A lil here, A lil there: Motherhood: Potty training

Where to begin? How to begin? When to begin? The endless questions I had when I first broach the idea of potty training my toddler. Being a Chinese adds to the pressure more. For some reason Chinese are famous for potty training their babies as young as 2 3 months old and probably once their baby hit the 6 months mark, they go diaper free? Crazy? I kid you not, there are probably cases like that, who knows. My own mother has brought this topic up a couple times. She constantly told me to 'shhhuuuhhh' my son once he gets up from his sleep or nap so he understands the idea of peeing and every 20 mins, I should bring him to the toilet to 'shhuhh' him. By shhuhh, she meant to hold the baby in front of de toilet and make the peeing sound effect to stimulate the baby to pee. I tried to shhuhh him when he wakes up from nap, clearly I find it too troublesome to do so and to check the clock every 20 mins. The bitter truth is, I'm just too lazy. I gave up. I did tell my MIL to do it too, after a while I think she too gave up. She probably finds it too leceh too. Can I blame her? No, I don't blame her. I read that pushing a child to go diaper free before they're ready, they tend to have more accidents as they grow up. I asked my MIL how did she train her youngest daughter to go diaper free, she told me she never did. Once her daughter was 4 years old, she just told her to pee and poo in the potty, she understood and that was it. All it takes is a day work. While I'm too lazy to bring my son to the toilet every 15 to 20 mins to get him to pee, I'm not keen on him wearing the diaper till 4 years old either. Taking cue from seeing my cousin potty training my nephew when he was two, I made that my benchmark to begin potty training once Ezra turns two. If Shane could be potty trained, Ezra can too.

So I had two potties bought, more like sponsored by Miss Ran, one to be placed at my MIL's house and one for us to use at home. So the first step was to get him to sit on the potty. The problem was he didn't want to seat on the potty! He just wanted to play with it. Disappointed, I had to convinced myself that my little boy just wasn't ready and gave up the idea. I decided to wait till he was ready as that's my favorite approach to use when it comes to weaning or introducing something to Ezra. I remember reading every now and then to remind myself to watch for signs a boy is ready to potty train. I never saw the signs. I put him on cloth diaper during the day hoping that the wetness would make him uncomfortable enough to give up diapers. It worked slowly, minimally. Little did I realize, those were the baby steps taken to prepare him towards potty training. Eventually, when he was about 2 1/2 years old, he would go diaper free in the evening for about 2-3 hours.We had to remind him so often to tell us when he wants to pee pee or asked him he wants to pee pee. There were countless of times he would accidentally wet his pants when he was too busy playing. It took a while before he could start telling us he wanted to pee. And even then, he wouldn't pee in the potty. He would opt to pee standing up in the loo. Problem with that is that he hasn't mastered the skill to aim, every time he pees it trickles all over the place. There were times where he would pee with one leg up or open his legs as wide as possible, almost to a split!, to avoid his pee from running down his legs. Those were the funny times. Over time, he slowly mastered holding his pee and could go diaper free during the day except for naps and tell us whenever he wants to pee but he still very much needed the diaper to do his number 2. For the second time, I decided to try again but this time I bought two child toilet seat, hoping the seat would get his interest more. That went to waste lol. He wouldn't seat on the toilet seat either. Never mind that, at least he pees in the loo. Fast forward to half a year later, my urge to get him to fully be on the potty was getting stronger. He was approaching 3 years old. Problem was I didn't have the time. I only had weekends and weekends alone weren't enough. I can't rely on my MIL as this was my responsibility to potty train my son, not hers. So when I was on my maternity leave for 2 months, I gave myself a mission, to potty train Ezra when I was back in my hometown for 3 weeks, by hook or by crook, I had to get it done. If I don't do it then, I don't know when else would I have the time to do so. So it began. For some dumb reason, it ended in military style. Stress like crap. While he now accepts sitting down to pee but he wouldn't tell me when he wants to pee, often ending with him peeing his pants. I remember that one fine day was so stressful not just for me, but very much so for my poor boy as well. I remember beating his backside (I'm Asian, we beat our kids), scolding him every time he accidentally wets himself for not telling me when I know he knows how to tell me when he wants to pee, screaming my head off, threatening him with a cane, punishing him to go pantless when he wets ALL the pants there is for him, even to go pantless when he takes his nap. It was a bad day. I was angry because he wouldn't tell me when he wants to pee. Now judge me all you want, I admit I am not the world's best mother and I have lost my temper with him. I'm very much aware of the whole encouragement vs fear approach but my stupidity on that very day for expecting him to accept the potty in a days time. I forgot that Rome wasn't built in a day. As I said, it was a stressful and bad day for us. As he was sleeping pantless that day, watching him sleep, I reflected the whole stressful day and obviously overcame with regret my course of actions and feeling like crap myself, I told myself perhaps he just wasn't ready. So the next day, I lighten up and took a whole different approach to make the whole experience filled with fun irregardless if he succeeds in doing his number 1 and 2 in the potty. For some funny reason he too changed and he would alert whenever he wanted to pee and the best part was, he peed in the potty. I was ecstatic. I remember one of the time he ended up pooing in the potty. That was when I rewarded him with chocolates to further encourage him. And we would 'run run run' to the potty together whenever he wanted to pee and poo and I told him if he peed in the potty, he gets one chocolate, if he poo poo, he gets TWO chocolates. It worked. I knew then, that was the day I succeeded in potty training him in the day time. Of course there were accidents here and there but it was still a learning process for him. After two three weeks, we were doing great with the potty during the day time.

So now the only problem I have left, was night time potty training. I didn't know how to do it. I wasn't sure where I should begin. So I left it as it is, always wanting to try but never took it to action. There was a time where I forgot to wear his diaper for him and he wet himself. So I figured, night time potty training was gonna take a while but I wanted to do it before we move to the new place with a new mattress. But I wasn't gonna force him if he wasn't ready. Luck was on my side. 3 months after his day time potty training, one fine day, he just told me to throw his diaper I had already put it on him away and he told me he didn't want to wear diaper to sleep. So I reminded him in case he wanted to pee, to wake up and tell me but I was very much ready for him to wet the bed. So I had the waterproof mat and a towel place underneath the bedsheet on where he slept. Surprisingly, he woke up every time he needed to relieve himself. It's been a week now, so far so good. He has not wet himself, not once on the bed. He woke up every time he needed to pee, most of the time half dead and so sleepy he can barely move, so momma has to carry him to the potty and back to his bed. He woke up usually twice a night and he can now hold his pee for at least 6 hours now at night. I can't tell you how proud I am of him and that our potty training experience is now completed for both daytime and night time.He has now upgraded himself from diapers to undies.