Toilet training, or parent training, or whatever.
7:25 p.m.
First of all, let me say that I do not remember the toilet training of Buddy Boy at all. He had other incontinence problems, which I will talk about later. The problem child was Little Princess. I had fully intended to use cloth diapers on her, but after having a �surprise� c�sarian section I fell into the disposable rut very easily. With Buddy Boy I elected surgery, so was prepared ahead of time, and the only time a disposable touched his lily-white bottom was when we travelled or he was being babysat. Otherwise I swathed him in flannelette. I wonder now if that made a difference.
Anyway, we�re talking about Little Princess here. Everyone told me girls were easier to train than boys. They don�t know what they�re talking about. A child will give up diapers when he/she is good and ready. I myself was a late trainer (I actually remember, so it must have been late) and I had no reason to believe that my kids would be any different. We had a little potty which we placed in the bathroom next to the �big� potty, and tried to entice Little Princess there with games and stories and all the things you read about in child-rearing books. She was not to be fooled. I brought Buddy Boy home from the hospital when she was just a month shy of three years, and I remember both of them lying on the floor having their diapers changed: yellow breast-fed baby poop in one, and you-know-what in the other. I was also post-operative, which meant that this was no picnic.
When Buddy Boy was seven weeks old, the CUMS conference was held in Quebec City. Hubby decided to attend, as did the Duke, so we rented a multi-bedroom accommodation and stayed there en masse: the Duke, the Duchess, the Duke�s mother (who was visiting from B.C.), their two children ages 3 and 2, myself, Hubby, and our two children ages 3 and 7 weeks. All four children were in diapers. The two menfolk went off to their conference and the women and children did the sights, Nana pushing a child, the Duchess pushing a child, and the post-operative Elgan pushing a child and carrying another in a snuggly.
I must say that we did have a very fine time, even though I had to stop and breast feed occasionally, and we had to be constantly feeding the other three so as to keep them happy. We found a fabulous store called Ge�mania which sells geological specimens as well as jewellery, et cetera, and a marvelous kite store where I bought a beauty for Hubby and the Duchess bought a smaller one for her son. At that point, all four children decided it was time to move their bowels, and they all started stinking. We were at the bottom of the hill (Quebec City is built along the St. Lawrence River gorge) and so decided to take the funicular to the top as an expedient to walking back to our motel. There we were, with all those poopy children, in an enclosed place. The stench was unparallelled. The other passengers were stoic beyond belief. We just stared straight ahead as though we weren�t aware that anything was out of the ordinary.
Sometime during that summer, Little Princess started using the potty consistently. The word �consistently� is very important here, because she would not use a toilet. At all. It was the potty or nothing. She also gave up wearing a diaper at night on her own volition. Her first day of nursery school she peed her pants. Why? Because Jutta did not have a potty, but a small toilet that the other children were quite happy to use, but not Little Princess. So, for two weeks I hauled that potty to and from Jutta�s, to the derision of one of the other mothers (whom I would like to swat when I think about it) whose little girl was of course toilet trained at the age of 18 months. After two weeks, Little Princess declared that we should save the potty for Buddy Boy, and she was going to use the toilet henceforth. Hooray!
Buddy Boy was toilet trained just before his third birthday. So much for girls being easier. But he continued to wet the bed until he turned seven. I wasn�t overly concerned, once I discovered those pull-up pants and didn�t have to be changing the sheets every morning. People were full of good advice, all of which amounted to nothing, because the boy will stop peeing the bed when his body matures. I knew this. But of course everyone else knew better. Anyway, just after his seventh birthday he was dry at night, and we have never looked back.
So, just to reassure all you mothers (and fathers) out there with diaper-clad young �uns, at some point they will use the toilet all the time and will stop wearing diapers. Every child is different. Do not be discouraged, and for heaven�s sake, don�t let well-intentioned people give you advice on how to speed up the process, because you can�t! And that�s all the lady wrote.
<~~~ * ~~~>
