Updates all around!
AMELIA
Said "Mama" for the first time on 10/6/09! We were tucking William in for the night and she was babbling away as we sang when out popped "Mama!" So exciting! So exciting she hasn't done it since. Amelia is making huge headway on the crawling and does hands and knees crawling about 50% of the time. She is one determined little girl - she practices and practices until she is just exhausted. Then, she gets in her crib and keeps on practicing! She's also been a little more crabby lately. I'm not sure if it is due to learning a new skill (crawling) or a new tooth working it's way in. No way to know for sure!
WILLIAM
William's foot appears to be healed as he isn't favoring it anymore. What a relief! Early last week he was still not putting his full weight on the foot and really wasn't himself. However, he had made such improvement that we decided to wait a little longer before taking him in for the XRays. Although I hate for my baby to be hurting in anyway, it has had some unexpected side effects....
Potty training! I can't believe it is finally happening. We've been working on it for about 2 weeks now and we are seeing some really exciting progress! The first few days were so frustrating with a lot of accidents. I think about day 3 is when I started figuring out his potty patterns (when he would need to go). It turns out he can hold it a lot longer than I thought he would be able to. Every day after that second day has shown steady improvement on both of our parts. Today he had two accidents and hit the potty successfully 6 (SIX!) times. It really feels like it is coming together so quickly after trying for so long to get started. We still have some work to do as he can't (won't?) tell me he has to go until he is actually going and we're not having any luck with the poop. I'm hoping these other pieces will come together like the rest has. Here are the factors I think that helped us the most so I can refer back to when we need to do this with Amelia:
1. A foot injury made it difficult to get around for a few days which meant if I put him on the potty he had to stay because it hurt to get off. Did I use this to my advantage? Oh yes I did!
2. Cars pull ups. Personally not a fan of the pull ups, but I had a coupon and they were on sale. I figured William might like the Cars design better than the pink Dora ones (who knew they had both pink and blue pull ups? I thought they would be neutral colors, like diapers.) he refuses to wear. William LOVED them and wanted to wear them right away. We call them underwear and had a big talk about keeping Lightening (the car) dry. I wasn't sure how well this would work because William hasn't actually seen Cars (its it rated PG). But, for the most part it is working!
Although I still don't love the pull ups, I have to say they are working pretty well for right now. We aren't going through that many because he is actually going in the potty most of the time. Today, we used two pull ups so from the cost perspective it isn't the end of the world.
3. Crazy nap schedule. The kids' nap schedule doesn't overlap much at all currently. Which means someone is almost always sleeping. And it isn't me. Amelia is also past where she can sleep well in her car seat while other activities are going on. So because of that, we haven't really been going anywhere during the week. This has resulted in a lot of down time with just William in which to sit (and sit and sit and sit and sit) on the potty.
4. Plastic garage sale toys. This fall, I've picked up some cheap plastic toys at garage sales. These toys can be washed easily when...well, when it gets messy. These toys have to stay in the bathroom and only can played with on the potty. I swap them out every evening so there is always something new to look at/play with as an extra incentive.
5. Visible treats. I keep the potty prizes on a shelf in the bathroom that is out of reach, but definitely within his sight. The first few days a few big prizes lived up on the shelf for him to pick from. Now that we have things more down, there is an assortment of candies and stickers to pick from.
6. Choices: Do you want to sit on mama's potty or the froggy potty? Big potty or little potty? Car pull up or tow truck pull up? Candy reward or sticker? Read a book, sing a song or play with a toy? Letting him make little choices has made it easier for him to pull away from playing and get to the bathroom.
All in all waiting until he was ready has made this easier than I thought. I've also been very entertained by many of our "potty discussions". I don't think I'll be leaving a permanent record of those here. Let's just say William has some questions about the potty business that I've not ever thought about.
Mama on 10.6.09
6 month pics done
crawling! Progress
more teeth?
Potty Training! At Last
No comments:
Post a Comment