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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Potty Training

My son is 15 months old. A bit early for potty training but I've decided to give it a go.
Why? you may ask. Why try so early? The average according to the doctor is girls potty train at 1 1/2 - 2 years and boys  train at 2-2 1/2 years on average.
However I get so sick of hearing my mothers generation with their...my child was potty trained by the time they could walk .. stories. It really gets under my skin. However, in many cases I think kids may have been left to long to be potty trained and could have been done much earlier.
So who is right?

There is this thing called "conditioning". If you've ever been in a classroom and the teacher turns off the lights and all the kids go silent, you can tell right then that they have been "conditioned" to be silent when the lights are off.
There is a man named Pavlov who had a dog who conditioned his dog to drool whenever he rang a bell. First he fed the dog. Then the next day he fed it and rang a bell just before he fed the dog (while it drooled for its food). Then he rang the bell while holding the food dish which made the dog drool. And lastly he just rang the bell and the dog would drool.
Many of us are conditioned to various things throughout our day.

So under this respect we condition our children to go to the potty. They sense their body's reaction to a bodily function. We set them on a potty. We do this over and over again and sooner or later they go to the potty when they feel that reaction.

Is my child of age. ?
I think so personally. I recently noticed with the change to a toddler bed that he's been conditioned to stay in bed until I come get him. This is still in testing as its a new thing. But he is able to be conditioned.

So the experiment starts....

Day one. He pee'd every 5 minutes. Totally facinated by the fact that he was peeing and often squatted for the momentous occasion.
I on the other hand didn't know he could pee that much. Threw out the "peeing scheduel" and watched for signs of peeing upcoming. At one point I even grabbed a kitchen pot to catch it because I wasn't quick enough to get him on the potty.
Another problem I've noticed is his feet don't totally touch the floor when he's on the potty.Only his tip toes. So it makes it uncomfortable for him. 

I have him in cloth diapers to aid in him realizing when he's wet and help me too.
So far. 3 hours and I'm pooped with having a naked baby running around and put on the cloth diaper again. Several floor waterings later.

I'll try to update this daily or by-daily as the saga develops or until I give up.

1 comment:

  1. hahaha i love reading your blog! And go Caleb go!! I can't believe you caught his pee with a pot! THat made me laugh hahaha

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