:
b2wilson
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Member: Barb Wilson
Location: Carrollton, MO
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 21 members
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