Mothering Times: March 2007

Friday, March 30, 2007

Reward System

I used a reward system to encourage my kids during the toilet training process. I must say that it has worked out extremely well. I don't think they were even very interested in what awaits them at the end of accumulating enough stickers or stars. They were excited just by the process of going to the calander, picking their stickers and sticking them in the little boxes with numbers. Lol!

My girl has a booklet of Hello Kitty stickers to choose from while my boy had his car stickers. The booklets were really cheap. I got them for RM2.50 each at the Pasar Malam (night market). It contains about 500 - 600 little stickers in various shapes and designs. (Who says good things don't come cheap eh? You just have to keep an eye out all the time for a good bargain).

The reward system certainly made them more aware and careful about their toileting moments. (Haha. Don't know what other word to use) They are enjoying it and I shall probably use it again in the future for other things.

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Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Breastfeeding is the Magic Weapon that......

My husband and I used to joke that breastfeeding was like using the magic weapon. And it really feels that way sometimes. Lol!

Breastfeeding is the magic weapon that....

calms and soothes baby
acts as a painkiller for doctor visits that requires jabs or injections
helps baby go to sleep
keeps baby full and contented
gives baby nutrition and energy
stops baby from crying instantly
its a natural pacifier and comfort object

Haha. I could go on. Each time baby cries, get fretty, sleepy or hungry, hubby would hand baby over to me and say "Baby needs the magic weapon." or "Get out the magic weapon." Hah! Easy for him! Lol! However, it is easier for me too AFTER the first two months that is. My babies both had latching problems and for me breastfeeding during the early days is always a tough time. It only gets easier AFTER the early days (though its not this way for everyone).

Still all that struggle, tears (from both baby and myself) and stress during the early days of trying to breastfeed is well worth it AFTER we have got our breastfeeding act together and breastfeeding becomes "The Magic Weapon!" *chang chang chang* *drum roll* Lol!

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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Lazy Mum's guide to Toilet Training

Day Nine

I wasn't going to write anymore daily updates but I just had to record this. This morning baby woke up, drank his milk and told me he wanted to pee. I checked his diaper. It was completely dry. He had been awake for a while and had just finished his milk. I'm so happy he didn't pee in his diaper but told me to take him to the bathroom to the pee. Definitely one star for baby and I'm sure he's got it now.

Subsequent Days

Baby definitely has got it now because over the next few days he continues to tell me when he wants to go for either a pee or a poo (he can differentiate now). He tells me even when we are out of the house and he is in diapers. Yipeee! (However I was told off by hubby because when we were out of the house and he told me, I almost told him to pee in his diaper because it was inconvenient. Hubby said that would be reversing the training. So eventually I found a toilet but it was so difficult because I couldn't remove his shorts and socks and shoes since he doesn't know how to aim his pee yet. Otherwise all his clothes will be stained. Hmmm... nevermind, its early days and baby will get it soon, the aiming part I mean. Lol!)

So its confirmed that the toilet training process is over in less than 10 days. Thats absolutely great! Congratulations baby. You're a big boy now.

Here are the links to all my previous toilet training posts:

Toilet Training Day One - 7 accidents and a successful poo
Toilet Training Day Two - Awareness and an accident trail
Toilet Training Day Three - One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Toilet Training Day Three Cont - Saving up on Diapers
Toilet Training Day Four - Distractions leads to Accidents
Toilet Training Day Five - Little bare bottom made it to the bathroom on time
Toilet Training Day Six - He told me!
Toilet Training Day Seven - Pee or Poo?
Toilet Training Day Eight - My Gosh! He's Got It!

I call this the lazy mum's guide to toilet training because the toilet training process is so much easier when the child is ready for it. There is no stress and no tears. Only a little bit or rather a lot of wiping and washing for a week or two. By wiping and washing, I mean the floor, carpet, chair or whatever and baby's clothings. I don't wash potties because I don't use one. Its straight to the adult toilet and flush after use. I don't have a maid or anyone else at home who can help me so this is the most practical way for me.

I have people who told me why I am so late in my toilet training, their kid was trained at one year but when I asked them how they did it, their reply was "I was fortunate, my mum put him on the potty every one hour at that age." Well, I don't have time to put a one year old on the potty every one hour so I'm not going to do it that way. I also don't have a maid whom I can call out to "Ani (or whatever), cepat cuci potty/angkat baby/lap lantai/whatever" which is why I take baby straight to the adult toilet and forgo the potty. This way I don't have to clean potties and I don't have to later transition or teach them all over again to go to the adult toilet.

When my child is ready, and when I am ready (Thats important too ie me being ready. I noticed that baby was ready for it a while ago but I was not because I was very busy moving house so I started later), so when both mother and baby are ready, the process is very simple and fast. All I needed to do was be very committed, focussed and patient during the training process which only took 10 days in our case.

If you like, you can follow my guide too but if you prefer other methods its all up to you. I always believe that just like any other issues on parenting. Its all up to you and your child. Whatever feels right to you and your child is right. There is no right or wrong way. My way may not be suitable for you the way it is for me. (especially if you're a working mum, it may not be practical to take time off to do this since its a full time thing.) I've said this before. When it comes to parenting, "To each his own" applies so do whatever feels right and is practical for you and your child and don't care about what others (including books and gurus) have to say. Lol!

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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Toilet Training Day Eight - My Gosh! He's Got It!

Today baby told me he wanted to pee 3 times in advance and he also told me he wanted to poo ahead of time. I think he's got it! Yippee! Hurrah! I gave him two stars today.

With this achievement, I shall officially declare baby toilet trained and our intensive one week toilet training over and I won't be giving anymore daily updates. Lol! Oh, I'm sure there will be more accidents along the way but the progress we've made is amazing. I don't know why I was dreading this for so long. It hasn't been all that bad at all.

Its definitely easier to train when they are ready for it, mentally and physically. It saves a lot of work too. Like I mentioned at the start. I'm lazy. I don't clean potties and I don't use potties. I just use a child toilet seat placed over the adult toilet seat. This way, I never have to empty and clean out dirty, stinky little potties.

His sister has been good too so far, waking up from naps dry. I shall continue with this for a little while longer before getting them each a toy they both deserve and which they have been eyeing as a reward I had promised.

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Monday, March 19, 2007

Toilet Training Day Seven - Pee or Poo?

The accidents are getting fewer now and I didn't have to buy another set of underwear afterall. Now baby knows how to stop himself as soon as he feels a pee coming. He also managed to tell me that he wanted to poo but when I took him to the toilet seat and sat him there for a while, nothing came out. When I wore his underwear and left him alone, he had his poo after a while. I think he is used to poo standing up! Lol! That is why he had trouble sitting down for a poo.

Baby is still having trouble differentiating between the two. When he wants to poo, he tells me he wants to pee. When he is peeing, he tells me he is pooing. I am not worried though. Its only a matter of time before he gets it and he just needs to get used to sitting down on the toilet seat and having a poo into the toilet bowl, that is all.

Other that this, I believe we are doing very well and making good progress. We only had one accident today and he can stay dry most of the time now.

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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Toilet Training Day Six - He told me!

Its the weekend and weekends are usually busy times for us. We are in and out of the house several times which makes it harder to toilet train since I have to confuse baby by putting on his diapers for when we are out of the house and put him in his underwear in the house.

We went attended a dinner function in the evening and returned home late at around 11.00pm. Halfway through the dinner, I changed baby's diaper. When we got home, he told me he wanted to pee. So I took him to the toilet. His diaper was still clean and dry. When I brought him to the toilet, he peed and pooed as well, standing up. Lol!

At the moment he is confused by both functions, not sure which is which but this is the first time he told me BEFORE the event. Hurrah for baby. Another star for him on the calander.

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Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Toilet Training Day Five - Little bare bottom made it to the bathroom on time

My husband often says I never learn from my mistakes and so was the case for today's toilet training. The whole morning went rather well because I took baby diligently to the bathroom BEFORE he peed into his pants.

Then we had lunch. Right after lunch I wanted to take baby to the toilet to poo but before I managed it, he peed in his pants. I undressed him and wanted to make him poo in the toilet bowl but yet again, my girl came running and said "Let me go first. I can't wait." and so like a repeat or a movie rerun, I let her go first and left the boy to go and wash up his wet clothes. While I was at it I heard shouting from my girl.

I went to check and saw my girl still on the toilet bowl and my boy standing proudly in the bathroom shower area with his poo on the floor. He was so proud of himself for having made it to the bathroom on time but poor baby. His mother was away washing his clothes while his sister was on the toilet bowl so he couldn't go there. He went to the next available place instead ie the bathroom floor. Poor little thing. His look was cute. He looked happy with himself for being smart enough to do it in the bathroom but at the same time he stood still, not daring to move less he step on the poo. Lol!

How I wished that I wasn't away at the time and the toilet bowl was available but at least he was smart enough not to poo elsewhere. So thats a start. I shall give him a little star on the calander today for this little achievement. Small steps. Small steps but we'll get there, yes baby?

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Toilet Training Day Four - Distractions leads to Accidents

I was busy running errands for most of the day so toilet training times were reduced to the short periods of time I had available at home. Its best to choose to do toilet training when you are not too busy with other activities otherwise you confuse the poor kid. One moment you put them in underwear and then back to diapers because you have to go out and there is no toilet around where you are going.

However, sometimes its just not possible to wait till you are entirely and extremely free to concentrate on nothing else accept the toilet training process. Such a day will never come. There will always be activities and other things you need to do. I had postponed this since last year because we were busy moving house and then there was the Chinese New Year celebrations. So there is no more excuses but to just go right ahead and train baby because I believe he is ready for it.

There were too many distractions today. Baby had another poo accident in the underwear. I hope that we will be back on track to our toilet training tomorrow when our routine goes back to normal with some of the endless errands and to do lists out of the way. But when will they EVER be out of the way? Our To Do Lists gets longer everyday, not shorter!

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Monday, March 12, 2007

Toilet Training Day Three Cont - Saving up on Diapers

Today is quite uneventful in terms of toilet training. We didn't have many accidents probably because I have become smarter and takes baby to toilet on time or he has learned to control his bladder better or both. I really don't know which but things are becoming smoother now. I hope it stays this way.

I realise I have only been talking about my boy's toilet training process. I am also training my girl during naptimes. However recently she hasn't been napping much so its hard to tell how we're doing. On those days when she does nap, she woke up dry. So she got two more stars.

However, when I asked her whether she remembered to stop herself from wetting her bed when she woke up or she didn't have much pee she said she didn't have much. She got some stars anyway for being honest. Lol!

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Toilet Training Day Three - One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Baby was good in the morning. He stopped himself in his tracks when he started to pee and told me so. After lunch I wanted to take him to poo but his sister ran ahead of him and said "I want to go too" so I let her. Uh Oh! Lesson No 1: Don't let baby wait. They can't! Baby couldn't wait and did it in his new underwear. Thats his first poo accident. Thank Goodness we're having hot sunny skies these days. I quickly washed up his stained clothes and put them out to dry.

In the afternoon, he was too busy playing and I was too busy with other work. By the time I asked him if he wanted to pee, he pointed to a big spot on the carpet and said "There!" Uh Oh! Lesson No 2: They're not going to tell you they want to go to the bathroom when they are busy playing.

To be continued.....

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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Toilet Training Day Two - Awareness and an accident trail

I'm writing this in the evening. So far we've had 3 accidents. The spills are less now since baby is quite aware that he is wet. Its different if he's wearing diapers. In underwears, he can tell when he is wet. He stops himself after wetting a little bit, I think. He still can't tell me BEFORE he wants to go. He tells me AFTER the fact but at least he tells me and he tells me right after the fact.

During one of the incidents, he was standing in front of the bathroom door. I had been telling him that I was going to take him to the bathroom to pee but I got sidetrack by other housework. He then came running to me to tell me that he had peed. I asked him how come he peed on the floor again and not in the bathroom and he said "I waiting for Mummy." Lol! Hey! Maybe we're making some progress afterall.

So far, the fewer accidents is not an indication of success. It merely means better timing in getting him to the toilet on time on my part. Lets see how we fare for the rest of the day. I'll update this later.

In the late evening, there was another accident. I had just spend about 15 minutes in the toilet with baby to get him to have a poo. After that I was packing some rubbish to throw when he told me that he was wet in the dining hall. Being halfway through a task and rather distracted, I stripped him off his wet clothes and left him while I carried on with my work. When I got back, he had left a trail of pee all over the dining area. Oops! My lesson? Always deal with baby BEFORE anything else. I had thought that since I had just taken him to the bathroom not too long ago, it would be allright not to take him to the bathroom again till I finish my task. How wrong I was. He had afterall just drank his milk just before this so his bladder must have been full again.

By the end of the day, he still did not have a poo. He usually goes at least once or twice a day. He must have been too AWARE of toileting to have a poo!

As for my girl, she played all afternoon and skipped her nap so we do not know how she did today. So, both of them did not get a star sticker to stick on the calander today. We'll see how the next day goes.

Hubby's comment: Are you sure this is how you are supposed to toilet train your kids? He asked this when he saw me rushing around wiping floors. Hahaha. Well, I'm not sure, but I'm going to give this a try for at least two weeks before raising the white flag and rethinking my toilet training strategy.

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Monday, March 05, 2007

Toilet Training Day One - 7 accidents and a successful poo

The day started off by waking the kids and making baby go to the toilet first thing before changing him into his new underwear for the first time. He was very amused by his new navy blue underwear with a bespectacled girrafe cartoon print on it. After that I put him on the potty which was placed over the adult one and he was again very amused. "Why am I sitting on cheh cheh's one?" (Why am I sitting on sister's potty?) he questioned me. I explained to him that it was sitting on it to poo and he giggled.

Then I gave him his milk and planned to take him to pee again an hour later. An hour and 5 minutes later (I did not stick to the an hour a visit plan because I was busy) he came running to me and said "Mummy wet" Oops! First accident. I cleaned him and changed him. Hmmm.... at this rate we will run out of new underwears very, very soon. I hope I can wash and they will be dry and ready to reuse when needed. Hahaha!

I'm a real lazy mum. I don't potty train my kids. When they are ready for toilet training, I take away the diaper immediately and put them on the adult toilet right away. :P

To be continued....

By the end of the day, we had 7 accidents (several on the floor, one on the carpet, one on the car toy seat, one on the chair) and we had one successful poo in the toilet bowl for the very first time. Yeah! He looked very surprised when that happened. The look on his face was priceless. Hahaha. We had also run out of underwears so I made him wear him wear just shorts.
(Note: After a while the accidents came closer together like once in 15 minutes! Maybe I'll have to buy more underwear soon.)

As for his sister, she didn't wet her bed when she woke up from her nap as she usually does so we gave each of them a sticker on the calander. His sister for staying dry and the boy for his successful poo. I wonder what day two holds for us. We'll see.

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Toilet Training Day 0 - The Preparation

I'm going to start my 2-in-1 toilet training today ie training both kids at the same time. Daytime toilet training for the boy and naptime toilet training for the girl. We'll start with naps followed by nighttime training. Yesterday we went and bought underwear for the boy and some mats to be placed under the girl's bed in case of accidents during sleep. I also bought a 2007 calendar or planner. I got it at 50% off since its now the 3rd month of the year. Still the planner was not cheap. I almost wanted to just do a DIY calander or planner as an activity with the kids but I'm lazy, so I bought the planner. The planner is to track their progress. I promised them reward stickers for each day of success and a toy of their choice when they have collected 60 stickers.

Both the kids know the drill by now. I've been talking to them about this for weeks. The boy knows he must try to go to the toilet for his poo and pee and the girl knows we will be taking her diaper off for naps. Hopefully it works out in practise.

I can't remember very much of how the daytime toilet training for the girl went so it must have been not too bad. (Otherwise I would remember it for sure! Lol!) I didn't record it down then so I'm recording this down now. I only remember one incident where she peed somewhere in the living room and then she ran away and baby crawled all over it as he tried to follow her and I almost tore out my hair. Haha. Still her daytime toilet training was quite painless. Taking off the diaper during naps failed though so I put her back on it and now we're starting over. Wish me luck!

I shall be very busy over the next few days because this requires a lot of time and patience on my part. I am prepared to take the boy to the toilet very often and to wipe up accidents if any for both of them.

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Thursday, March 01, 2007

Blogger Power Project to Safeguard the Web for our Children

I was tagged by Miche for the following campaign.

The project Blogger Power is a campaign to safeguard the internet for children against pornography. Do visit the site for more details about this project. This is a chance for bloggers to unite for a good cause. Calling all bloggers to Bloggers Unite and Help Spread the word to protect our children from ponography on the internet.

If you are a blogger, post the common sense request to all the “adult site” webmasters on your site. You can either write your own article about it, or simply copy-paste the following letter:

A Request To All Webmasters Of Adult Sites:

“Please require a password-protected login before allowing even free access to explicit adult content. We understand that selling porn is your business and we respect your right to make a legal living. But understand our legitimate concerns and work with us. You already have the “warning adult content” on your websites. Yet kids, who are not legal customers of your product, ignore the warning. So to prevent them from having direct access to explicit images, texts and sounds, the simplest way is to have a password-protected login. No more “free tours” before a visitor supplies basic information.”

Bloggers help spread the word and make the web safer for our kids. Please tag 20 other bloggers to spread the word. Here's my 20.