night time diapering, potty learning, and other ramblings

[holliam]

I have a collection of ramblings I need help with.. First some background.

Mari is insistent about wearing panties around the house now or being "nakey". She often insists on wearing panties on short errands too.

That's fine, but she won't pee in the potty. So, she either waits until the last minute and says "I pee again" as it's dripping down her leg or on my nightgown as she leaps into my lap. Or, she runs like a lunatic yelling "Dipey! Dipey! I need a dipey!"

She poops in the potty pretty regularly. Yep, I have the one child on the planet (apparently) who will poop in the potty but not pee. I have no idea why. If she has a diaper on she will poop in it but insists on being changed immediately. So, I think she just really hates poop.

She seems to have basically reverse-cycled her bladder somehow so that she is now peeing mostly at night. She has always been a heavy nighttime wetter; we've always changed her at least 1x at night. But, now we have to stuff her nightime diapers (a mix of FCB, Lullaby Diapers, and Knickernappies nightime pocket diapers) so much that her covers don't fit really and they still aren't holding in the floods. We also made the foolish attempt at her wearing longies to bed and they can't control the flooding. We've had to change our bed sheets 4x in the past week. *sigh*

If you've made it this far, thank you! Here are my main issues;

- How do I convince her that peeing in potty is just fine? We never fuss about the pee messes at all. I usually just pick her up and say that it's fine. Everyone misses the potty when they are learning, remind her of characters in the potty books, etc.

- What other nightime solution should I try? My requirements include: cloth diapers with snaps. Beyond that I'm now willing to try anything.

I'm unwilling to resort to bribery, guilt, or anything like that. I'm not in a rush to potty train her. This is all child lead learning. I'm just trying to figure out how to help her be more comfortable and not stressed about the pee situation.

Thanks!
Holli

[lizajane]

i bet you are already doing this, but just in case... i know DH is the SAHparent, but since you work from home, can you go and get her every time YOU use the potty? since it is a different dynamic for daddy, going with him may not be effective. maybe coming to the potty with you will show her how "great" it is to going pee pee on the potty?

also- i put the kiddie potty out in the living room. so whatever we were doing, the potty was RIGHT there. so if she loves to be nakey, maybe playing nakey with the potty right next to her will encourage her to use it- since it won't interupt play (by taking the time to actually leave the room, undress, etc.)

i can't remember who said it, but someone here suggested some great language for NOT bribing, but instead allowing a reward without it being a reward. that doesn't make sense... i mean saying, "after you use the potty, it will be time to play outside" or whatever her fav. thing to do is. and just sitting and trying counts are using the potty.

finally, i think you can offer her a choice. you may wear a diaper or you may use the potty for pee pee. so if she chooses not to wear a diaper, then she needs to use the potty. and if she has an accident, you can tell her no problem, we will just choose a diaper for a while now. but anytime you want to use the potty, we will take it off.

as for the nighttime- have you tried windpro OVER the diaper/cover as back up? it has worked well for us to put schuyler in windpro shorts. he has been out of cloth for a while (we keep thinking he is done with nighttime dipes, and then suddenly not so much...) but the pull ups don't cut it anymore and he needs the shorts over them. so maybe a hemp dipe, a 'crat and then some windpro jammies?

good luck. the potty can be SO frustrating.

[holliam]

LOL, trust me she comes potty with me EVERY time! DH will hate me for saying this but he is also one of those guys that prefers to sit when he pees. She has been trying to help me wipe and flushes for me for months!

She was horrified by the baby potty in the living room. Then again she's a kid who hates to have her diaper or clothes changed when other people are around; she apparently likes her privacy. lol

She liked to pretend to use the little one but never did anything in it. We needed a new toilet seat and Target has these cool ones with little kid potties built into them so we got those and got another one for the other bathroom. She loves that potty seat; we put her step stool in front so she can get up/down and has something to put her feet on.

She is always more than willing to try to use the potty, but she just won't pee on it. She'll sit for a while, then say she's all done, hop off, ask for a diaper!

Daily we go over the "if you wear panties, you need to use the potty. otherwise, let's use diapers."

I'm beginning to think she would do it if she didn't have panties on at all. Of course, we don't really want to keep the house that warm now that it's finally cold! Ahhhhh...

I've been thinking of trying windpro bottoms but I'm afraid she'll get too hot. We co-sleep and she is always snuggled up next to one of us or a cat.

Holli

[squimp]

I have a pretty low tolerance for pee everywhere, so I applaud your patience. She doesn't really sound ready for potty learning since she doesn't want to pee on the potty. In that case I'd do anything I could to get her back in diapers. If you can reassure her that it's OK to wear diapers, maybe she'd be less stressed out about it? I do have one small suggestion for putting the potty in a positive light.

At Christmas time last year we started putting her on the potty right when she woke up in the morning. Everyone has to pee right when they wake up, so I figured that was an easy one. And she was too sleepy to protest ;). She usually would pee, and then we'd all do a happy song and dance, and she'd have lots of positive reinforcement.

We did that for about a week, and she started wanting to pee on the potty at other times. When we were home, she would run around without panties, and I just kept the house warm. She was fairly well trained in about a week, when she was almost 2 and a quarter. It was really important to remind her every 20 minutes or so to sit on the potty. That was the hardest part, since she often was too busy for this. We didn't do any bribes, just lots of positive reinforcement and happy potty dancing. She is the only kid in her school without lots of stickers by the potty. But I did give it a try, and quickly realized that she couldn't care less about stickers or M&Ms! For some kids it really works, though, so I might think about that.

Good luck! I have no advice on the night dipes, except that Huggies overnights were the only thing that worked. I gave up on CDs at night once she was about a year old, she pees buckets at night. Also, the first of the a.m. pee can be a fountain, so maybe put her on the potty before then?

[lizajane]

sigh. doncha just wish that ONE time per day you could go potty by yourself... ;)

what about windpro shorts? that is what i made for schuyler.

and "snuggled up to one of us or a cat" made me laugh! she is snuggled up to her mommy or daddy... or a cat. i don't know what it struck me as funny. as though the cat were on an equal playing field with you two as nighttime comfort.

[holliam]

She has all the potty learning signs, and she is the one driving this train, not us. I am perfectly happy keeping her in her cute cds! LOL

But, you made me realize that maybe we've been too laid back, if that's possible. Maybe it's US who have not really ready for it, and we need to listen to her cues better.

Just having this discussion has helped me a lot just to see the different perspectives.

Holli

[papal]

Holli,
This reminds me a lot of Leela when she was 2. Pooped in the potty but peeing was a hit-or-miss. It really was that she was so busy doing whatever she was doing that she waited till the very last second and by then it was too late. We put her on the potty every hour.. let her sit for 5 mins and try to pee.. this seemed to work. Even now, at age 3, she will hold her pee for hours and hours and wait till the last second and run to the bathroom. Maybe Mari is the same way.. too busy to pee? LOL. I did resort to bribery and that worked for us but I was losing my patience and needed a quick solution. I can understand not wanting to go that route though! Try the timer.. maybe that will work?

[Moneypenny]

DD has NO interest in the potty (sigh), so I don't speak from firsthand experience, but when my niece was learning to use the potty she had similar issues that you describe in Mari. They ended up with a rule that if you want to wear underwear, you have to sit on the potty every 30 minutes. They also had a little basket of toys and books that were only to be used while sitting on the potty, so it was "worth it" to her to leave whatever she was doing and play with the special potty toys (hmmm, potty toys - don't think that's a phrase I need to use again, LOL). They also realized that while their DD wanted to use the potty, it still hadn't really clicked with her that you can feel it before you have to go and that feeling means pee is actually going to come out of you (pardon my directness). She was truly surprised every time she had an accident. They had to just catch a few pees in the potty by luck and that helped her to understand the physical process.

Susan
mama to my cutie pie, Avery
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[holliam]

Yea, I think you are right! We definitely are not doing anything regular right now. So maybe she needs us to be consistent.

It's so funny you said that because every time we are sitting there reading books with Mari on the potty, I always think back to that little video you posted once of Leela on the potty. LOL It cracked me up, and now Mari looks just like her--sitting there reading books, talking non stop!

Holli

[papal]

LOL! Yes, we had to put an end to books at potty time because she would sit there for hours and hours and with meera here, I just don't have the time anymore for it because I am busy making sure meera stays out of trouble!!