Progress is a Spiral

"Woops!  I thought we had mastered the potty."  "Oh no, I thought you knew not to touch the fan!"  "What, we're having problems with the afternoon nap now?  I thought I had that down!"  "Hello?  You liked green beans yesterday!"

Unfortunately for mothers everywhere, children progress in a spiral.  Things get better, then worse, then better, then worse.  The same lessons must be repeated time and time again.  It can really try one's patience!

My mother once told me "parenting will mature you, if you let it."  That progressive spiral can be a wonderful patience builder.... or it can be very discouraging.  It all depends on how I choose to deal with the regressions that will inevitably come.  I am sometimes tempted to throw up my hands in frustration and proclaim that I'll never get it right and I just can't do this anymore.  But of course I will wake up tomorrow and still be the mother.  But what kind of a mother will I be?

Cheerfulness is essential in the development of patience.  When Junior has an potty accident even though he's had many clean and dry days, how will I respond?  Well, of course I will clean it up.  That's not what defines my action as patient.  Of course, I will tell him that he knows better, and this is not how we do things.  But what will my tone be?  Will I be cheerful, truly believing that he can do better?  Or will I be grouchy, feeling despondent about whether this will ever be fully mastered?

It takes work to develop cheerful, patient endurance.  It doesn't come naturally, even to the most loving mother.  It is frustrating to be cleaning the same messes and teaching the same lessons over and over again.  But this common, everyday trial is the one God chose to refine me.  How much better if I joyfully submit to the refining fire?

Photo originally uploaded by Cl@re Bear
Creative Commons

Write it Down

Parenting is a big task.  There won't be a 'finished product' for a few years yet.  How are you doing?  It's hard to say a lot of the time, isn't it?  In the midst of enforcing the rules, making meals, feeding, cleaning, wiping, loving, putting down for naps, supervising play, and all the rest it can be hard to really know how things are going.  There aren't any performance reviews.  While no one is asking you to write things down, it can really help in a lot of ways;

1.  Goals:  

My husband is always making and evaluating goals in his corporate job.  When we got married he wanted to make goals for our first year of marriage and I thought it seemed a little silly... but then when the year was over and we looked them over, it was really nice to be able to see how we had focused our energies on certain areas.  We had achieved a fair number of our goals, and our lives were moving along the way we hoped.  I know you can't control life by setting goals, but it can help you focus your energy on what's important to you rather than just floating along letting life happen to you.



2.  Daily Routine:


It's common knowledge that kids thrive on routine, with events like meals and naps happening at the same times everyday.  My son was on a consistent Babywise eat-wake-sleep schedule as a baby which gradually stretched from every 3 hours at birth to every 4 (and longer at night, thankfully!).  As a baby, that was really all the routine he needed.

Now, as a 1 year old, that 'wake' period is much longer and I want to fill it with activities that reinforce my parenting goals.  I wanted to make sure we had time for independent play, blanket time, potty practice, active play, and reading each day.  So I wrote up a routine that I thought would work for us ... and then tweaked it a bit to find something that really did work.  Then I put the revised version up on the fridge to remind me.  I am now much more consistent with making sure those activities happen each day, and my son knows what to expect when.

I've also read in Ask Supernanny that older kids will begin to refer to the schedule too and even start to set the table when meals are coming up.  So this is a practice I want to keep up as our family grows!

3.  Rules:


Since our son is still pretty young, our rules are pretty simple (don't touch electrical cords, don't drop food, stay off the stairs etc.), but it's good for my husband and I to be on the same page about them.  For example, I do not let my son play in the refrigerator.  It is a 'no.'  He often hangs out in the kitchen with me and it would be a pain to have to keep pulling him away from it.  He points and looks wistfully at the fridge, but doesn't bother it.  Now when my husband came home from work one day and let our son play in there (supervised) because it was so cute, we really didn't have consistency and I had to work a little harder on being the fridge guard for a few days.  We got some cute pictures and it wasn't a big deal, but there were some complications.

I imagine as our son's memory grows, consistency will become even more important.  I am planning to write up some rules and post them in a visible location when our son gets older.  That will make things easier for babysitters, as well as for my son and me.

4.  Memories:


Everyone tells new parents how fast time flies... and now that our son is a year old and I look back over his baby pictures, I believe them!  His baby book thankfully had lots of lines for recording his firsts as well as my own thoughts and his baby stories.  I know this will be valuable to me as he grows, and hopefully he will value it too.  I imagine it is harder to write down as much for kids who aren't the first-born, but it's probably worth it to make it a priority.  If we don't record their childhood moments, it will be gone.  Those memories help me see how far I've come.

So grab a pencil and some paper and write stuff down!

RESOURCES
On Becoming Baby Wise: The Classic Sleep Reference Guide Used by Over 1,000,000 Parents Worldwide
Ask Supernanny: What Every Parent Wants to Know

Photo originally uploaded by orangeacid
Creative Commons

No More Dirty Diapers!

Yuck! Dirty diapers! What parent doesn't look forward to the day when they won't have to deal with them any more? As a cloth-diapering mother, I sure did!

When I read in The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems about a method of potty training that begins at 9 months, I decided to give it a try. Ms. Hogg recommends adding "potty time" into Junior's routine after mealtime.


So I sat our son on his insert in the big potty for about 5 minutes and read him a book after each meal. At first, it did feel a little silly, but after a week or so, he began to do his business in the potty!

Now, at 10 months old, he almost never has dirty diapers. If we are out running errands or there's a lot going on with the holidays or what not, he might go in his diaper, but that is pretty rare anymore.

I expect he'll continue to have wet diapers for a while yet as those muscles tend to mature closer to 18 months, but that's OK with me. Potty training, just like walking, is a learning process. I just wanted to share our success with this step in the process to encourage other parents. While beginning later works for many parents, you don't have to wait until your child is 2 or 3 to potty train.

RESOURCES
The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems

Photo originally uploaded by tiffanywashko
Creative Commons

Toilet Training Trends

In 1957, 92% of children were potty trained by 18 months. Now, only 60% are potty trained by 3 years. Quite a difference, wouldn't you say? Today we have the "Infant Potty Training" school and the "Wait Till He Asks To Use The Potty" school. I really like the middle ground approach that Tracy Hogg suggests (The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems). Her method follows.

She recommends beginning between 9 and 15 months. The reasoning behind that time frame is twofold. Junior is old enough to sit well on his own and be an active participant in the process. He hasn't reached the "terrible two's" yet, though, when he's more likely to resist the new routine.

Expect the process to take a few months to complete. You're teaching a skill. It will take some time. Stock up on patience and plan to be in it for "the long haul." Also, she recommends buying a potty seat that fits on top of a regular toilet to ease the transition later. I like that because it's one less (rather yucky) thing to clean.

The basic pattern to follow is E.E.A.S.Y. (Eat, Elimination, Activity, Sleep, You-time during nap). Babies often urinate about 20 minutes after eating or drinking, so put Junior on the potty for a few minutes during the time when he's likely to "go." Potty training usually begins with a lucky mistake. Then praise reinforces the new skill and so learning goes. It may help to observe your baby before starting for a few weeks to see if you can pick up on when he normally goes. Then put him on the potty during those times throughout the day.

Don't expect dry diapers from day one, but stay upbeat about the process. Don't be surprised if he wants to try out the potty even when you don't suggest it. He may not go every time, but he's learning how to interpret his physical sensations.

Hogg recommends waiting until Junior has been dry during the day without any accidents for a week before buying real underwear. Night-time dryness usually takes a little longer to achieve. Wait until he's woken up dry for two weeks before going diaper-less at night.

RESOURCES
The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems