| Trepidation_Mom |
08-24-2005 06:56 PM |
Potty Training
Quote:
Originally posted by baltassoc
Conventional wisdom is that you should start slowly during a time of few interuptions in their lives and great stability.
So I took the baltspawn on a two week vacation without balt[soontobeex]spouse (who had been working on them without success for months), including a week with just the baltgrandparents (their first time longer than 48 hours away from both parents), and brought them back potty trained. No idea how it happened. They were just shy of 3.
My one piece of advice is go with the potty seat on the big potty with a stool, and if he's too little to get up there, or at least stay up there, without being afraid, it's too early. Cleaning out those little potties is for suckers.
It'll happen eventually. There aren't a lot of 16 year olds in diapers. Even Hank was out of them by law school.
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I'm finding this whole discussion (disturbingly) fascinating. The CW has changed so much in the last century or so (what with disposables and Goddamn Hippies and all). Sibling and I were both trained before 2 years, which was pretty average in the '70s. Average age now, I understand, is 36 mo for girls, 39 for boys (but is still in the 24 month range for cloth diaper babies).
M-i-L informed me that, when she was growing up, and so far as she knows back a couple generation before her, CW said kids were pottie trained by one year, and, generally, this was successful, despite current CW that kids aren't trainable at all until 18 months. And, it doesn't seem that as many were permanently emotionally scarred by early training as the Goddamn Hippies would have you believe.
Then there's my friend Pete. Pete was a military brat, and, when he and his siblings were all untrained and between 12 and 36 months, his mom got word that they were being moved to Mexico in 2 weeks. She decided she was not dealing with diapers in Mexico, and reportedly looked at all 3 of them and announced "you are all potty trained RIGHT NOW!" And so they were. I can't vouch for the long-term effects of this method, but the younger two are reasonably well socialized computer geeks, while the oldest is a really smart but scary-as-shit special forces guy who gets lots of decorations & commendations for killing people professionally.
I have a distinct suspicion that the "right answer" to this one is just a question of balancing (i) your patience with diapers, (ii) your patience with training, (iii) kid's fastidiousness and (iv) kid's general orneriness. If you feel an urge to try at 18 months, go for it. If you feel like it's just pissing the kid off more than it is worth, just back off and try again later.
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