It's been a while since either Catherine or myself had posted any updates... I'm sure many of the regular audience has moved on elsewhere for entertainment.... :)
Thomas was taking advantage of us by not wanting to use the regular toilet for his nature business. We tried several methods (from books or talking with others). Mainly the "rewards" technique only works so far with certain types of behavior that we want out of Thomas...
So finally one weekend I got a bit fed up when for the 3rd time that day he pee'd into the diaper knowing that I had wanted him to tell me that he's about to go pee so we can go sit on the toilet with his kiddie seat.
Fuming a bit inside I thought...fine, rewards don't work cause he could careless about silly stickers and lollipops; or even the "bribe" of icecream didn't phaze him.
So I set out to take out his most precious toy in the house: his drumset.
Everytime he pees in his diaper without telling us, one piece of the drumset gets moved out to the garage.
Thus began the 'dare'. There's several pieces to the drumset: he likes to count out the 5 main pieces, then the hi-hat (6), the ride cymbal (7), and the drum seat.
I got to the 3rd piece (hi-hat, snare, and the floor tom) and he started to inform loudly through out the house that he needs to go pee. And for every time that he does that a piece comes back in...
So that took care of #1. We decided that was enough for the week and then the next week, we set out to get #2 out of the way and using the same technique....but he was too smart to let me take any pieces out...I didn't have to even take the hi-hat and he was pooping into his little toilet set....
Well, there's not too much drama after that I suppose...I feared it'd take longer but we believe that once the kid is ready and is "playing you" by taking advantage of you....(hahaha those little sneaky todders)...it's time to cut the game short and cut to the chase....no more begging, promising rewards, etc, etc, etc. They're smart little ones....they know better. And it's not like everything we do is a negative re-enforcement....what do you all think?
Have a good evening!
8 comments:
that's what I did. put his favorite toy in plain sight but he can't touch it until he poos in the toilet. It was a stand off for months. I really thought he was going to poo in his diaper until first grade!
Carrot and stick together always works!
Grandpa
hey cynthia! you know i thought so too... i was resigned to having him in diapers until he was 5. ha ha. but william took over with his "method"... and i couldn't believe it, he was potty trained in one day. and the poop came on the second day. it took him 3 tries over 4 hours, and i finally had to sit on the toilet across from him and we pretended to do #2 together. and he finally did it. you know what is funny? i CAN NOT BELIEVE the size of the poops these little body's produce! i mean, they are #&$% adult size poops! for real, could you believe it when you saw lucas' for the first couple times in the toilet? they are huge! and i am SOOOOO glad i don't have to clean that off his butt.... that is the best part of him using the toilet now. i'll have to blog about the terrible CONS of being potty trained... there are many (esp public toilets)... :p
hi dad - yes usually the carrot on the stick works pretty well for thomas. this is really the first time we have tried to teach him something in this manner. but i think, william was not only fed up with thomas, but also my attempts for the past year that weren't working. he was annoyed with me complaining about it not working. ha ha...
O yes well we often could NOT believe our eyes still with the size of those suckers! Luki of course all proud & says "I poo poo in the toilet! It's big poo poo" and then this big ol smile.
I hope he doesn't say that in public.
you are lucky the method worked in one day!!! that's amazing.
Wow, that's a lot of very specific imagery of poop talk. I'm thinking that this post and thread is really something that I can't understand unless I have a kid, which I don't. I don't believe in the American way of toilet training. You can wait forever and that kid is never ready. To me, if they can say "pee" or "poo", they need to get toilet trained. Kids in other countries get toilet trained a lot earlier, out of necessity.
yeah i was lazy cause i figured the older thomas is when he starts his training, the less likely i have to wipe poop off the ground or wash it out of his underwear. i didn't feel like dealing with the accidents and so we sent more diapers to the landfills as a result! :)
yes we were totally lazy. the US is a very lazy, diaper dependent country. we are so spoiled here by the ability to just toss them in the garbage and get them at a semi-reasonable cost. thomas would have been toilet trained by 12-14 months anywhere else. but in truth, diapers are very convenient, completely unenvironmental, but convenient. however, now that thomas is using the toilet, not having to throw diapers away is a relief to my conscious. not having to wipe after #2's is a HUGE relief. :)
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