After months and months of wondering when it would happen . . . it finally has.
Charis is (mostly) potty trained.
I was starting to worry. I was also starting to think that Judah would be potty trained before his sister was. But we made the switch to Big Girl Underwear--for better or for worse, we decided--and let nature take its course. We used a reward system of stickers and suckers for attempts and successes, respectively. She had a few accidents at the beginning, but now, we are accident-free! In fact, on Christmas Day, Charis had nary a diaper on all day (we usually diaper her for naps and bed), and not once did we even have to ask, "Are you still dry?" or, "Do you need to use the potty?" She took care of it all by herself. Both functions, if you know what I mean.
As she's 3.5 years old, this has been a long time in the coming. It has mostly been a struggle of pride for me; I felt sheepish and ill-suited for motherhood because my child wasn't potty trained and many many kids her age are. But finally, I came to this realization: Who cares? So I ditched the pride and let her do it on her own time. She is a first-born perfectionist (somewhat like her mother) who does not like to do anything unless she can do it well. She did that with walking; in the morning, she was crawling, then she took a nap, woke up, and decided she was ready to walk. She did it with talking; I thought she'd never speak actual words, until one day, she thought it was time to make sentences. I figured that it would be the same with potty training. She is a very capable, motivated learner--she's just NOT motivated by pressure from others, namely her mother. I knew that when the time came, she would run away from the diaper quickly on her own, but that if I pushed it, potty training was likely a battle we'd be fighting for a long time. In the end, it turns out I was right. (I got lucky on that one, believe you me.)
I still put her in a diaper for naps, although it is not unusual for her to run out during her nap to use the potty, even though she is diapered. And we still diaper her at night. I'm not sure how much longer we'll have to do that, but I'm okay with it for now!
I know this is way more interesting to me than to anyone else out there, but in the interest of chronicling Charis' developments, I thought I should record it!
3 comments:
Yay for Charis! That's a big deal! Micah also didn't potty train until after his third birthday. We were able to do it in a weekend and it was so EASY! So, I've decided the best way (for us) is to wait until kids are ready. Samuel goes potty sometimes, but we're not trying to potty train him... we're potty-familiarizing him. I don't know when we'll train him, but I wouldn't guess it would be before his third birthday either. Anyway, congratulations!
It is interesting to anyone who is in potty training territory! Especially those of us who haven't gone there before. What a blessing to have the wisdom and experience of our trail-blazing friends. Congrats to Charis! (And to you and Abe, too.)
Cori, I couldn't agree more with you (and Sarah). We waited until Joshua seemed REALLY ready and over one weekend went with the big boy pants. Several of my friends suggested just "going for it"...if you had to clean up a mess, so be it. He had a few the first day and then no more at all. That was Thanksgiving (a month after turning 3). We did what Sarah dubbed "potty familiarizing" (I love that) for a while. JT's temperament sounds VERY much like Charis' so like you we try not to push any major milestone lest it be battle of wills forever!
Well, congrats to Charis and to you my friend!
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