Noah

Picture Interlude

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

Small Success

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

I am now a firm believer in the whole “they’ll do it when they are ready.”  Noah is ready for potty-training.  He is a total ace now–I know I’m going to pay for saying this (not only because I am in class while writing this post) but because that’s just the way that the universe works.  He’s gone two days now and has used the potty chair all day.  We still haven’t pooped on the potty chair–he really wanted to today–he came to me twice when he started to poop and we sat on the toilet but he froze…”Mommy, I don’t know how to do it.”  It’s cute.  He then freaked himself out a bit and then held it in and was uncomfortable for soccer.

Let me just say that soccer practice for him is hilarious–I’ll write more about that later with some pictures.  He certainly moves to the beat of his own drum.  But I am happy and feeling much more confident that he will be successfully potty trained by starting school in August.

Keep all the advice coming.  You all have great wisdom and I love gleaning wonderful tidbits from you.

Parenting Mistake #1,387,792

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 4 Comments

So commences Operation potty-train Noah and operation No More Binky.  Both of these pre-emptive strikes are wearing on me just a little and have caused me a great deal of stress and guilt.  First off, Noah absolutely must be COMPLETLY potty-trained by the first day of school in late-August.  If he isn’t then he can’t start school and we will then be paying tuition for him not to be going to school.  That gives me just over 4 months to get him there. 

We have started and have been working on it for a long time.  So, to help the process along, I decided to buy him some really cool stuff to give him as prizes for making it a full day without peeing in his diaper.  I plan to make a sticker chart so that he can earn some of the things that I bought him.  So you are wondering exactly where this mistake is?  Well he was with me when I went shopping for his potty-prizes.  So, it’s been a battle because he doesn’t understand why he can’t have all of the things right now.  This is because he is spoiled and he has always gotten the things that I have bought him right away, etc.  So, this hasn’t been necessarily working in my favor.  I have learned another valuable lesson. 

In terms of potty-training, I have decided that while at home the whole wearing only underwear really helps–while he did pee a little bit twice on the floor yesterday–he was able to stop the pee and come and tell us that he had to potty.  He is beginning to put the two things together.  It is really easy to not think about it if you don’t have to.  So, I will be sticking with this tactic at home for the next few weeks–I totally need to invest in more big boy underwear for him.  But another issue is that I have been putting too much pressure on him to poop on the potty (I know exciting talk) that he hasn’t gone in a nearly a week.  The poor kids stomach must hurt so bad.  Lesson 2–pressure is bad. 

On a brighter note–we are surviving without the binky and he fell asleep last night in my arms at 9:30–earliest night all week.  I’ll begin putting him to bed before he is asleep as soon as he adjusts. 

So, bring on the potty-training tips.  Just know my kid isn’t motivated by food or a lot of things for that matter.