Our First Toilet Training Part 3 – Using the Potty

In my previous sharing, we managed to train our son to be off his diaper at 19 months of age. I will be honest. Life after that, can be quite difficult. Especially when we have to travel and the size of the toilet seat outside is only for adults. Sometimes he would pass motion on the floor and I need to pick his poo up / use a lot of water to drain the poo into the hole.

We’ve had situations whereby my son was passing motion and someone really rude keeps on knocking on the door, impatiently, until I told her “My son is using the toilet”. Then only she stopped. Well, there are many other toilet cubicles and she just had to attack mine, despite only being in there for a couple of minutes (when she started knocking).

Another situation is when there are many other cubicles available, but one selfish lady walked into the family sized one – the one with a toilet bowl for kids) and took her own sweet time inside. So please, refrain yourself from using those toilets labelled “family” unless you are taking your little children along with you.

Anyway, initially my son refused to use the potty seat (see picture) that I bought for him. I read that children needs their feet to touch the ground when passing motion, so I bought him a cheap, small potty with very basic feature.

Still, he refused to sit on it. He only passes urine/motion while standing over it, so I could just dump the whole thing inside the usual toilet bowl to be flushed. The challenge is that his poo would be stuck on his thigh and buttock, and it was such a hassle to clean. I wanted to teach him to clean himself so that I could teach him that his private parts are only for him to touch. No one else can touch him there, not even me. So with so much poo to be cleaned, I can’t make him do it himself without risking him touching everywhere with his ‘poopy’ hands. LOL.

So, to solve this, in July this year, I purchased a comfortable and cute seating potty bowl for him. (see picture). It was on sale at GIANT for RM34.99. I just had to grab it because the cheapest I have seen in LAZADA or elsewhere, is more than rm50! So now we are in the process of teaching him to use the potty, clean himself, and clean the potty bowl as well. So far so good.

I hope I can totally teach him to be independent so that I could start to teach him about no-one-should-touch-his-private-parts-but-himself soon.

Any tips from other mommies are greatly appreciated :)

All the best to other mommies out there!

Our First Toilet Training Experience Part 2

Salam.

Last week I have shared about the general rule I followed for toilet training our first son. Here is the next part of that. :)

Monday, 16th of January 2017. First day of toilet training. The most tiring! We rolled and kept away all the carpet in the house. We told him he won't be wearing any diaper from now on, and that he must pee/poop in the toilet. We asked him to repeat that many times.

We had nearly 10 accidents. He nearly ran out of pants to wear because we had to keep changing him. Not to mention the amount of work to mop the mess on top of doing the usual housechores.

Sometimes, he peed during the toilet trip. Sometimes he did not. When he did, we would congratulate, praise and encourage him. When he did not, we simply say "ok perhaps next trip you will pee". Patience is the key.

The moment my husband got back from work, I passed the baton to him to take our son to toilet. It was really tiring! But we persevered.

Night time, we slept on a comforter (because thick mattress is more difficult to clean, so bye bye comfortable bed) and layered it with a thin plastic below another layer of thinner comforter (which can be thrown into the washing machine, just in case). The tips says not to wake him up more than 2 times at night to pee, so when he wakes up for milk (12-1am and 3-4am) I would take him to toilet and ask him to pee.

Tuesday, 17th of January 2017. Same routine except the time gap between toilet trip is longer. I felt as tired as the first day (probably more). Sometimes, our son asked for his diaper. "Lampin" as he would say it. But we were firm in telling him, he won't be wearing any "lampin" anymore after this.

Just like the first day, once my husband got back from work, I passed the baton to him. Thank goodness he was ok with it.

Wednesday, 18th January 2017. Third day. We saw less accident, but I tend to ignore my guts saying that "it's time for his toilet trip" so there were some frustrating accidents. However, each toilet trip is fruitful. He was then able to pass urine when taken to toilet.

He passed motion 3 times this day. Once in toilet (I was running like crazy and taking him to toilet when I saw his grunting face, which indicate defecating is in proses a.k.a muka meneran), another two at the living room. It was easy to not be angry at him because he seemed so scared and clueless. It was apparent that he needed us to guide him so we could not get angry.

Day 4 basically had no accident. We were back to sleeping in our bed. Yay!

Friday, 20th January 2017. Day 5. A new challenge because we were taking a trip back to our parents' for the weekend. We stopped a couple of times along the highway for toilet visits and once he fell asleep, it was such a relief because we know he will not pee in his sleep.

Saturday, 21st January 2017 Day 6. He had one accident while at my husband's father's house. Probably triggered by the change in environment as well as him being busy playing with his cousins that he forgot about peeing in the toilet. Otherwise all was well.

To be continued...

Our First Toilet Training Experience Part 1

Assalamualaikum wbt / Hi

We are extremely blessed that our first son is quite a quick speaker. He started speaking comprehendable words before he was even 18 months old. He picks up words as we speak them and repeatedly try to pronouce them until he is able to remember. On top of that, he is able to use the words correctly within context afterwards.

Since we stayed at my parents' place until he was about 19 months, I had to delay his toilet training, despite seeing some signs that he is ready. However, I took the chance to introduce him to be aware of the act of passung urine and passing motion and what they are called. For example, during showertime, when I see him pee I will repeatedly tell him "this is peeing". After a while, he is then able to say it himself (the words pee & poop, "kencing" & "berak")

Once we are back in our own house, we picked a day to start, and never looked back. I am also blessed that my husband is so cooperative about this. We did our readings and strategised. We also spoke to him repeatedly about our intention a couple of days before we started.

DAY 1 Every 15 mins. Stay toilet 5 minutes. 1 hour = 3x 12 hours = 36x

DAY 2 Every 30 mins. Stay toilet 5 minutes 6 hours = 11x 12 hours = 22x

DAY 3 Every 1 hour. Stay toilet 5 minute 12 hours = 12x

No leaving the house for chores/errands at all for that 3 days.

Stop the diaper cold-turkey. NO DIAPER AT ALL EVEN AT NIGHT. (We found these tips on fb by the way)

To be continued...