Training the toddler

Potty training

I'm happy to report that I gave ZK his second star this evening - for a full pee into the potty :)

He first peed into the potty on 2 September. He had his potty book with him and after he peed, we turned to the page with pee in the potty and said 一样 :) And after that, every time we prepare him for a shower, he would want to pee and actually pee into the potty! :) The quantity varies from a fifty-cent puddle to a full pee. Sometimes he doesn't have much pee but just wants to pee into the potty. We let him but I keep reminding him that if he doesn't have pee, he does not need to pee; no good to strain!

All those weekends of wetting underwear proved useful after all. For a few weekend mornings, I gave him his underwear and let him run about in that and a shirt. Every 10 or 15 minutes, I would ask him if he wanted to pee and he would say no, but eventually, he would go the next minute after saying "no"! I tried to make him stay in the living room as I didn't want pee on the bed or the laminate floor in the bedrooms. But a couple of weekends ago, he peed on the sofa! Luckily, it wasn't too much and our leather sofa is easy to clean.

Just this last Sunday, I was nursing ZY when he said he wanted to shhh shhh. Y ushered him to the potty and he had a full pee - underwear remained dry, yeah! I gave him his first star sticker :) I even let him choose the star!

Usually, we'll put on a diaper after the morning pee, be it in the underwear or in the potty. I'll see how he fares the next couple of weekends. If he's good, we'll go the whole day with underwear except during nap time. Then we'll try nap time when he doesn't flip all over the bed so that I can place a mat under him. Then it's night time! I'm excited :)

Oh wait, there's also pooping.. Well, he knows about poo poo but when he says "poo poo", it's already done. Or at most, being done *.* There was this one time last week when he let a little poop into the potty and right after, into the shower!!!! But other than that, no luck with pooping in the potty. Maybe I should also ask him if he wants to poo when he's in his underwear..

Brushing

I've also started him on a brushing schedule, well, sort of... Every morning - if I don't forget! - we'll bring him to the basin to brush his teeth. He likes to fill his cup and rinse his mouth - he can even copy my action of tilting my head back before spitting the water out!

He used to let me brush for him first before taking the brush himself, or letting me hold his hand to brush. But in recent days, he wants to brush by himself only, which isn't much brushing... And he dips the toothbrush into the water more than putting it into his mouth! He also likes to clean his toothbrush the way I do it, i.e. thumb rubbing bristles. But no toothpaste - he spat it out almost immediately the first couple of times even though he had asked for it himself.

Hope to get him to brush properly or at least, do more brushing than playing so that he will be less wet. Then I'll add on the evening brush after he's changed, cos sometimes he wants milk after his shower.

Feeding himself

He used to feed himself at dinner time at home. That was messy but he got his food.

Then he wanted to watch videos while eating. That slowed things down and he needed to be fed sometimes, but fine, he got his food.

Then - the sequence is a bit blurry here - we removed the high chair and let him sit on the adult chair. I also got fed up with him and videos so I removed the laptop. Trucks replaced the laptop.

At first, it was ok. Then he decided to not sit on the chair! He now runs between the dining table and his play around with his toys, or he grabs a clothes peg from the rack next to the dining table and tries it on me and the chair. I came out of the room just now to find Y chasing after him with his food!!

I really don't like to see that. Table manners are important. I want to train him to sit at the table to eat again. But I can't use the high chair as ZY will use it in three months' time, and it's high time ZK learns to sit on a proper chair. And now that I'm busy with ZY at dinner time, it's difficult for me to teach him. I want to try bringing out the laptop again but restricting it to DVDs only - Thomas and flashcards. I told him about Thomas just now at bedtime and he said "laptop". Yes, let's see what happens with that...

Sleep

So I started out with bunking in with the kids. Then I began to sneak back to my bed when I could. But at first, when ZK woke and I wasn't around, he cried bloody murder. I had to physically remove him to the furthest corner of the house - which isn't very far! - to calm him down so he wouldn't wake ZY. Sometimes, he would cry even when I was around, simply because I was lying down instead of sitting or something trivial. It was very irritating and it got super frustrating when ZY woke as well.

After a few such episodes, one day, during a particular bad bout of crying that I couldn't understand, I dumped him on the sofa and waited for him to calm down so that he could hear me. I told him there was no need to cry - he could talk already so just tell me what he wants! And I shall choose whether to lie down or sit cos Mama gets tired too! After a while, he repeated "no need to cry" so I latched on to that phrase.

Now, every evening before we settle for bed, I'll remind him to just go look for me if he wakes and I'm not around - no need to cry. One day, before I even said it, he told me "no need to cry" :)

Other than that, I'm still quite stuck in their room. ZY hasn't been sleeping very well lately but I'll leave that for another day... Sometimes, during Saturday nap time, ZK would tell me to go out although he would eventually ask me back in. So just now, I asked ZK if I could just go out while he was awake. He said "no" *.* Oh well, at least I tried!