Discovering Fatherhood
Reflections on everyday daddy stuff
Potty Problems
My daughter has been potty training for what seems like an eternity. We started her slowly at around 18 months because we knew she was capable of grasping this. Claire is now a little over two years old and is able to pee in the potty with no problem and for the most part keeps her Pull-Up diapers pretty dry. Although we’ve got the pee thing down; the dirty, not so distant relative of the vowel movement family is not something she seems to understand. Pooping is so much harder. My wife tells me that some kids usually grasp one over the other and so pooping is the one Claire doesn’t grasp. Claire has pooped in the potty before, a handful of times I might add. However, this has been due to us seeing her face turn a shade of red and purple that we’ve come to recognize.
We have instilled a price system for going to the potty that has stickers and a chart. For every 4 pees she gets to pick anything out of a plastic container we have in the bathroom. Every time she poops she automatically gets a price. The stickers show her how many more bathroom visits until she gets a price. The prices consist of chocolate, stickers, pencils, coloring pads, etc. Claire understands how this system works very well, she will say to me, “two more Papi and I get a dulce (candy in Spanish).” I will praise her and say, yes two more. However, she won’t poop in the potty. I speak slowly to her and try to explain it and even though she gets it for peeing she is missing it for the other. “Instant price Claire. Instant! No waiting 4 times, you get it right away!” She will smile and say ok and then go poop in a corner.
There are several people telling us their own particular methods of how to teach them and we have finally realized that Claire is too content with the amount of comfort the diaper provides. The padding in diapers absorbs and allow for the discomfort of a kids vowel movements to not be noticed much. So today we swung by Target and got two pairs of those training underwear. The idea is that it has less absorption fabric to catch pee or poop, but because its not too padded like a diaper the kid will recognize that ‘this is not very comfortable’ and hopefully be more aware of when needing to use the potty.
We just got this training underwear so I’m not sure what to expect. I have this slight fear that I will find my daughter opening her said underwear and fling poop everywhere in defiance. I’m fine with cleaning poop, but to randomly find it one day at home as I go about my day creeps me out.
Somehow it always comes back to poop on this blog…
Claire has been great in most things. We really have been blessed with her ability to follow instructions and deal with change. I hope that this poop problem doesn’t “hit the fan”.
Discovering Fatherhood 