One Thousand Words

Until he started school, we’d never taken Niko to the doctor for anything other than scheduled check ups. He had no big illnesses, no big accidents, nothing. I mean, he whacked his head HARD once and I debated taking him in, but there was no urgent YES MUST GO IN NOW moment. Then he started school and started getting sick all the time. We’ve taken him in twice for illness since August and I expect that we’ll take him in a few more times. A very nice and helpful nurse assured me at our last visit that after the first year’s exposure to germs he’ll be back to hardly getting sick at all. Which is lovely to think about, considering that Winter Vomiting Sickness is apparently sweeping through Niko’s school right now, and there’s a lice outbreak in his classroom even as we speak.

That’s not the worst thing about starting school, though. It’s irritating and sometimes a little bit scary, but it’s not the worst.

The worst thing is that Niko is now exposed to 17 other kids on a daily basis– kids with a variety of backgrounds and behaviors and lifestyles. And while it’s great to think that kids can get together and teach other things good habits and behaviors and ways of being, the truth of the matter is that kids are jerks and they only pick up negative things from each other.

We’ve seen all KINDS of negative behavior that’s totally new and frankly some of it utterly baffling. Also making an appearance: whining. He flirted with whining briefly about a year ago but we were able to nip it in the bud. Now it’s a daily thing, nasal and drawn out and as irritating as fingernails on a blackboard is to most people. And I know EXACTLY the kid he’s picked that up from. He’s picked up some very bossy turns of phrase, and has started demanding things instead of asking for them. It’s like my kid is channeling someone else, some other personality; acting as a medium to the most irritating ghost in existence. I hate it so much.

And, you know, my kid is far from perfect and I cringe at the thought of the other kids bringing home his less than sterling habits (which include screaming fits, I’m sorry to say, and also licking snot off his upper lip. I’m not sure which is worse.)

It’s really frustrating to see certain behaviors that we’ve worked hard on establishing go completely out the window the first time he interacts with other kids.

Any suggestions on how to deal with this?

Technorati Tags: 4 year old, parenting, preschool

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When Niko and I went and enrolled him in pre-k, the teachers asked a few questions about his skills and if we read to him at home etc. They mentioned that it would be helpful if we could work on him writing his name. I think I’ve mentioned before that we have been working on teaching him to write, and I figured I’d tell you some of the stuff that worked for us.

Pencil Holding

I thought about getting some of those triangular finger positioners that you can slide onto pencils, but decided to skip it. Like a lot of really little kids, Niko has a hard time physically holding a writing utensil. One of the things that helps him hold his fingers the correct way is to put a little something in the palm of his hand for his smaller fingers to curl around. We initially used a bit of wadded up tissue, which he objected to. I picked up a little baggie of pom poms from the Target dollar bin and he likes those a lot better. We don’t have to remind him as often to hold his writing utensil the correct way, it’s becoming a habit with him.

Making Lines

There’s a few things we’re doing to teach him how to make straight, slanted, and curved lines (IE, letter components). One of the earliest things I did was draw dots on a piece of paper and have him draw a line from dot to dot. It was a fun thing that we did together, and we’d take turns making the lines. You could also use stickers or something for the “dots.” This ties in to later activities like connect-the-dots and draw-a-line-to-match games.

There are worksheets you can buy from stores or print from the internet that have dotted lines to trace, making up straight, diagonal, curved, etc lines.

What do you do with your little kid when you can’t go out and play? Maybe it’s raining, or too cold, or too hot, or you’re waiting for a phone call, or someone’s repairing your roof, or whatever. What do you do when you’re just stuck in the house and your kid is antsy and ready to explode? Here’s a list of stuff you can do!

• “Emboss” foil. Get a sheet of foil, the thicker the better, and smooth it out on a flat surface like a table. Hand kiddo something with a dull point like a spoon handle, chop stick, paint brush end, etc and have them draw or write something. Then flip it over. The part they pressed on is now sticking out!
• Grand! Prize! Game! Remember WGN’s Bozo The Clown Show? One of the games was the GRAND! PRIZE! GAME!!!!!!! Get some buckets, cups, mugs, tupperware, paper bags, whatever and line them up in a line. Hand your kid a bunch of ping pong balls or wadded up pieces of paper. Have them stand in one place and try to get the ball in each of the containers.
• Masking Tape Is Awesome. Use masking tape to make a hop scotch grid on the floor. Or a maze. Or a road or train tracks for vehicles. Or mark out squares/sections they need to scoot/throw/roll toys onto/inside of.
• Have a picnic on the floor. Spread out a blanket or towel or something and have lunch/dinner/snack on the floor. Sing campfire songs and tell stories.
• Blanket Pillow Fort. Just give in and tear the whole house up. Make the biggest blanket and pillow fort you can, then snuggle in and read stories. Or play hide and seek.
• Put on a puppet show. Use stuffed animals, or draw some characters on a piece of paper (or cut some people/animals out of a magazine) and tape them to straws or popsicle sticks (or just hold them up). Crouch down behind the table so the action happens on top of it and kiddo can’t see you. Then trade places and have your kid put on the show.
• Play catch with a wadded up ball of paper or foil. It’s lightweight, so less likely to knock things over/break things.
• Play Simon Says, or Red Light Green Light in a long hallway, or the statue game, or hide and seek, or blind man’s buff.
• Cook or bake something.
• Bust out those art supplies.
• Got board games? Now’s a great time to pull them out. If you have a kid who’s too young/immature for games, modify the rules or put that kid on someone’s “team” so they can still participate without getting overwhelmed.
• Story time! Have your kid tell a story while you write it down, if they are pre-literate… or even if they aren’t!
• Picture time! Draw something your child tells you to. Don’t worry about being a crap artist, kids pretty much don’t care.

If all else fails? Fuck it. Turn the TV on.

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Jason Good has a blog post about reasons his 3 year old is flipping out, and it’s pretty funny. It digs right into just how irrational little kids are, how confusing and overwhelming the world can be for them and how confusing and overwhelming they can be for their parents/caregivers. I like his blog. He’s obviously an involved and loving parent who knows his kids well and is able to put a humorous yet understanding spin on daily life. So when I first saw links to a tumblr about why a kid is crying I assumed it was a link to his site. It wasn’t. Instead, it’s a collection of photos of a crying 2 or 3 year old with a caption as to why he’s crying. The kid cries a lot, apparently. And the kid’s parent takes time to photograph the kid while crying and note down why he’s crying (milk’s in the wrong color cup, a piece of cheese is the wrong shape, etc). There’s a lot of people who think it’s really funny.

I don’t.

It’s really, really hard being a kid– especially a young kid. A really little kid flips out when his cheese is the wrong shape or her milk’s in the wrong cup because 1) that means it’s just plain WRONG and/or 2) that’s one thing in a huge world they have control over and now they’ve lost that control. Good’s blog post feels empathic. It reads as a guy who understands that it’s hard to be a little kid, and that it can be frustrating to be the parent of a little kid, but if you step back you can see the humor in the situation. The tumblr feels… I don’t know. My mind lights on words like “cruel” and “predatory” but I don’t think that’s quite it. Friends of mine suggest it’s something that was designed to go viral and sure enough, the creator and his family were on TV concerning it. But what’s the difference between Good’s blog post and the tumblr?

I think the biggest thing is that Good put in effort after the fact to list reasons his kid was flipping out and the sheer number, and ridiculousness of them, builds and is funny. And a lot of stuff he talks about were things he was doing with his kid, interacting with his kid. The tumblr is quick snapshots of a kid that already looks stressed out accompanied by one-sentence descriptions. It feels like the tumblr author prioritizes taking a photo of his kid in crises to helping his kid in crises solve the problem. Good talks about his kid, the tumblr author complains about his kid.

And, you know, sometimes parents and caregivers need to vent. Kids can be frustrating, challenging, hard work. And when parents and caregivers complain they’re frequently abused for doing so, especially if they’re women. (In fact, one friend of mine asked if the tumblr would be as popular if it were a mom writing it; dads get way more leeway to be less than saints. I think it’d fly as long as she was white, affluent, and joked about how much wine she drinks. Several “mommybloggers” fitting that description landed book deals based on their HILARZ discussions of alcoholic parenting, then checked into rehab. That really wouldn’t have worked for them if they weren’t a certain type.) So I’m all for finding and creating safe spaces to vent, to unload, to ask for help. But that really doesn’t feel like it’s what’s happening.

In my experience, which is fairly limited to my own relatively laid back 4 year old and some babysitting (age ranges from 1 1/2-7 years old) most freak outs can be nipped in the bud by remembering HALT. Is the kid Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired? If your kid (or adult) starts getting on edge and acting brittle, look at the circumstances. When did they last eat? Do they need to calm down and sleep? Do they need attention? Are they angry/frustrated and need to express that and then calm down before proceeding? For really little kids, also check to see if they need to use the bathroom or are generally over whelmed. Being mindful of your kid’s needs can go a long way toward creating a smoother life for everyone involved. This isn’t some magic bullet that will solve all your problems, obviously.

It’s also important to remember that little kids don’t have adult brains. If they ask for a piece of cheese and you give them the “wrong” shape of cheese? That is not what they asked for. Until they make certain synaptic connections, they cannot translate that. It’s not possible. Their brains are growing, and they aren’t just increasing in size they’re increasing connections and the ability to make deductions. They have very little control over their lives, so cling to what they CAN control: what color cup they use, what shirt they wear. They are just learning new skills and get frustrated easily because what they WANT to do is so much harder than it should be because they are still learning how to do it. When little kids flip out, it’s because they can’t cope with the world at the moment. Part of maturing is learning to cope with it, even when frustrating… and part of parenting is teaching kids how to cope with a frustrating world.

Or you could take photos of your sobbing child and post it to tumblr, I guess.

Edited to add:
I was talking about this with a couple other people and more than one person compared it (negatively) to The Honest Toddler. Good and THT both discuss parenting and specific child-centered situations, and tend to poke fun at adults, parents, and specific styles of parenting (generally affluent, privileged parenting) while the tumblr pokes fun at a kid… a kid who’s defenseless at the moment. Instead of holding the powerful up to scrutiny, it holds the defenseless up. It’s a bit exploitative. And it bothers me that there’s just this constant string of negative photos of a little kid having problems.

Technorati Tags: parenting, toddler, tumblr

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Someone I know is 1) pregnant and 2) young looking, so the cavalcade of advice has begun with complete strangers assuming she’s a first time mom In For It. Young people need extra advice, right? ALL THE ADVICE. And also, because her particular adventure involves pregnancy, ALL THE HORROR STORIES. See, there’s this thing. When you take up rock climbing, people don’t regale you with stories of climbers who’ve had to chew off their own limbs to escape being trapped. When you take up running and are about to do your first 5K, people don’t normally regale you with stories about Hitting The Wall and how they turned into fountains of diarrhea and vomit during THEIR first 5K. When you get your first car, people don’t casually mention every single flaming 50 car pile up in the history of ever. But when you’re pregnant, everyone comes out of the woodwork to tell you all about how they were in labor for a month straight and their episiotomy when from their bully buttons to the small of their backs and how their uteruses fell out and now they have to cram it back up with a pessary every time they sneeze. So what’s up with that?

I think it’s a few things.

First, I think it’s that women rarely get to share their stories and have them appreciated. Although women are stereotypically considered more talkative than men, better at communicating and using words, their words are still given little value. Especially when what they are talking about is considered in the female sphere, like getting pregnant and giving birth. Ew, vaginas! How gross! Don’t talk about that ever again!! Right? Even among bloggers, female-identified people who blog about parenting are called ‘mommy bloggers’ while male-identified people who blog about parenting are called not ‘daddy bloggers’ but ‘dad bloggers’ or ‘parenting bloggers.” Mom. Mommy. It’s the little dings like that which really enforce whose words are given credence, given weight. So people who have been pregnant are eager to share their pregnancy stories with other people who are pregnant because here! Someone who will listen! Someone who will APPRECIATE a good vomit rocketing out of the bedpan onto the wall story!

Second, I think it’s also a way of saying “you’ll be ok.” As in, “I was in labor for forty-seven million hours and my uterus shattered into a hundred pieces and I lost ALL OF MY BLOOD and my legs fell off and I survived this and you will too. I shit myself in front of everyone, but I’m still here and so is my kid. YOU WILL BE OK.” It’s a way of saying that child birth, frankly, sucks. Pregnancy sucks. But most people survive it. It can be awful! But also survivable! And at the end you have a kid. And other people who’ve been pregnant know a lot of what you’ve gone through and are going through and will go through and you aren’t alone.

Third, of course, is that people are awful and just like talking about Shit That’s Happened To Them. Because PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

So if/when you have people lining up to tell you about how TRAUMATIC and TERRIBLE their birth experience was (or how they couldn’t stop puking while pregnant and lost 30 pounds and had to have several IVs to prevent death or whatever) don’t take it personally. They’re bringing a lot of their own baggage to the table. And you? You’ll do fine and will rack up your own stories to torment other people with. Or keep to yourself, depending on how you play.

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When I say “how do you teach animal safety,” I’m looking for specific stuff YOU PERSONALLY have done to teach children how to be safe around animals. I have some basic ideas, but I also want to teach my kid to be WARY of strange animals and CAUTIOUS around strange animals, without being terrified of them.

Here’s the sitch. We don’t have any pets. None.  My in-laws, who live five minutes away from us, have no pets. We don’t really visit people who have pets. So Niko doesn’t really see animals except at the zoo or on t.v. or when he’s walking with us and the animals are on a leash and the situation’s pretty controlled.

When he encounters animals THAT way, we (the adults with him) touch base with the people with the animals, say hello, admire the animal (ok, the dog. It’s always dogs.), and then ask if Niko can say hello and pet them. People either say yes, or they say no. If they say yes, we encourage Niko to come closer to the animal. He hesitantly touches them, adorableness happens, the end.

So far so good, right?

We were visiting some friends of ours, and they have cats. Some of the cats are totally cool with ANYBODY touching them, petting them, hauling them around, etc. They’ll rub up on you for hours. Others are… not so much. One of them bit Niko. Not a bad bite, not at all, didn’t even break the skin, but it alarmed him at the time and he’s been talking about it nonstop ever since. (he’s also claiming a kitty kissed him, and that he played megablocks with a kitty. So, you know.)

On the ride home, Nesko and I talked with Niko about how sometimes animals are scared so they bite or scratch. So when he meets an animal he needs to be careful and not touch the animal unless he asks first. We want him to be careful, but we don’t want him to be AFRAID. Does that make sense?

How do you handle this? What do you recommend?

Technorati Tags: parenting, pets, toddler

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One of the search referrers bringing people to my BLAWWWWWG is people concerned about their babies/toddlers having tiny heads.

As you can imagine, a child with a tiny head potentially has all sorts of issues and will possibly experience a host of developmental delays. You have google! You have an imagination! I’m sure you can picture every single thing that could possibly go wrong with a small headed child.

Those things probably won’t happen.

While it’s important to keep your eyes on weird looking child-related measurements, some kids are at the bottom or top of the growth charts. And some kids have tiny heads. Some adults have tiny heads as well; I’m one of them. And it can be hard to accurately measure a squirmy infant or toddler’s head. Errors in reading head circumference are really, really common.

So what do you, as a parent, do?

First of all, is your child’s head growing along the same curve as the rest of his body? For instance, does it increase in size at a steady rate, making a jump (or lagging) when their height/weight makes a jump (or lags)? If your child’s head circumference stagnates or goes down when their height/weight goes up, that’s a sign of a potential problem. If it increases really really rapidly, more quickly than other readings, that’s a sign of a different potential problem. And also a sign that readings at some point were wildly inaccurate.

Secondly, how’s your kid handling milestones? While they aren’t totally exact, if your kid’s in the general ballpark of developmental milestones, you can relax a bit.

Thirdly, what does your pediatrician say? In theory, your pediatrician has the time to listen to your concerns and takes them seriously, and knows your kid fairly well, and has experience with telling when a tiny headed child just has a small head versus has an actual problem, and can advise you accordingly. If you feel your pediatrician doesn’t take the time to listen to you or dismisses your concerns, consider switching practices. I know that can be hard with different insurance plans, availability of doctors, etc but we’re on our second pediatrician now and like her way better than our first (who wasn’t bad, just really rushed). Because I feel that she respects me as a parent and listens to me, I brought up asthma concerns, and she paid extra attention to Niko’s breathing… and prescribed medication for him that worked really well. If we didn’t have that respect, that rapport, I might not have brought it up because oh gosh I’m just so neurotic and worry about everything and a cough that’s lasted for months can’t be THAT bad, right?

So. It’s possible your small headed child has microcephaly or Seckel syndrome or something else you’ve googled and convinced yourself that OH GOD THIS IS IT AHHHHHHHHH, just like I googlediagnosed a mystery rash as fifth’s disease, scarlet fever, measles, septicemia, and a strawberry allergy until it cleared up entirely on its own as quickly as it came (it was none of those things) (maybe the strawberries) (but probably not). But probably it isn’t. That sort of thing usually gets caught by alert pediatricians.

But what if it IS something serious?

Talk to your pediatrician first. They should have good recommendations on what to do next. Does your child need interventions to help them progress in motor or verbal skills? Some kind of therapy/ies? Your pediatrician is your first line of defense and should be able to help you hook up with those folks. You can also find information and support groups online, like the Foundation for Children with Microcephaly.

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People, parents, hop on line and ask for advice on blogs and forums and chatrooms and mailing lists. How do I do this? Is this normal? What do we do now? How do we introduce a bottle? How do we wean? Potty training: who’s got answers? Ditching the pacifier at night: lay some advice on me. Family bed: how do we end this nightmare of wretchedness and kicking?

But people don’t really want advice.

They want magic.

They want to discover that magic step, hint, technique that will make whatever it is easy and painless.

They ask for advice but what they want is a miracle.

Like, “all you have to do is give your child chamomile tea laced with Benedryl and he will sleep through the night in his own bed and you’ll no longer wake up fifteen times a night because he’s bicycling in his sleep, muttering about trains falling into the water (oh no!), and his pacifier fell out of his mouth and now he can’t find it.” “To wean your child from all pacifier use ever without tears, simply press up down up down left left left right down down triangle right enter.” “Child won’t eat vegetables? Just follow these three easy steps and he will become a true gourmand for ever and ever the end amen so mote it be.”

Miracles.

I look for them, too.

IN OTHER NEWS, I made rice krispy treats today and now I cannot eat one around Niko because he will literally climb up me and tear it out of my mouth, then run away eating it. EATING IT ALL. (I was going to do a cooking blog post about it, but come on. Who doesn’t know how to make these? It’s as easy as falling over. Also I am pleased to note that Marshmallow Fluff now comes in glass jars again, not plastic. Huzzah!) Also, he was jumping on the couch and before I could stop him– or catch him– he fell backwards off the couch and hit his head on the floor. After he calmed down, he told me what had happened (even though I was right there). “oh no! Baby boom. Owie owie owie!” He patted his head gingerly at the last bit. I managed to cut my finger while making carrot bread the other day (I AM MORTIFIED BY THIS. In my defense, I was distracted by a toddler. I’ve been chopping carrots since I was FIVE and my knife skills are pretty safe. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. If we had insurance, I would have trotted off to get stitches (or glue); instead, it’s just going to scar.) and every time Niko sees the bandage (it isn’t bleeding any more, but the wound gapes open and then stings if it’s unbandaged) he pats my hand and says “mama owie.” At one point today, after he hit his head, he patted my finger and said “mama owie. owwwwwwie. Mama dih *does ASL sign for “hot”* OWIE OWIE OWIE.” I’m not sure what “dih” is. Said? Did? But I’m pretty sure he was imitating what he thinks I’d say if I hurt myself. OWIE OWIE OWIE. (SPOILER: that is not what I say when I hurt myself.) Anyway, I said that yes, I had an owie, and asked him if HE had any owies and he shook his head and vaulted over his little chair to play with more trains. So I guess he’s ok.

Technorati Tags: advice, communication, parenting, toddler

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Yesterday we had Niko’s 24 month check up, and we’re actually (somehow!) on schedule for this as his birthday is the 16th. His original appointment was scheduled for the end of March, then they called to reschedule and we rescheduled for the 12th, and then they called again and left a message saying we need to reschedule (what the yo) and I was totally unable to reach anyone at the practice because my calls kept getting routed to a hospital. I don’t even. We finally got a real appointment, which was a relief because in addition to needing to get shot full of OMG TOXINS!!!! right INTO HIS BLOODSTREAM!!!! (because that is totally how vaccines work, right?) Niko’s had a cough for like… uhm. A month and a half? I mean, he had a terrible cold with a cough (how terrible was the cold? So terrible that I wound up dressing him in a long sleeve shirt, pants, socks, slippers, and sweater and then he sat quietly on the couch, glassy eyed, cuddled under two blankets. I could tell when the fever broke because he shoved off all the blankets and plucked at the sweater in a frustrated way, finally insisted I exchange it for a lighter sweater.) and then… never really got rid of the cough. And he’d occasionally randomly run a low (99*) fever. But mostly no fever, just lots of coughing at night (enough to wake himself up!) and random coughing during the day. Not just a cough, either, but a “stop what he’s doing and grind out a gaspy asthmatic sounding cough, unable to breathe in, sometimes coughing till he gagged” type thing. And then he’d go back to whatever it was he was doing which, in retrospect, mostly involved him running around and yelling.

You know. As toddlers do.

I have asthma, and my dad has asthma, and my mom has chronic bronchitis, and I am worried about Niko developing asthma. So I tried to frame my description of his cough and my worries in a way that made it clear to his pediatrician that 1) it’s a problem and 2) it might be this BUT I might be over-worrying. She asked some good, pertinent questions, listened to us, and then spent a lot of time listening to his chest/lungs.

Niko has an albuterol inhaler and a spacer/mask, and we’re to use it on him 4 times a day (two puffs a time) and see if he improves. If he improves a little bit or doesn’t improve, we’re to call his pediatrician and figure out what to do next. If he does improve, we’re to wait until he has several good days (and nights) in a row, then stop using it unless he needs it again. If you have experience with toddler asthma and/or using an inhaler/spacer please tell me about your experiences.

Other than that, he’s fine. In good health. Got his Hep A jab and that brings him up to date. He isn’t in day care, so no TB screen.

Niko is 35 inches tall and 30 lbs 8 oz. His head circumference is 48.5cm, which is still a tiny head. TINY HEAD.

Here, have some Milestones:
Mastered Skills (most kids can do)

• Names at least six body parts. Well. He doesn’t name them. But he can point to his head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, chest, arm, elbow, butt, hand, fingers, knees, legs, feet, and toes when told to in English or in Serbian. He can also point to them on other people, in drawings/diagrams, and on many animals.
• Half of speech is understandable. Yes-ish. He’s being raised more or less bilingual, and the non-English language is one I barely speak. So stuff I don’t always catch frequently turns out to be Serbian. Which is cool, but I can’t really judge how much of what he says is “understandable.” It’s not understood by me, but that’s because I’m, you know, ignorant.
• Makes two- to three-word sentences. Yes. He narrates things, and likes to talk about stuff that happened previously. Especially if involved trains, cars, or falling down.

Emerging Skills (half of kids can do):

• Talks about self. Yes. He refers to himself as “baby.”
• Arranges things in categories. Yes. He groups like things in rows– blocks, cars, trains, etc. He also orders things by size sometimes. He does not group things by color, however.
• Can walk down stairs. Yes, although he does best when holding onto a banister or someone’s hand. Which I’d assume is normal, considering he has short legs and steps are pretty high up.

Advanced Skills (a few kids can do):

• Begins to understand abstract concepts (e.g., sooner and later). Yes. In fact, we can use this to bargain: “we’ll read Mike Mulligan AFTER we cut your nails. But FIRST we’re going to cut your nails.” That sort of thing.
• Becomes attuned to gender differences. I’m not sure. He calls adult-female-appearing people “mama” and adult-male-appearing people “tata” and older-female-appearing people “baba.” But all children and babies are simply “baby.”
• Learns to jump. You have no idea how much this kid likes to jump. Up and down. Around. In circles. While singing. Across the entire apartment. He also stomps and marches. He is On! The! Move!

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Technorati Tags: advice, parenting, potty training, toddler, toilet training

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Niko doesn’t take his clothing off, which is one of the potty training readiness signs. I mean, he assists in getting dressed and undressed (or strenuously refuses, if he firmly feels that a particular day should be a no-pants day), but he gets tangled up when trying to take off a shirt and when he tries to pull his pants down he loops his thumbs into the waistbands of both his pants and his diaper and then he can only scoot his diaper down so far, no matter how much he grunts and says “eesh! ish! EEEEESH!”

But he HAS started coming up to me after he soils himself and either grabbing his crotch or touching his butt and saying “baht.” He also says “baht” after he farts or belches. Anyway, he’s started indicating when he’s dirty and wants a diaper change. I’m torn between going out and obtaining underpants for him NOW and diving right into diaper-less (during the daytime at least) potty training, or waiting until he gives the alert BEFORE he soils himself.

He doesn’t poop while he’s sleeping, and he mostly pees in sudden bursts instead of little dribbles throughout the day. So he’s got some holding capacity.

I’ve never potty trained anyone before and I’m not really looking forward to cleaning up extra urine. But maybe the unpleasant wetness of peed pants will prompt him to use the toilet?

What say you?

Give me your best potty training advice. Also: give me the worst potty training advice you’ve gotten so we can laugh at it together.

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Technorati Tags: advice, parenting, potty training, toddler, toilet training

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